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Rights Quotes

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Rights Quotes

“[You have Rights] antecedent to all earthly governments: Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; Rights, derived from the Great Legislator of the universe.”

HumansGovernmentLawUniverseLibertyRightsLegislatorsRight To Bear ArmsBearing ArmsConstitutional Rights
Book:The Works of John Adams Vol. 3: Autobiography, Diary, Notes of a Debate in the Senate, Essays
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“[T]he liberty, the unalienable, indefeasible rights of men, the honor and dignity of human nature, the grandeur and glory of the public, and the universal happiness of individuals, were never so skillfully and successfully consulted as in that most excellent monument of human art, the common law of England.”

MenHumansArtLawIndividualFreedomCommonLibertyRightsHuman NatureHonorGloryDignityUniversalEnglandExcellentMonumentGrandeurCommon LawUnalienable Rights
Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
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“Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretence of a desire to simplify government. The simplest governments are despotisms; the next simplest, limited monarchies; but all republics, all governments of law, must impose numerous limitations and qualifications of authority, and give many positive and many qualified rights.”

GivingGovernmentLawPoliticalDesireNextRightsDangerousAuthorityLimitationRepublicSimplestQualifiedMonarchySimplifyDespotismQualificationsDeceptivePretence
Book:The beauties of the Hon. Daniel Webster: selected and arranged, with a critical essay on his genius and writings
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“When and under what conditions is the black man to have a free ballot? When is he in fact to have those full civil rights which have so long been his in law?”

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Book:Public Papers and Addresses of Benjamin Harrison: Twenty -third President of the United States. March 4, 1889, to March 4, 1893
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“We are bound to maintain public liberty, and, by the example of our own systems, to convince the world that order and law, religion and morality, the rights of conscience, the rights of persons, and the rights of property, may all be preserved and secured, in the most perfect manner, by a government entirely and purely elective. If we fail in this, our disaster will be significant, and will furnish an argument, stronger than has yet been found, in support of those opinions which maintain that government can rest safely on nothing but power and coercion.”

IfsWorldMayPersonsGovernmentLawOrderFoundPerfectLibertyOpinionSupportRightsFailingExampleMoralityConscienceArgumentStrongerPropertyBoundsDisasterSignificantVotingConvinceCoercionSecuredPerfect Man
Book:A Discourse, Delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1820: In Commemoration of the First Settlement of New-England
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“Those who want their rights respected under the Constitution and the law ought to set the example themselves of observing the Constitution and the law. While there may be those of high intelligence who violate the law at times, the barbarian and the defective always violate it. Those who disregard the rules of society are not exhibiting a superior intelligence, are not promoting freedom and independence, are not following the path of civilization, but are displaying the traits of ignorance, of servitude, of savagery, and treading the way that leads back to the jungle.”

WayWantMayLawPathRightsExampleIgnoranceOughtCivilizationConstitutionIndependenceFollowingSuperiorsTraitsJunglePromotingObservingDisregardBarbariansServitudeDefectiveSavageryTreadingSuperior Intelligence
Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“The US and Israel have demanded further that Palestinians not only recognize Israel's rights as a state in the international system, but that they also recognize Israel's abstract right to exist, a concept that has no place in international law or diplomacy, and a right claimed by no one. In effect, the US and Israel are demanding that Palestinians . . . formally accept the legitimacy of their expulsion from their own land. They cannot be expected to accept that, just as Mexico does not grant the US the right to exist on half of Mexico's territory, gained by conquest.”

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Author:Noam Chomsky
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“an enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common happiness of mankind, and, therefore, every free state hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property.”

StatesLawIndividualCommonRightsMankindDangerousPropertyPossessionEnormousProportionDestructiveDiscouragingFree State
Book:Not Your Usual Founding Father: Selected Readings from Benjamin Franklin
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“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.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“Kinship among nations is not determined in such measurements as proximity of size and age. Rather we should turn to those inner things - call them what you will - I mean those intangibles that are the real treasures free men possess. To preserve his freedom of worship, his equality before law, his liberty to speak and act as he sees fit, subject only to provisions that he trespass not upon similar rights of others - a Londoner will fight. So will a citizen of Abilene. When we consider these things, then the valley of the Thames draws closer to the farms of Kansas and the plains of Texas.”

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Author:Dwight D. Eisenhower
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“In its proper meaning equality before the law means the right to participate in the making of the laws by which one is governed, a constitution which guarantees democratic rights to all sections of the population, the right to approach the court for protection or relief in the case of the violation of rights guaranteed in the constitution, and the right to take part in the administration of justice as judges, magistrates, attorneys-general, law advisers and similar positions.”

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Book:No Easy Walk to Freedom
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“I have no doubt that there will continue to be bumps, some serious crises indeed in our relationship with China.... Neither membership in the WTO nor normalized trade relations with the United States will magically impose the rule of law on China or institute deep-seeded respect for human rights. But it certainly has potential to advance those purposes.”

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Author:Daniel Patrick Moynihan
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“I will now add what I do not like. First, the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land and not by the law of nations.”

FirstsMatterFactsLawForceNationsRightsLandEternalStandingArmyBillsPressesAddProtectionAidsTrialsProvidingMonopolyRestrictionJuryMatter Of FactBill Of RightsFreedom Of The PressFreedom Of ReligionOmissionCorpusTrial By JuryHabeas Corpus
Book:The portable Thomas Jefferson
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“A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held, and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves. Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man.”

