Home / Topics / Rights Quotes

Rights Quotes

Browse 5529 quotes about Rights.

Rights Quotes

“In a society that restricts individual freedoms and violates human rights, anything that calls itself creative or independent is a pretence. It is impossible for a totalitarian society to create anything with passion and imagination.”

Humans Passion Individual Imagination Creative Rights Impossible Independent Human Rights Tyranny Pretence Individual Freedom

Author:Ai Weiwei

“The only ‘realistic’ prospect is to ground a new political universality by opting for the impossible, fully assuming the place of the exception, with no taboos, no a priori norms (‘human rights,’ ‘democracy’), respect for which would prevent us from ‘resignifying’ terror, the ruthless exercise of power, the spirit of sacrifice … if this radical choice is decried by some bleeding-heart liberals as Linksfaschismus, so be it!”

“Private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information. It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.”

Use Political Individual Difficult Cases Rights Impossible Information Source Citizens Intelligent Objectives Conclusion Capitalist Political Rights

Book:The Albert Einstein Collection: Essays in Humanism, The Theory of Relativity, and The World As I See It

Source: The Albert Einstein Collection: Essays in Humanism, The Theory of Relativity, and The World As I See It

“Man cannot be exempted from his divinely-imposed obligations toward civil society, and the representatives of authority have the right to coerce him when he refuses without reason to do his duty. Society, on the other hand, cannot defraud man of his God-granted right... Nor can society systematically void these rights by making their use impossible.”

Source: Encyclical letter of Pope Pius XI on atheistic communism: official Vatican text

“Just as little can we afford to follow the doctrinaires of an impossible - and incidentally of a highly undesirable - social revolution which, in destroying individual rights - including property rights - and the family, would destroy the two chief agents in the advance of mankind, and the two chief reasons why either the advance or the preservation of mankind is worthwhile.”

Source: African and European Addresses

“While it is possible for intelligence to increase the range of benevolent impulse, and thus prompt a human being to consider the needs and rights of other than those to whom he is bound by organic and physical relationship, there are definite limits in the capacity of ordinary mortals which makes it impossible for them to grant to others what they claim for themselves.”

Needs Humans Human Beings Rights Impossible Limits Ordinary Capacity Claims Increase Bounds Mortals Impulse Range Grants Definite Benevolent Prompts

Book:Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)

Source: Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)

“it is impossible for any mind of common honesty not to be revolted by the contradictions in their principles and practice. They inveigh against the governments of Europe, because, as they say, they favor the powerful and oppress the weak. ... [yet] you will see them with one hand hoisting the cap of liberty, and with the other flogging their slaves. You will see them one hour lecturing their mob on the indefeasible rights of man, and the next driving from their homes the children of the soil, whom they have bound themselves to protect by the most solemn treaties.”

“In the constitution of Spain as proposed by the late Cortes, there was a principle entirely new to me:... that no person born after that day should ever acquire the rights of citizenship until he could read and write. It is impossible sufficiently to estimate the wisdom of this provision. Of all those which have been thought of for securing fidelity in the administration of the government, constant reliance to the principles of the constitution, and progressive amendments with the progressive advances of the human mind or changes in human affairs, it is the most effectual.”

“When people are oppressed, and human rights are denied - particularly along sectarian lines or ethnic lines - when dissent is silenced, it feeds violent extremism, it creates an environment that is ripe for terrorists to exploit. When peaceful, democratic change is impossible, it feeds into the terrorist propaganda that violence is the only answer available.”

“our rights come from our Creator and it is impossible to define America if you do not talk in public about where your rights come from.”

Ifs America Rights Impossible Creator

Author:Newt Gingrich

“Extreme poverty threatens people's right to life itself and makes impossible the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms essential to a humane way of life.”

People Way Poverty Rights Impossible Essentials Extremes Enjoyment Humane Rights And Freedoms Right To Life Extreme Poverty Humane Way

Author:Daisaku Ikeda

“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.”

“The civil-rights movement was completely impossible to achieve. But look at what ordinary people were able to do because they were willing to sacrifice their lives to stay with it. They didn't expect a political process to respond to them. They made the political process respond to them. To say "It's so bad I won't bother" is to give up on your children and give up on your future.”