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Rights Quotes

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Rights Quotes

“When people are breaking the law, they don’t get an invitation to the White House. They ought to be getting an invitation to the big house... This is just an anathema to everything that the civil rights movement was truly all about and what it accomplished.”

People Bigs Law House White Rights Movement Ought Civil Rights Accomplished White House Invitations Civil Rights Movement Big Houses Breaking The Law Anathema

Author:Mike Huckabee

“Civil liberties are a great heritage for Americans. They are not rights that the government gives to the people, they are the rights that the people carved out for themselves when they created the government.”

People Giving Government Liberty Rights Heritage Civil Liberties

Author:Edward Bennett Williams

“I guess what I'd like to say is that people in Sierra Leone are human beings, just like Americans. They want to send their kids to school; they want to live in peace; they want to have their basic rights of life just like everyone else. I think we all owe an obligation to support people who want to do that.”

People Thinking Want Humans Kids School Human Beings Support Rights Obligation Sierra Basic Rights Sierra Leone

Author:Ishmael Beah

“The violence that we had in the 60's was limited. The next time it will be unlimited because the violence in the 60's was a struggle for human dignity and for human rights. The next struggle will be a struggle for survival and it will not just be limited to Black people or Black against white, but it will be the poor people, the masses of the people of the country, struggling for the right to live or the right to survive.”

“Abortion on demand is the ultimate State tyranny; the State simply declares that certain classes of human beings are not persons, and therefore not entitled to the protection of the law. The State protects the 'right' of some people to kill others, just as the courts protected the 'property rights' of slave masters in their slaves. Moreover, by this method the State achieves a goal common to all totalitarian regimes: it sets us against each other, so that our energies are spent in the struggle between State-created classes, rather than in freeing all individuals from the State.”

“The rights of no oppressed people have ever yet been obtained by a voluntary act of justice on the part of the oppressors.”

People Justice Rights Oppressed Oppressors

Author:Martin Delany

“You can not possibly have a broader basis for government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights.”

People Hands Government Rights Equal Bases Can Not Equal Power

Book:The Words of Garrison: A Centennial Selection (1805-1905) of Characteristic Sentiments from the Writings of William Lloyd Garrison

Source: The Words of Garrison: A Centennial Selection (1805-1905) of Characteristic Sentiments from the Writings of William Lloyd Garrison

“I'm convinced after spending three weeks in China and Tibet, unless the United States gets its act together, our grandchildren will be living in a world dominated by the People's Republic. China is simply inexorable in its pursuit of wealth, growth and power. It cares little about human rights, democracy, labor protections, fair trade rules or the environment. It is relentless in advancing its national interests.”

“We are so considerate of the minute constitutional rights and even of the political feelings and influence of people whom we have every reason to anticipate with preventive action!... The Japanese in California should be under armed guard to the last man and woman and to hell with habeas corpus until the danger is over.”

“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.”

“In an essay 10 years ago, I pointed out that it is utterly logical for polygamy rights to follow gay rights. After all, if traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) opposite gender, and if, as advocates of gay marriage insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one's autonomous choices in love, then the first requirement - the number restriction (two and only two) - is a similarly arbitrary, discriminatory and indefensible denial of individual choice.”

“May it not be asked of every intelligent friend to the liberties of his country, whether the power exercised in such an act as this ought not to produce great and universal alarm? Whether a rigid execution of such an act, in time past, would not have repressed that information and communication among the people which is indispensable to the just exercise of their electoral rights? And whether such an act, if made perpetual, and enforced with rigor, would not, in time to come, either destroy our free system of government, or prepare a convulsion that might prove equally fatal to it?”

Source: The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: As Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. Together with the Journal of the Federal Convention, Luther Martin's Letter, Yates's Minutes, Congressional Opinions, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of '98-'99, and Other Illustrations of the Constitution

“In a free Government, the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases, will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of People comprehended under the same Government.”

