Rights Quotes - Page 21

Some people ask: "Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?" Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general-but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.

The investigation of the rights of the slave has led me to a better understanding of my own. I have found the anti-slavery cause to be ... the school in which human rights are more fully investigated and better understood and taught than in any other.

I'm a vegetarian and very much active in regards to how I feel about animal rights and protecting animals and giving animals a voice. But at the same time, I appreciate and respect other people's decisions to eat meat. The only thing that I hope is that people are educated, that they're aware, that they're living a conscious lifestyle.

Once you buy the argument that some segment of the citizenry should lose their rights, just because they are envied or resented, you are putting your own rights in jeopardy - quite aside from undermining any moral basis for respecting anybody's rights. You are opening the floodgates to arbitrary power. And once you open the floodgates, you can't tell the water where to go.

We have to "walk the walk" not just "talk the talk".

Women have a better chance to secure freedom and protect themselves from violence, from abuse, from injustice, if they are well-educated and know their rights.

When I speak to students about the Civil Rights Movement, I say that it is impossible to stop a determined movement that is captivating the American consciousness. I think the candidacy of Sen. Obama represents the beginning of a new movement in American political history that began in the hearts and minds of the people of this nation. And I want to be on the side of the people, on the side of the spirit of history.

It is in the American tradition to stand up for one's rights--even if the new way to stand up for one's rights is to sit down.

If intelligence and capability are not criteria for the possession of rights, why would animals -who have the capacity to feel fear and pain- be excluded from our moral consideration?

It is individuals who have human rights, not religions or beliefs

If the equality of individuals and the dignity of man be myths, they are myths to which the republic is committed.

Making Saudi Arabia a world judge on women's rights and religious freedom would be like naming a pyromaniac as the town fire chief.

If someone is so fearful that, that they're going to start using their weapons to protect their rights, it makes me very nervous that these people have these weapons at all!

Not only are animals unable to avail themselves of language to assert their own rights, but many fewer humans have a clear sense of kinship with animals than have a clear sense of kinship with other humans. Among beings with subjective states of awareness, animals are the untouchable caste, those whom human others would rather not acknowledge, let alone render assistance.

The nation's government has just handed me the bill that grants us our civil rights. I am receiving it before you, certain that I am accepting this on behalf of all Argentinean women, and I can feel my hands tremble with joy as they grasp the laurel proclaiming victory.

I chose to defend human rights because I cannot maintain my silence in the face of injustice.

The idea of human rights as a fundamental principle can be seen to underlie throughout Islamic teachings.

When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional right to free speech, it acts lawlessly; and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all.

There shall never be another season of silence until women have the same rights men have on this green earth.

I am now speaking of rights under the Constitution, and not of moral or religious rights. I do not discuss the morals of the people of Missouri, but let them settle that matter for themselves. I hold that the people of the slaveholding States are civilized men as well as ourselves, that they bear consciences as well as we, and that they are accountable to God and their posterity and not to us. It is for them to decide therefore the moral and religious right of the slavery question for themselves within their own limits.

People get offended by animal rights campaigns. It's ludicrous. It's not as bad as mass animal death in a factory.

Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth.

As long as enough people can be frightened, then all people can be ruled. That is how it works in a democratic system and mass fear becomes the ticket to destroy rights across the board.

It means a great deal to those who are oppressed to know that they are not alone. And never let anyone tell you that what you are doing is insignificant.

And now, what has Anarchism to say to all this, this bankruptcy of republicanism, this modern empire that has grown up on the ruins of our early freedom? We say this, that the sin our fathers sinned was that they did not trust liberty wholly. They thought it possible to compromise between liberty and government, believing the latter to be 'a necessary evil,' and the moment the compromise was made, the whole misbegotten monster of our present tyranny began to grow. Instruments which are set up to safeguard rights become the very whip with which the free are struck.