Quotes About Rights

So what's the difference between republican and democratic forms of government? John Adams captured the essence of the difference when he said, 'You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.' Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights.

Measure her rights and duties by the unerring standard of moral being… and then the truth will be self-evident, that whatever it is morally right for a man to do, it is morally right for a woman to do. I recognize no rights but human rights – I know nothing of men’s rights and women’s rights; for in Christ Jesus, there is neither male nor female. It is my solemn conviction, that, until this principle of equality is recognised and embodied in practice, the Church can do nothing effectual for the permanent reformation of the world.

Human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely - and the right to be heard.

The Declaration of Independence was to set forth the moral justification of a rebellion against a long-recognized political tradition - the divine right of kings. At issue was the fundamental question of whether men's rights were God-given or whether these rights were to be dispensed by governments to their subjects. This document proclaimed that all men have certain inalienable rights. In other words, these rights came from God.

In this dilemma they evolved the theory of natural rights. If 'natural rights' means anything it means that the individual rights are to be determined by the conduct of Nature. But Nature knows nothing about rights in the sense of human conception.

In America, I think we just keep adding, and that's our problem. We almost never subtract. We keep adding these boondoggles, and these violations of the basic principles of equal rights - certain people have more rights than others - it's like "Animal Farm." The pig says that we all have equal rights, but some have more rights than others.

When we speak of the origin of western democracy it's precisely here, in this territory that the modern definition of democracy first emerged in city/states known now as Greece. This was coming from a society in which 30 thousand citizens had rights and 300 thousand were slaves and citizens without rights that lived in this territory. So that was the concept of western democracy; some citizens had the prerogative of exerting their civil and political rights while the others had none.

Civil rights are civil rights. There are no persons who are not entitled to their civil rights... We have to recognize that we have a long way to go, but we have to go that way together.

In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property.

All people here have political rights, social rights, rights to employment, and no one should face discrimination, but our strategic choice is for traditional families, healthy families and a healthy nation. One does not exclude the other and does not hinder the other. I think this is a balanced approach and is entirely the right approach.

The very purpose of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is to protect minority rights against majority voters. Every court decision that strikes down discriminatory legislation, including past Supreme Court decisions, affirming the fundamental rights to marry the person you love, overrules a majority decision.

From my admittedly cranky perspective, Bush/Cheney are lousy on the Bill of Rights, Clinton/Gore were lousy on the Bill of Rights, and everyone within bribing distance of the 2008 election (Hillary, McCain, Giuliani) are lousy on the Bill of Rights, too.

Rights are not gifts from one man to another, nor from one class of men to another. It is impossible to discover any origin of rights otherwise than in the origin of man; it consequently follows that rights appertain to man in right of his existence, and must therefore be equal to every man.

I went to my library, right? And I started to research the Bill of Rights and I did not technically find anything that said all Americans shall eat shrimp with whoever they like. But, I found some things that are close enough to infer that I am within my legal rights to enjoy seafood with whomever I choose.

If we are not able to bring the churches, the synagogues, [and] the mosques around to the animal rights view, we will never make large-scale progress for animal rights in the United States.

The Declaration of Independence . . . [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.

I don't mind it if blacks want equal rights, as long as they mean rights equal to a dog

Animal rights is a part of my everyday life. When you live by example, you create a certain level of awareness. Friends of mine - people I have never discussed animal rights or vegetarianism with - are adopting vegetarian habits because they see it.

No country has a perfect report card. While some countries have strong points in specific areas, they may have serious lacunae in other areas. For instance, some countries have made enormous progress on civil and political rights, but lag in the implementation of economic, social and cultural rights.

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.

The 1970s was the decade of liberation, of anger at injustice and demands for recognition and rights. But over time, the demand for specific rights degraded into a generalized sense of entitlement, the demand for specific recognition into a generalized demand for attention and the anger at specific injustice into a generalized feeling of grievance and resentment. The result is a culture of entitlement, attention-seeking and complaint.

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.

One of the grandest things in having rights is, that though they are your rights you may give them up

Terrorists and their allies believe the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Bill of Rights and every charter of liberty ever written are lies to be burned and destroyed and forgotten.

In giving rights to others which belong to them, we give rights to ourselves and to our country

We stand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind. This declaration may well become the international Magna Carta for all men everywhere. We hope its proclamation by the General Assembly will be an event comparable to the proclamation in 1789 [of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man], the adoption of the Bill of Rights by the people of the U.S., and the adoption of comparable declarations at different times in other countries.