People May Country Government Interest Religious Numbers Cases Rights Security Depends Degrees Civil Rights Sects Multiplicity Free Government Religious Rights

Book:The Federalist

Source: The Federalist

“Our goals are also the same, to have a just system of economics and politics, to let the people of the world share in growth, in peace, in personal freedom, and in the benefits to be derived from the proper utilization of natural resources. We believe in enhancing human rights. We believe that we should enhance, as independent nations, the freedom of our own people.”

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Jimmy Carter, 1978, Book 1: January 1 to June 30, 1978

“I hope to continue to be an activist for kids and teenagers and especially girls who are living with HIV/AIDS, because all over the world, people don't have the same rights that we do in the United States.”

People World States Kids Girl United United States Rights Aids Teenager Activist Hiv Hiv Aids

Author:Jenna Bush

“Everyone cares for disabled people, right? What they don't care for are genuine civil rights for disabled people. MARY JOHNSON tells the tortuous, enraging story of how Congress enacted a law that instead of protecting against discrimination has turned 'the disabled' into a political punching bag.”

People Stories Care Law Political Rights Congress Don't Care Genuine Discrimination Civil Rights Bags Mary Johnson Disabled Punching Punching Bag

Author:William Greider

“Unity is the only way in which the people of this country can overthrow the fascists, communists, capitalists, and all the other assholes who claim running a representative government is so difficult. The emphasis has been taken from the Bill of Rights and placed on the type of interpretation of the Constitution that best suits the people in power.”

“I desire not to keep my place in this government an hour longer than I may preserve England in its just rights, and may protect the people of God in such a just liberty of their consciences.”

People May Government Desire Hours Liberty Rights Protect Conscience England Preserves

Book:Letters and Speeches

Source: Letters and Speeches

“Frederick Douglas's agenda was an agenda, not for black people to get out of slavery. It was for America to become a better democracy. And it's spilt over for women's rights; it's split over for worker's rights and so forth.”

People America Black Democracy Rights Slavery Workers Agendas Black People Splits Womens Rights Frederick Douglas

Author:Cornel West

“I'm not pessimistic, because poor people tend to bounce back. We've been through worse than this - working people been through worse than this. We've got slavery and Jim Crow. We've got workers with no rights up until `35. We're going to bounce back. We are resilient, resisting people. So, it's not pessimism, but it is blues-like. It's not optimistic. We're just prisoners of hope, that's all.”

People Poor Rights Slavery Workers Optimistic Pessimism Prisoner Poor People Crow Pessimistic Resisting Resilient Bounce Jim Crow

Author:Cornel West

“We see the tendency in the world to criticise democracy and sometimes even to say that authoritarian countries like China are more efficient. That is very short-sighted. China looks efficient only because it can sacrifice most people's rights. This is not something the west should be happy about.”

People World Should Looks Country Sometimes Democracy Rights Sacrifice West China Tendencies Efficient Criticise Short Sighted Authoritarian Government

Author:Ai Weiwei

“Young people today are being robbed. Of their rights. Of their freedom. Of their dignity. Of their futures. The culprits? My generation and our predecessors, who either created or failed to stop the world straddling engine of theft, degradation, manipulation, and social control we call the welfare state.”

People World States Today Young Social Rights Generations Dignity Welfare Manipulation Engines Theft My Generation Degradation Predecessors Welfare State Culprit Social Control

Author:Tom G. Palmer

“If you lay duties upon people and give them no rights, you must pay them well.”

People Ifs Giving Wells Pay Rights Duty Lays

Book:Maxims and Reflections

Source: Maxims and Reflections

“Any time you find the government involved in a conspiracy to violate the citizenship or the civil rights of a people, then you are wasting your time going to that government expecting redress. Instead, you have to take that government to the World Court and accuse it of genocide and all of the other crimes that it is guilty of today.”

