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Individual Rights Quotes

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Individual Rights Quotes

“It is above all in the present democratic age that the true friends of liberty and human grandeur must remain constantly vigilant and ready to prevent the social power from lightly sacrificing the particular rights of a few individuals to the general execution of its designs. In such times there is no citizen so obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be oppressed, and there are no individual rights so unimportant that they can be sacrificed to arbitrariness with impunity.”

HumansAgeIndividualSocialLibertyRightsSacrificeDangerousDesignParticularReadyCitizensDemocraticExecutionOppressedObscureTrue FriendGrandeurUnimportantVigilantImpunityIndividual RightsSocial Power
Author:Alexis de Tocqueville
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“First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.”

FirstsEndsValuesPoliticsIndividualJusticeLibertyVisionPrinciplesRightsGroupsParticularFairsSakeWelfareConsistentJustifyGood LifeFrameworkIndividual RightsGeneral Welfare
Book:Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics
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“The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.”

PeopleIfsWantNeedsKindDesireIndividualRightsAuthorityFoundationAssumptionJustifiedAtrocitiesBrainwashingIndividual RightsInscriptionsWants And Needs
Book:How the Mind Works
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“Do not make the mistake of the ignorant who think that an individualist is a man who says: “I’ll do as I please at everybody else’s expense.” An individualist is a man who recognizes the inalienable individual rights of man—his own and those of others.”

ThinkingMenIndividualMistakeRightsPleaseRespectHuman RightsIgnorantExpensesIndividualismMistakenRecognizingRespecting OthersEgoismIndividual RightsIgnorant People
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.”

Has BeensFoundFreedomLibertyDemocracyRightsSecurityPropertyLibertarianViolentTyrannyFoundersFederal GovernmentSovereigntyFoundingFreedom And LibertyForms Of GovernmentFreedom LibertyPrivate PropertyProperty RightsLimited GovernmentDemocracies HaveFactionsContentionForefathersIndividual RightsFederalistLimiting GovernmentSpectaclesFederalist PapersTurbulenceLimited FreedomFounding Fathers DemocracyLimiting FreedomPersonal LibertyUnalienable RightsElectoral CollegeMajority RulePolitical RightsTyranny Founding FathersDemocracy In AmericaViolent DeathSecurity And FreedomPersonal SecuritySecurity And LibertyPersonal Rights
Book:The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788
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“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world ... Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.”

MenWorldHumansChildrenLittlesHomeOpportunityJusticeInspiringRightsYouthEqualDignityUniversalHuman RightsEvery ManDiscriminationMy ChildrenMapsMen WomenPlaces In The WorldHuman DignitySmall ChildEqual OpportunityHaving ChildrenIndividual RightsHuman ThoughtHuman PowerHuman Rights DayEqual JusticeSmall PlacesDeclaration Of Human Rights
Book:Courage in a Dangerous World: The Political Writings of Eleanor Roosevelt
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“The Bible and its teachings helped form the basis for the Founding Fathers' abiding belief in the inalienable rights of the individual, rights which they found implicit in the Bible's teachings of the inherent worth and dignity of each individual. This same sense of man patterned the convictions of those who framed the English system of law inherited by our own Nation, as well as the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.”

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Book:Ronald Reagan
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“The government's only proper job is to protect individual rights against violence by force or fraud ... to protect men from foreign invaders ... to settle disputes among men according to objective laws ... The greatness of the Founding Fathers was how well they understood this issue and how close some of them came to understanding it perfectly.”

MenWellsGovernmentJobsLawFatherIndividualForceUnderstandingLibertyIssuesRightsViolenceEconomicGreatnessProtectUnderstoodLibertarianObjectivesSettlingFraudLibertarianismFoundingDisputesIndividual LibertyIndividual RightsInvadersGreat LibertarianAgainst Violence
Author:Ayn Rand
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“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home.”

HumansHomeCommunityRightsDignityUniversalHuman RightsMy ChildrenPlaces In The WorldHuman DignitySmall ChildEqual OpportunityIndividual RightsHuman ThoughtHuman PowerHuman Rights DayWorld PowerEqual JusticeSmall PlacesDeclaration Of Human Rights
Book:Courage in a Dangerous World: The Political Writings of Eleanor Roosevelt
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“Just as the First and Fourth Amendment secure individual rights of speech and security respectively, the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. This view of the text comports with the all but unanimous understanding of the Founding Fathers.”

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Author:John Ashcroft
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“If cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is applied as a matter of policy, it alters the fundamental relationship of man to government. It destroys the whole notion of individual rights. The Constitution recognizes that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be free of cruelty. It applies to all human beings, not just in America - even those designated as ‘unlawful enemy combatants.’ If you make this exception, the whole Constitution crumbles.”

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Author:Alberto J. Mora
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“It becomes all therefore who are friends of a Government based on free principles to reflect, that by denying the possibility of a system partly federal and partly consolidated, and who would convert ours into one either wholly federal or wholly consolidated, in neither of which forms have individual rights, public order, and external safety, been all duly maintained, they aim a deadly blow at the last hope of true liberty on the face of the Earth.”

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Book:1829-1836
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“I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of any individual. Anarchists oppose the State because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights.”