I don't know if the unborn has rights, but I do know that being born again doesn't give you more rights.

My own experience has taught me not to underestimate the power of those who protest against cruelty. I'd also say that there may be a tendency to view the animal-rights opposition in somewhat distorted fashion as a new development, as the product of a very recent enlightenment about the rights due to animals.

The legal system is designed to protect men from the superior power of the state but not to protect women or children from the superior power of men. It therefore provides strong guarantees for the rights of the accused but essentially no guarantees for the rights of the victim. If one set out by design to devise a system for provoking intrusive post-traumatic symptoms, one could not do better than a court of law.

The intensive and concerted effort to exclude references to religion or God from public places is an attack on our founding principles. It's an attempt to bolster a growing reliance on the government--especially the judiciary--as the source of our rights. But if our rights are not unalienable, if they don't come from a source higher than ourselves, then they're malleable at the will of the state. This is a prescription for tyranny.

This is the gay agenda: equality. Not special rights, but the rights that are already written by [our Founding Fathers].

Because finally, 'the equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his religion according to the dictates of conscience' is held by the same tenure with all his other rights. If we recur to its origin, it is equally the gift of nature; if we weigh its importance, it cannot be less dear to us; if we consider the 'Declaration of those rights which pertain to the good people of Virginia, as the basis and foundation of government,' it is enumerated with equal solemnity, or rather studied emphasis.

The situation of the Salvadorian people is terrible; all their rights are violated. There is a direct violation against the human person, a violation of rights that is endemic in society.

There's a dilemma over how to balance concrete economic interests with critical opinions on the state of human rights. It's the human rights that suffer, and that's a great price to pay.

The basic problem affecting the Pakistan today is human rights. Islamic fundamentalists have no roots among the common people and while they are pushing hard for religious fundamentalists to take hold, the common people still seek change through humanitarian and common human rights law.

The gay rights movement of recent years has been an inspiring victory for humanity and it is in the tradition of the civil rights movement when I was a young boy in the South, the women's suffrage movement when my mother was a young woman in Tennessee, the abolition movement much farther back, and the anti-apartheid movement when I was in the House of Representatives. All of these movements have one thing in common: the opposition to progress was rooted in an outdated understanding of morality.

This freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society, setting us apart. Like the right of assembly and the right of association, it often makes all other rights meaningful-knowing, studying, arguing, exploring, conversing, observing and even thinking. Once the right to travel is curtailed, all other rights suffer, just as when curfew or home detention is placed on a person.

I think that the most effective social protest that any artist can do would be things that come naturally and feel obvious. I think the Resist movement will continue among people who believe in science, who believe in rights for women, who believe in civil rights.

I care deeply about women's rights. I have been an outspoken advocate for them for many years and as secretary of state I carried that message around the world because empowering women, providing for women's rights, their full participation in society, politics, the economy is not only a matter of individuals being able to chart their own futures. It's good for democracy and it's good for peace and prosperity.

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less

I want to take my American friends back to the end of World War II, when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was formulated. A group of thinkers met to come up with ways and means to prevent yet another war. Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt played a crucial role in assembling this group of people. And that is why the name of the United States is synonymous with the cause of human rights around the world.

A free society is a society in which all traditions have equal rights and equal access to the centers of power. A tradition receives these rights not because the importance the cash value, as it were) it has for outsiders but because it gives meaning to the lives of those who participate in it.

The Saudi, Arabian ruling class, for example, have rights because they are performing a service for Western power, ensuring that oil profits go to the West and not to the regional population. The local gendarmes like Israel, Turkey and so on have rights, at least in their ruling groups. Others do not.

We believe in traditional values because without them, without the belief in an all-powerful God, then the very founding of our country was meaningless. It was founded on the principles that our rights come from God. If there is no God, then where do your rights come from other than what your leaders decide they are?

Given the National Organization for Women's membership and proclivities, it's no wonder that people now view the NOW gang as being obsessed with only two issues: abortion rights and lesbian rights.

Through electing officials that will protect the Constitution and commit themselves to the rights of the people and the health of the nation, we will be able to ensure that no group of ideologues and no private sector institution can coopt our rights, take us into senseless wars and steal the nation from its people.

Democracy is based on the majority principle. This is especially true in a country such as ours where the vast majority have been systematically denied their rights. At the same time, democracy also requires that the rights of political and other minorities be safeguarded.

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.