People World Government Today Rights Crime Involved Court Civil Rights Guilty Genocide Conspiracy Expecting Citizenship Redress Wasting Your Time

Author:Malcolm X

“We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary. We don't feel that in 1964, living in a country that is supposedly based upon freedom, and supposedly the leader of the free world, we don't think that we should have to sit around and wait for some segregationist congressmen and senators and a President from Texas in Washington, D.C., to make up their minds that our people are due now some degree of civil rights. No, we want it now or we don't think anybody should have it.”

People Thinking World Want Feels Should Mind Mean Country Waiting President Justice Leader Rights Degrees Should Have Dues Civil Rights Texas Senators Congressman Free World

Book:By any means necessary

Source: By any means necessary

“We assert that in those areas where the government is either unable or unwilling to protect the lives and property of our people, that our peopie are within our rights to protect themselves by whatever means necessary.”

People Mean Government Rights Protect Areas Property Unwilling

Author:Malcolm X

“Men and women in my lifetime have died fighting for the right to vote: people like James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were murdered while registering black voters in Mississippi in 1964, and Viola Liuzzo, who was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in 1965 during the Selma march for voting rights.”

People Men Fighting Black Rights Men And Women Vote Died Lifetime Voting March Voters Mississippi Andrew Right To Vote Ku Klux Klan Viola Goodman

Author:Jeff Greenfield

“They kill people here who stand up for their rights The system's just too damned corrupt It's always the same, the name of the game Is who do you know higher up”

People Knows Games Names Rights Higher Do You Know

Author:Bob Dylan

“People say that if we work for the Single European Act, women will get their rights, the water will be purer, and training will be better. That is rubbish. It is part of the attempt to consolidate the EEC.”

People Ifs Water Rights Training Rubbish

Author:Tony Benn

“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.”

“That all power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority, without consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights, and ought not to be exercised.”

People Law Rights Ought Authority Execution Representatives Consent

Author:George Mason

“You know, I feel like people in this country who feel really strongly about a man and a woman being the only -- the sole sort of gatekeeper of marriage should also support people staying together. I mean, a lot of heterosexual couples don't stay together, and I think that's as upsetting as two people who are really committed and loving and have been monogamous for many years wanting to ... be married and have -- share some of the same rights that this country is so uniquely qualified to give people.”

“Millions like me in Russia want a free press, the rule of law, social justice, and free and fair elections. My new job is to fight for those people and to fight for these fundamental rights.”

People Want Jobs Law Fighting Social Justice Millions Rights Fairs Election Social Justice Fundamentals Presses Russia Like Me Rule Of Law New Job Free Press Fundamental Rights

Author:Garry Kasparov

“Privatization is a neoliberal and imperialist plan. Health can't be privatized because it is a fundamental human right, nor can education, water, electricity and other public services. They can't be surrendered to private capital that denies the people from their rights.”

People Humans Water Rights Plans Fundamentals Deny Electricity Public Service Privatization

Author:Hugo Chavez

“I do have things I would like to see adopted on behalf of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people: they include the right to marry the individual of our choice; the right to serve in the military to defend our country; and the right to a job based solely on our own qualifications. I acknowledge that this is an agenda, but I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people's rights to get married, join the army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.”

“We [The United States] believe the Iranian people want a future of freedom and human rights: the right to vote, to run for office, to express their views without fear and to pursue political causes. We would welcome the progress, prosperity and freedom of the Iranian people.”

People Want Believe Humans States Running Political Causes United Views United States Rights Progress Office Vote Human Rights Prosperity Pursue Welcome Iranian Right To Vote

Author:Condoleezza Rice

“It does so happen to be the case that if the freedom of the people of this country - and especially the rights of trade unionists - if those precious things in the past had been left to the good sense and fairmindedness of judges, we would have precious few freedoms in this country.”

People Ifs Doe Country Happens Past Left Cases Rights Judging Trade Good Sense Precious Things

Author:Michael Foot

“If you’re too stupid to understand that a philosophy that favors a federally structured republic, with numerous restraints on the scope and power of government to interfere with individual rights or the free market, is a lot different from an ethnic-nationalist, atheistic, and socialist program of genocide and international aggression, you should use this rule of thumb: If someone isn’t advocating the murder of millions of people in gas chambers and a global Reich for the White Man you shouldn’t assume he’s a Nazi and you should know it’s pretty damn evil to call him one.”

