Rights Quotes - Page 18

John Brown first swam into my vision in the 1960s when I was a political activist in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement at Chapel Hill, where I went to university.

A truly free society must not include a peace which oppresses us. We must learn on our own terms what peace and freedom mean together. There can be no peace if there is social injustice and suppression of human rights, because external and internal peace are inseparable. Peace is not just the absence of mass destruction, but a positive internal and external condition in which people are free so that they can grow to their full potential.

Terrorism doesn't just blow up buildings; it blasts every other issue off the political map. The spectre of terrorism - real and exaggerated - has become a shield of impunity, protecting governments around the world from scrutiny for their human rights abuses.

There are natural and imprescriptible rights which an entire nation has no right to violate. —MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE

When I hear someone’s in the civil rights business, I oil up my AR-25.

I saw in States' rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy.... Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization, and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.

I belong to the generation of workers who, born in the villages and hamlets of rural Poland, had the opportunity to acquire education and find employment in industry, becoming in the course conscious of their rights and importance in society.

The sceptic ultimately undermines democracy (1) because he can see no significance in death and such things of a literal equality; (2) because he introduces different first principles, making debate impossible: and debate is the life of democracy; (3) because the fading of the images of sacred persons leaves a man too prone to be a respecter of earthly persons; (4) because there will be more, not less, respect for human rights if they can be treated as divine rights.

Well, take the evolution of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It began as hackers' rights. Then it became general civil liberties of everybody - government stay away.

Americans of our own time - minority and majority Americans alike - need the continued guidance that the Voting Rights Act provides. We have come a long way, but more needs to be done.

In Uzbekistan, hundreds of protesters were recently killed under the corrupt regime of President Karimov in what human rights groups are calling a massacre.

There is no consensus even today on the merits of Napoleon - and certainly no agreement on the rights and wrongs of the origins of the First World War.

'Freedom from fear' could be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human rights.

To tackle the underlying roots of violence and conflict, we need a massive international effort to reduce poverty and injustice, and to promote development, democracy and human rights.

We have to start looking at the world through women's eyes' how are human rights, peace and development defined from the perspective of the lives of women? It's also important to look at the world from the perspective of the lives of diverse women, because there is not single women's view, any more than there is a single men's view.

What's happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is one of the grossest violations of human rights under the Geneva Conventions that we have record of. It is simply monstrous.

I'm convinced that welfare reforms deserve our support, both because they are better (or at least much less bad) for the animals involved (the Golden Rule), and because they push the envelope, moving us closer to the compassionate world that all animal rights activists are working toward...On the other hand, working toward welfare reforms has the immediate benefit of helping improve animals' lives today and acts as a crucial stepping stone toward animal liberation.

If we're going to preach about democracy we're going to have to make difficult decisions. We're not going to sell our values out for basing rights, particularly when (Defense) Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld himself noted that there were options to the base in Uzbekistan

If any man's money can be taken by a so-called government, without his own personal consent, all his other rights are taken with it; for with his money the government can, and will, hire soldiers to stand over him, compel him to submit to its arbitrary will, and kill him if he resists.

Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights. Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.

Our liberties do not come from charters; for these are only the declaration of pre-existing rights. They do not depend on parchments or seals; but come from the King of Kings and the Lord of all the earth.

Law matters, because it keeps us safe, because it protects our most fundamental rights and freedoms, and because it is the foundation of our democracy.

Palestine must be built up without violating the legitimate interests of the Arabs.. Palestine is not Rhodesia... 600,0000 Arabs live there, who before the sense of justice of the world have exactly the same rights to their homes as we have to our National Home.

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).

A country which does not respect the rights of its own citizens will not respect the rights of its neighbours