PersonsStatesIndividualFocusRightsPossibilityBuiltPropertyDefenseTerritoryAnarchyAggressionTwinsTaxationInvasionCoercionAnarchistPrivate PropertyExclusionProvidersIndividual Rights
Author:Murray Rothbard
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“Finally it should be the earnest wish and paramount aim of the military administration to win the confidence, respect, and affection of the inhabitants of the Philippines by assuring them in every possible way that full measure of individual rights and liberties which is the heritage of free peoples, and by proving to them that the mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation substituting the mild sway of justice and right for arbitrary rule.”

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Author:William McKinley
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“Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace... One compels respect from others when he knows how to defend his dignity as a human being... The people owe all the political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or lesser measure, not to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength.”

PeopleKnowsHumansHas BeensGovernmentTodayPoliticalIndividualEnjoyHuman BeingsKnow HowGreaterPiecesRightsHabitPaperDignityPrivilegeViolentResistanceGood WillIndividual RightsPolitical RightsRights And PrivilegesEnjoy Today
Author:Rudolf Rocker
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“Any successful nominee should possess both the temperament to interpret the law and the wisdom to do so fairly. The next Supreme Court Justice should have a record of protecting individual rights and a strong willingness to put aside any political agenda.”

ShouldWisdomLawPoliticalNextIndividualStrongJusticeSuccessfulRecordsRightsShould HaveCourtSupremeAgendasWillingnessSupreme CourtTemperamentIndividual RightsStrong WillSupreme Court JusticePolitical AgendasCourt Justice
Author:Bennie Thompson
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“By far the most numerous and most flagrant violations of personal liberty and individual rights are performed by governments... The major crimes throughout history, the ones executed on the largest scale, have been committed not by individuals or bands of individuals but by governments, as a deliberate policy of those governments-that is, by the official representatives of governments, acting in their official capacity.”

LifeHas BeensGovernmentIndividualJusticeActingLibertyRightsCrimePolicyBandMajorsCapacityCommittedLibertarianScalesOfficialsRepresentativesDeliberateViolationIndividual RightsPersonal Liberty
Book:Libertarianism: a political philosophy for tomorrow
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“America’s founding ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more-and nothing less. The rest-everything that America achieved, everything she became, everything 'noble and just,' and heroic, and great, and unprecedented in human history-was the logical consequence of fidelity to that one principle.”

HumansAmericaIndividualPrinciplesRightsAchievementConsequenceIdealsNobleNovelistsUsaLogicalHeroicFoundingHuman HistoryFidelityUnprecedentedIndividual Rights
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“There can be no compromise between freedom and government controls; to accept 'just a few controls' is to surrender the principle of inalienable individual rights and to substitute for it the principle of the government’s unlimited, arbitrary power, thus delivering oneself into gradual enslavement. As an example of this process, observe the present domestic policy of the United States.”

StatesGovernmentIndividualProcessUnitedAcceptingPrinciplesUnited StatesRightsPolicyExampleOneselfSurrenderCompromiseSubstitutesUnlimitedArbitraryDeliveringEnslavementIndividual RightsNo CompromiseDomestic Policy
Book:The Virtue of Selfishness
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“Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much room do individual rights leave for the state?”

IfsMayPersonsStatesIndividualStrongRoomsRightsGroupsRaisesLibertarianOfficialsReachingWhat IfIndividual Rights
Book:Anarchy, state, and utopia
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“The government was set to protect man from criminals-and the constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of Rights was not directed at private citizens, but against the government-as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.”

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Book:The Virtue of Selfishness
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“Of all the statist violations of individual rights in a mixed economy, the military draft is the worst. It is an abrogation of rights. It negates man’s fundamental right-the right to life-and establishes the fundamental principle of statism: that a man’s life belongs to the state, and the state may claim it by compelling him to sacrifice it in battle. Once that principle is accepted, the rest is only a matter of time.”

MenMayMatterStatesIndividualPrinciplesEconomyRightsSacrificeWorstMilitaryBattleClaimsFundamentalsAcceptedCompellingViolationIndividual RightsRight To LifeFundamental PrinciplesMatter Of TimeMixed Economy
Book:Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
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“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person...Withou t concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”

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Author:Eleanor Roosevelt
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“Individualism is at once an ethical-psychological concept and an ethical-political one. As an ethical-psychological concept, individualism holds that a human being should think and judge independently, respecting nothing more than the sovereignty of his or her mind; thus, it is intimately connected with the concept of autonomy. As an ethical-political concept, individualism upholds the supremacy of individual rights”

ThinkingShouldMindHumansPoliticalIndividualHuman BeingsRightsJudgingConceptsConnectedPsychologicalEthicalIndividualismSovereigntyAutonomySupremacyIndividual Rights
Author:Nathaniel Branden
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“Individualism regards man - every man - as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful co-existence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights - and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members.”

MenFormIndividualExistenceRightsGroupsSocietyMembersBasesRegardIndependentEvery ManRationalPeacefulRecognitionCivilizedCooperationAssociationIndividualismEntitySovereignIndividual RightsCivilized Society
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“The social model of the Bolsheviks failed, as will any model that denies individual rights, intellectual freedom, and freedom of competing political parties. Without these freedoms and rights, there is no motivation for people to work. Such a system cannot be sustained, especially in light of the technological revolution of the information era.”

PeopleWarLightPoliticalMotivationIndividualSocialPartyRightsInformationRevolutionColdIntellectualModelsDenyErasCold WarTechnologicalCompetingPolitical PartiesIndividual RightsBolsheviksIntellectual Freedom
Author:Mikhail Gorbachev
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