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Book:The portable Thomas Jefferson
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“The great paradox of the civil rights revolution is that instead of enforcing and expanding equality before the law, the revolution created differential rights based on race, gender and, any day now, sexual orientation. The great liberal revolution, centuries in the making, that brought forth equality in law has been overthrown. In its place we see rising a new feudal legal order of status-based rights.”

Has BeensLawOrderRaceRightsCenturyRevolutionGenderCivil RightsRisingParadoxExpandingIn-lawsOrientationGreat Liberal
Author:Paul Craig Roberts
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“We Americans think we enjoy self-government. We have all the trappings of self-government, like elections. But in reality, we have gradually lost many of our rights to govern ourselves. We have the form of self-government, but only some of the substance. We are, in a sense, a nation run by a handful of judges who often enforce, not the law, but their personal opinions.”

ThinkingSelfRealityGovernmentRunningFormLawLostNationsEnjoyOpinionRightsJudgingElectionSubstanceHandfulSelf-governmentPersonal Opinions
Author:Charles Colson
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“No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of individual action, economy and self-denial; by better habits, rather than by greater rights.”

MeanSelfActionLawIndividualEconomyGreaterRightsHabitReformDenialIdleSoberIndustriousSelf-denial
Book:Self-help: With Illustrations of Charakter, Conduct and Perseverance
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“There are those who argue that the concept of human rights is not applicable to all cultures. We in the National League for Democracy believe that human rights are of universal relevance. But even those who do not believe in human rights must certainly agree that the rule of law is most important. Without the rule of law there can be no peace.”

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Author:Aung San Suu Kyi
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“All men are, or ought to be free, possessing unalienable rights, and the high and noble qualifications of the laws of nature and of self-preservation, to think, and act, and say as they please, while they maintain a due respect to the rights and privileges of all other creatures, infringing upon none.”

ThinkingMenSelfLawRightsOughtPleaseCreaturesPrivilegeDuesNoblePreservationLaws Of NaturePossessingQualificationsSelf PreservationUnalienable RightsRights And Privileges
Author:Joseph Smith, Jr.
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“If Americans loved judicial activism, liberals wouldn't be lying about what it is. Judicial activism means making up constitutional rights in order to strike down laws the justices don't like based on their personal preferences. It's not judicial activism to strike down laws because they violate the Constitution.”

IfsMeanLawLyingOrderJusticeRightsConstitutionStrikesActivismPreferenceJudicialMaking UpConstitutional RightsPersonal PreferencesJudicial Activism
Author:Ann Coulter
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“If we as a society want to cure unemployment, raise real wages, and in other ways improve our economy, we will base public policy on private property rights, the non-aggression principle and the law of free association. In the free and prosperous society, everyone may do precisely as he pleases, provided only that he does not initiate violence against non-aggressors.”

IfsWayWantMayDoeRealLawPrinciplesEconomyRightsViolencePolicyPleaseRaisesPropertyCuresAssociationAggressionUnemploymentWagesProsperousPrivate PropertyProperty RightsPublic PolicyInitiateAggressors
Book:Labor Economics from a Free Market Perspective: Employing the Unemployable
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“The instructor has to teach history, cosmogony, psychology, ethics, the laws of nations. How can he do it without saying anything favorable or unfavorable about the beliefs of evangelical Christians, Catholics, Socinians, Deists, pantheists, materialists, or fetish worshipers, who all claim equal rights under American institutions? His teaching will indeed be "the play of Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet omitted."”

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Author:Robert Dabney
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“The legal system we have and the rule of law are far more responsible for our traditional liberties than any system of one man one vote. Any country or Government which wants to proceed towards tyranny starts to undermine legal rights and undermine the law.”

MenWantCountryGovernmentLawLibertyRightsVoteResponsibleTyrannyTraditionalOne ManRule Of LawLegal SystemLegal Rights
Book:As I said to Denis--: the Margaret Thatcher book of quotations
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“We're looking at a president [Barack Obama] who's engaged in double-speak where he doesn't call radical Islamic terrorism by its name. Indeed, he gives a speech after the San Bernardino attack where his approach is to try to go after the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens rather than to keep us safe.”

GivingTryingLawNamesSpeakPresidentRightsCitizensSafeSpeechApproachTerrorismRadicalBarackEngagedIslamicAbidingPresident Barack ObamaConstitutional RightsIslamic TerrorismLaw Abiding Citizen
Author:Ted Cruz
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“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

WisdomActionLawIndividualLibertyRightsLimitsEqualAddLibertarianTyrantsEqual RightsFreedom And LibertyFreedom LibertyLimited GovernmentBig GovernmentIndividual LibertyIndividual RightsInalienable RightsUs ConstitutionEternal VigilanceLimiting FreedomLiberty And EqualityLife Liberty And The Pursuit Of HappinessPlenitudeAmerican LawLaws And Government
Book:Jefferson: Political Writings
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“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”

MindWould BeLawPoliticalPoliticsFreedomLibertyPrinciplesCasesRightsBearsProtectEqualSacredMajorityEqualityCivil RightsOppressionReasonableMinoritiesPatrioticOppressedEqual RightsFreedom LibertyPrice Of FreedomUnalienable RightsMajority RuleTyranny Of The MajorityEqual ProtectionPolitical OppressionMajority And MinorityMinority Government
Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“To ask about the 'source' of rights or morals assumes an erreous conclusion. To ask about the source of morals is to assume that such a source exists. As if it existed outside of human constructed systems. The 'source' is the human ability to learn from experience and to entrench rights in our laws and in our consciousness. Our rights come from our long history of wrongs.”

IfsHumansLongLawAsksAbilityConsciousnessMoralRightsSourceAssumingConclusionLearning Experience
Author:Alan Dershowitz
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