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Rights Quotes

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Rights Quotes

“To forgive somebody is to say one way or another, "You have done something unspeakable, and by all rights I should call it quits between us. Both my pride and my principles demand no less. However, although I make no guarantees that I will be able to forget what you've done, and though we may both carry the scars for life, I refuse to let it stand between us. I still want you for my friend.”

“This fighting-shy of every obligation partly explains the phenomenon, half ridiculous, half disgraceful, Of the setting-up in our days of the platform of "youth" as youth. ... In comic fashion people call themselves "young," because they have heard that youth has more rights than obligations, since it can put off the fulfilment of these latter to the Greek Kalends of maturity. ...[T]he astounding thing at present is that these take it as an effective right precisely in order to claim for themselves all those other rights which only belong to the man who has already done something.”

“His Majesty's Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

“In many instances the conduct of colored workmen, and those who have spoken for them, has not been in asking or demanding that equal rights be accorded to them as to white workmen, but somehow conveying the idea that they are to be petted and coddled and given special consideration and special privilege. Of course that can't be done.”

“Part of the true luxury of "earned laziness" are the braggin rights that come along with being purposefully and publicly lazy. It is a badge of distinction, an emblem of success, without having to say too much about it. It labels us, affords us kudos, and raises our profile in the "pecking order" of our fellow troglodytes. It says to others, "See, I've done so well that I can afford to do nothing at all whenever I so choose!”

“If you dropped me off a space platform onto the ground where a line was drawn, I would fall to the left side of it. I believe the difference between right and left is that the right, for the most part, the bulk of their philosophy is interested in property, and the rights of people to own property and gain and acquire and keep property. And I think on the left - though they blend and mix - on the left primarily you will find people who are more concerned about humans, and the human condition, and what can be done.”

“This president Barack Obama has done more for the LGBT community than any president in history. It's just an objective fact. And his legacy is secure in terms of the advancement of the rights of the LGBT community, from 'Don't Ask', 'Don't Tell' to his support for overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, and of course marriage equality, work on HIV and AIDS, and other things.”

“We have our difficulties, true; but we are a wiser and a tougher nation than we were in 1932. Never have there been six years of such far flung internal preparedness in all of history. And this has been done without any dictator's power to command, without conscription of labor or confiscation of capital, without concentration camps and without a scratch on freedom of speech, freedom of the press or the rest of the Bill of Rights.”

“Possess the spirit of independence. The Americans do, and why should not you? Possess the spirit of men, bold and enterprising, fearless and undaunted. Sue for your rights and privileges. Know the reason that you cannot attain them. Weary them with your importunities. You can but die, if you make the attempt; we shall certainly die if you do not. The Americans have practised nothing but head-work these 200 years, and we have done their drudgery. And is it not high time for us to imitate their examples, and practise head-work too, and keep what we have got, and get what we can?”

“There are still countries where women don't enjoy basic rights like the vote or the freedom to study or the freedom of choice in marriage. Every year there are twenty million little girls in Africa who are deprived of their sexuality through brutal genital operations. Basically, there's still much to be done.”

“Just across the ocean in, say Kenya or Tanzania, a two-gender system is vital for the survival of most of the folks who live there. Men do men's work, women do women's work, and so it all gets done and the jackals can't get into the hut and eat grandpa. So, the future of the transgender movement is like the future of all human rights movements: whatever the state of things in your area now, with some work it all gets a little bit better all the time, even if it is sometimes three steps ahead and two steps back.”

“Your sect [the Jews] by its sufferings has furnished a remarkable proof of the universal point of religious insolence, inherent in every sect, disclaimed by all while feeble and practised by all when in power. Our laws have applied the only antidote to this vice, protecting our religions, as they do our civil rights, by putting all on equal footing. But more remains to be done.”

“It really did take Billy Lucas's suicide to wake me up to, kind of, the damage of the success of the LGBT civil-rights movement - higher-profile LGBT people - has done to LGBT youth who are trapped out there in those shitholes. But I don't think we need Pride. I am still opposed, on philosophical grounds, to the flap of the rainbow windsock and the damage that does to us intellectually.”

“Then something fails and they're all out again, but DVD revenue is disappearing, you know, it's not disappearing but it's going off a cliff and what that's done is it's polarized the industry in a way that I've never seen before where studios are making less, they're bifurcating their choices where they're either going very, very big or they're just picking up a few rights on an acquisition basis or making really small things.”

“In the very first debate I was asked am I a moderate or a progressive and I said I'm a progressive who likes to get things done. Cherry picking a quote here or there doesn't change my record of having fought for racial justice, having fought for kids rights, having fought the kind of inequities that fueled my interest in service in the first place going back to my days in the Children's Defense Fund.”

“Matthew Vaughn phoned me up and he said, "Hey, listen, the movie has just done gangbusters. We've got to do the second one." And I was like, "Matthew, I have no second book. Dave and I haven't done it," and he's like, "You're kidding!" He said, "This movie's just made $420 million!" I was like, "...We've got nothing." So the amazing thing was, because we own the rights, we still get paid and everything, which is fantastic.”