Rights Quotes - Page 86

The real danger of democracy is, that the classes which have the power under it will assume all the rights and reject all the duties-that is, that they will use the political power to plunder those-who-have.

By right, as the word is employed in this subject, has always been understood discretion, that is, a full and complete power of either doing a thing or omitting it, without the person's becoming liable to animadversion or censure from another, that is, in other words, without his incurring any degree of turpitude or guilt. Now in this sense I affirm that man has no rights, no discretionary power whatever.

The whole notion of land property rights in the Arab world is different from that in Europe.

It is so much easier to talk of poverty than to think of the poor, to argue the rights of capital than to see its results. Pretty soon we come to think of the theories and abstract ideas as things in themselves.

Unless democracy is to commit suicide by consenting to its own destruction, it will have to find some formidable answer to those who come to it saying: I demand from you in the name of your principles the rights which I shall deny to you later in the name of my principles.

Where it is the majority religion, Islam does not recognize religious freedom, at least not as we understand it. Islam is a different culture. This doesn't mean that it's an inferior culture, but it is a culture that has yet to connect with the positive sides of our modern Western culture: religious freedom, human rights and equal rights for women.

Since art exists for humanity it is not unreasonable to assume that humanity has some rights in the matter. Who pays the piper calls the tune. An artist cannot be at once a rebel and a comfortable citizen.

The public is the tribunal before which all art is judged - not the critics or the academies. The public is the artist's only patron, and has certain fundamental rights. It will submit to education, and will respond to suggestion, but it will not be bullied.

Maybe I'm overly pessimistic, but most of Africa is a continent without much hope for its people... What [Africa] needs, the West cannot give. ...what Africans need is personal liberty...[and] guarantees of private property rights and rule of law.

Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights.

What would constitute useful history? That which should teach us our duties and our rights, without appearing to teach them.

In Russia all people enjoy the equal rights, including homosexuals.

To the greatest extent possible, I try to make choices that involve the least amount of cruelty and environmental damage. I'm interested in sustainable agriculture, environmental issues, human rights, and my interconnectedness in the web of life. It is a great pleasure for me to find products and practices that have a positive effect on living beings and the environment, rather than a negative one.

For us, not cooperating in the monopoly regimes of intellectual property rights and patents and biodiversity - saying "no" to patents on life, and developing intellectual ideas of resistance - is very much a continuation of Gandhian satyagraha. It is, for me, keeping life free in its diversity.

If [Western] relations with Russia are to be friendly, they must be open and sincere, otherwise there can be no friendship at all. That means one should be able to speak openly about everything at meetings and conferences. It shouldn't be that we can't discuss the killing of journalists in Russia, or the suppression of human rights, or all the warning signs surfacing in Russia because of oil and gas or other economic reasons. It's a big problem, but it's the same in Western relations with Arab states.

The only salvation of the world today... is the rapid dissemination of the basic values of the West, that is, the ideas of democracy, human rights, the civil society, and the free market.

Humanistic values of equality and equal rights for all nations and individuals as crystallized in the principles of the United Nations Charter are mankind's great achievements in the 20th century.

When you sign with a label, they do insist upon certain rights, and if you have a competent attorney, your rights will be protected.

There was this little shaggy dog on it, and Frank Weatherwax was working the dog. One day we were all sitting around, and Frank said, listen, my brother Rudd just got the rights back from MGM for Lassie, and said have your agent check into it. I did, and I went for a screen test.

These are all voluntary resources which help parents sort out the choices without infringing on the artists rights to free speech, which is something that we respect.

In the first part of 'Rights of Man' I have endeavoured to show...that there does not exist a right to establish hereditary government...because hereditary government always means a government yet to come, and the case always is, that the people who are to live afterwards, have always the same right to choose a government for themselves, as the people had who have lived before them.

The idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights.

I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

Of distinction by birth or badge, [Americans] had no more idea than they had of the mode of existence in the moon or planets. They had heard only that there were such, and knew that they must be wrong.

Natural rights [are] the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established.