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Rights Quotes

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Rights Quotes

“Any group or "collective," large or small, is only a number of individuals. A group can have no rights other than the rights of its individual members. In a free society, the "rights" of any group are derived from the rights of its members through their voluntary individual choice and contractual agreement, and are merely the application of these individual rights to a specific undertaking... A group, as such, has no rights.”

Choices Individual Numbers Rights Groups Members Collectives Agreement Application Free Society Undertakings Individual Rights Individual Choice

Book:Ayn Rand Reader

Source: Ayn Rand Reader

“The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization. The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.”

Source: Social Justice and the City

“Collective bargaining has always been the bedrock of the American labor movement. I hope that you will continue to anchor your movement to this foundation. Free collective bargaining is good for the entire Nation. In my view, it is the only alternative to State regulation of wages and prices - a path which leads far down the grim road of totalitarianism. Those who would destroy or further limit the rights of organized labor - those who would cripple collective bargaining or prevent organization of the unorganized - do a disservice to the cause of democracy.”

“America certainly has made extraordinary progress. The collective unconscious of the nation has certainly shifted as a result of the civil rights movement and the developments in the '70s and '80s. We have witnessed a great expansion of the black middle class.”

“I gained a great appreciation for what I would call the collective achievement of the country. I began thinking of America as a much more just and humane place than I would have thought if I'd been covering the civil rights struggle.”

Ifs Thinking Country America Struggle Rights Achievement Appreciation Civil Rights Collectives Humane Covering

Author:Charles Kuralt

“Any group or "collective", large or small, is only a number of individuals. A group can have no rights other than the rights of its individual members.”

Individual Numbers Rights Groups Members Collectives

Book:Ayn Rand Reader

Source: Ayn Rand Reader

“Since only an individual man can possess rights, the expression "individual rights"? is a redundancy (which one has to use for purposes of clarification in today's intellectual chaos). But the expression "collective rights"? is a contradiction in terms.”

Men Use Today Purpose Individual Term Rights Expression Intellectual Chaos Contradiction Collectives Individual Rights Clarification Redundancy

Book:Ayn Rand Reader

Source: Ayn Rand Reader

“Capitalism is based on individual rights - not on the sacrifice of the individual to the 'public good' of the collective.”

Individual Rights Sacrifice Capitalism Collectives Individual Rights Public Good

Book:Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Source: Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

“Hiding behind such sacred terms as human rights and distributive justice, politicians and intellectuals alike have perpetrated a gargantuan ruse on humankind: they have convinced us that mass homogeneity is more essential for the betterment of society than is individual initiative, and they have adorned this dubious assumption with assurances that by leveling all distinctions between human beings, collective peace and unity will result as a matter of course, just as water runs downhill or the cart follows the ox.”

“I stand on the shoulders of giants that have gone before me, in terms of affording people like myself, women, the access to democracy, the vote, medical treatment, education, everything that I've been given. It's all been earned. Therefore I feel it's incumbent on me personally to just contribute something, to add to a collective voice that needs to be here right now, to build it up to a tipping point, to make the world aware that women's rights still have to be addressed and that the word 'feminism' has been devalued and needs to be reclaimed.”

“Man holds these rights [life, liberty and property], not from the Collective nor for the Collective, but against the Collective - as a barrier which the Collective cannot cross... these rights are man's protection against all other men.”

Men Liberty Rights Crosses Property Protection Collectives Barriers

Author:Ayn Rand

“We have to build movements in the face of trade retaliation on the basis of people's democratic rights, on the basis of an ancient heritage of collective innovation. We work from the grassroots all the way to the national government and the World Trade Organization. It basically means being very multidimensional in our campaigns. And that is where part of the fun is. It involves both resistance and creativity. It involves constructive action, while at the same time saying "no."”