“When our founding fathers put their signatures on the Declaration of Independence, those 56 brave people, most of whom by the way were clergymen, they said that we had certain inalienable rights given to us by our creator, and among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, life being one of them. I still believe that.”

“Most libertarians agree that all rights are, in effect, property rights, beginning with this fundamental right to self-ownership and control of one's own life. As owners of their own lives, individuals are completely free to do absolutely anything they wish with them provided, of course, that it doesn't violate the identical right of others whether the people around them approve of what they do or not.”

People Self Courses Individual Wish Rights Effects Agree Fundamentals Property Libertarian Owners Ownership Identical Property Rights Self Ownership Ownership And Control

Author:L. Neil Smith

“Lawyers are like nuclear weapons. By all rights they shouldn't exist, but if some people have them, then you'd better have one, too, just in case.”

People Ifs Cases Rights Weapons Lawyer Nuclear Nuclear Weapons

Book:Sex, Death, and Fly-Fishing

Source: Sex, Death, and Fly-Fishing

“When we use the term pig, for example, we are referring to the people who systematically violate the peoples' constitutional rights - whether they be monopoly capitalists or police. The term is now being adopted by radicals, hippies, and minority peoples. Even the workers, when the pigs supported strike-breakers like they did as Union Oil where 100 local police came in a cracked strikers' heads, began to call them by their true name.”

“We are taking additional measures to ensure security and stability in Tal Afar and to restore its people's rights”

People Rights Security Stability Afar

Author:Ibrahim al-Jaafari

“Today, the people who would use guns to violate rights have little trouble getting them, while those who would use them to defend their rights have increasing trouble getting them. ... Gun control is in effect a subsidy for criminals.”

People Littles Use Today Rights Trouble Effects Gun Criminals Gun Control Subsidies

Author:Sheldon Richman

“In England, even the poorest of people believe that they have rights; that is very different from what satisfies the poor in other lands.”

People Believe Different Poor Rights Land England Poorest

Author:Simon Heffer

“Millions of people toil in the shadow of the law we make, and much of their livelihood is made possible by the existence of intellectual property rights.”

People Made Law Existence Millions Rights Intellectual Shadow Property Toil Property Rights Livelihood Intellectual Property Vibrancy

Author:Alex Kozinski

“For better or worse, we are the Court of Appeals for the Hollywood Circuit. Millions of people toil in the shadow of the law we make, and much of their livelihood is made possible by the existence of intellectual property rights. But much of their livelihood - and much of the vibrancy of our culture - also depends on the existence of other intangible rights: The right to draw ideas from a rich and varied public domain, and the right to mock, for profit as well as fun, the cultural icons of our time.”

“Quotas are a perfectly logical, if diabolical, extension of the regulation of private property courtesy of the Civil Rights Act, whereby in an attempt to shape American society in politically pleasing ways, people have been coerced into liking, hiring or renting against their will or better judgment.”

People Ifs Way Has Beens Rights Shapes Judgment Property Civil Rights Logical Regulation Extensions Courtesy Hiring Private Property American Society Diabolical Quota Civil Rights Act

Author:Ilana Mercer

“Rights give rise to legal claims. Ultimately, the more rights animals are granted, the greater the legal lien exercised on their behalf against the liberty and property of people.”

People Giving Animal Liberty Greater Rights Claims Property Granted Behalf

Author:Ilana Mercer

“The law, for all its failings, has a noble goal - to make the little bit of life that people can actually control more just. We can't end disease or natural disasters, but we can devise rules for our dealings with one another that fairly weigh the rights and needs of everyone, and which, therefore, reflect our best vision of ourselves.”

People Needs Littles Ends Law Bits Goal Natural Vision Rights Failing Disease Little Bit Noble Disaster Fairness Dealings Natural Disaster

Author:Scott Turow