Quotes About Rights

Natural rights are those which always appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the rights of others.

I believe all Americans are born with certain inalienable rights. As a child of God, I believe my rights are not derived from the constitution. My rights are not derived from any government. My rights are not denied by any majority. My rights are because I exist. They were given to me and each of my fellow citizens by our creator, and they represent the essence of human dignity.

Abortion is a states' rights issue. Education is a states' right issue. Medicinal marijuana is a states' rights issue. Gay marraige is a states' rights issue. Assisted suicide- like Terri Schiavo- is a states' rights issue. Come to think of it, almost every issue is a states' rights issue. Let's get the federal government out of our lives.

If we would have civilization and the exertion indispensable to its success, we must have property; if we have property, we must have its rights; if we have the rights of property, we must take those consequences of the rights of property which are inseparable from the rights themselves.

Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much room do individual rights leave for the state?

The essence of globalization is a subordination of human rights, of labor rights, consumer, environmental rights, democracy rights, to the imperatives of global trade and investment.

I'm trying to think of what happens if we take expulsion off the table for everyone, and instead think about the rights of those who have been expelled already, which would include the various rights of refugees who came to Israel in the aftermath of WWII, but also those from other countries, and what rights the Palestinians have who have been dispossessed of their lands and homes.

If a country doesn't recognize minority rights and human rights, including women's rights, you will not have the kind of stability and prosperity that is possible.

It is up to each and every one of us to raise our voice against crimes that deprive countless victims of their liberty, dignity and human rights. We have to work together to realize the equal rights promised to all by the United Nations Charter. And we must collectively give meaning to the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that "no one shall be held in slavery or servitude"

When the rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example for the poor to plunder the rich of his property, for the rights of the one are as much property to him as wealth is property to the other, and the little all is as dear as the much. It is only by setting out on just principles that men are trained to be just to each other; and it will always be found, that when the rich protect the rights of the poor, the poor will protect the property of the rich. But the guarantee, to be effectual, must be parliamentarily reciprocal.

Human rights are fundamental rights, they are the minimum, the very least we demand. Too often, they become the goal itself. What should be the minimum becomes the maximum - all we are supposed to expect - but human rights aren't enough. The goal is, and must always be, justice.

I have no use for "men's rights," any more than I have any use for "women's rights," but let us ask: Who was it that decided it was a good idea to politicize love, sex and marriage? Who spent the past four decades proclaiming that "the personal is political," so that every office flirtation and every petty domestic quarrel is a federal civil rights violation? The damned feminists, that's who.

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 theory of animal rights simply is not consistent with the theory of animal welfare... Animal rights means dramatic social changes for humans and non-humans alike; if our bourgeois values prevent us from accepting those changes, then we have no right to call ourselves advocates of animal rights.

Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.

[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.

There are rights that Hillary Clinton doesn't like. American people have too many rights. There's too much freedom. Government doesn't have enough rights, in her mind. Government's too limited. The Constitution limits the government way, way, way too much. "And I feel strongly that" - fake smile - "the Supreme Court needs to stand on the side of the American people." Not on the side of the powerful corporations and the wealthy.

There is no Constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong - deadly wrong - to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of States' rights or National rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.

The strongest statement ever made about women's rights appears on page one of the Bible. God's first words about his daughters established an indestructible foundation for women's rights because God anchored those rights in himself. By creating his daughters along with his sons in his image and likeness, God elevated every human being to the highest possible rank. Which means any mistreatment - verbal, emotional, or physical - of any woman or girl amounts to defacement of God himself, for she bears his image.

Ajamu Baraka comes out of the tradition of the African-American intellectuals, the people who really been standing up for African-American rights and economic rights and workers rights.

I support the rights of all people to practice their religious beliefs privately, but I oppose the idea of respecting religions. In truth, I have no respect for any religion. I believe religion is not compatible with human rights, women's rights, or freedom of expression.

The United States was founded on the idea that all people are endowed with inalienable rights, and that principle has allowed us to work to perfect our union at home while standing as a beacon of hope to the world. Today, that principle is embodied in agreements Americans helped forge - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions, and treaties against torture and genocide - and it unites us with people from every country and culture.

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

In opposing we always talk about freedom in the Western world, Muslims always talk about justice. Very often we mean the same thing. But what we do mean, what in the Western world we call human rights, in the Islamic world, they don't talk about rights. Now they do, but in the past they didn't. It wasn't part of their terminology. But really it's the same thing.

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.

The critique of social inequality, which is very much a part of my story, came about naturally from my recollection of Huck and Tom and the controversy surrounding [Mark] Twain's use of them and from my own passionate interest in civil rights, animal rights, and the right of Earth to survive humankind's reprehensible neglect of its stewardship.

What other nations call religious toleration, we call religious rights. They are not exercised in virtue of governmental indulgence, but as rights, of which government cannot deprive any portion of citizens, however small.

People are dreaming if they think they have rights. They've never had rights. There's no such thing.

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.

I think a decent society should protect rights to private property within limits, but not concentrations of private power that infringe on the freedom and rights of others, including exploitation of labor, and that convert any democratic forms into what have been called sometimes "hierarchical democracies," like ours, in which some have vastly greater influence over public policy than others. Spelling all of this out is a complex matter that raises many issue and problems that are impossible to address here.

Justice needs money; it always has . . . whether for abolition of slavery and early women's rights movements or the civil rights and environmental drives of our generation.

It used to be that your rights were infringed upon if the government punished or threatened you for expressing your sincerest beliefs. Now, your rights are infringed upon if you want something but someone refuses to buy it for you.

This moon man right here stands for a lot more. This is the most important record out of all of them. Gay rights are human rights, there is no separation.

I want a Supreme Court that understands because you're wealthy and you can give more money to something doesn't mean you have any more rights or should have any more rights than anybody else.

The stark and tragic images of human suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina have reminded us yet again that civil rights and equal rights are still the great unfinished business of America. The suffering has been disproportionately borne by the weak, the poor, the elderly and infirm, and largely African-Americans, who were forced by poverty, illness, unequal opportunity to stay behind and bear the brunt of the storm's winds and floods. I believe that kind of disparate impact is morally wrong in this, the richest country in the world.

I want to take human rights out of their box. I want to show the relevance of the universal principles of human rights to the basic needs of health, security, education and equality.

The sceptic ultimately undermines democracy (1) because he can see no significance in death and such things of a literal equality; (2) because he introduces different first principles, making debate impossible: and debate is the life of democracy; (3) because the fading of the images of sacred persons leaves a man too prone to be a respecter of earthly persons; (4) because there will be more, not less, respect for human rights if they can be treated as divine rights.

The idea of "human rights," for example - sometimes it bothers me. Not in itself, but because the concept of human rights has replaced the much grander idea of justice.

The war on drugs to me is absolutely phoney, its so obviously phoney, ok? It's a war against our civil rights, that's all it is. They're using it to make us afraid to go out at night, afraid of each other, so that we lock ourselves in our homes and they get suspending our rights one by one.

I didn't have song rights for the first video because I didn't know that it was going to do what it did. So for the second video, I decided better safe than sorry. It is a really gray area as to whether or not you even need song rights to make a video like that.

I am persuaded that the rights of woman, like the rights of slaves, need only be examined to be understood and asserted.

I think fundamentally, the real power behind the anti-choice movement in regard to abortion and the opposition to the rights of LGBT Americans is fundamentally religious. I know that there are people who are secularists who have problems with the rights of gay people and problems with reproductive choice, but frankly those people are few in number.

When people denounced [former Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad for rejecting and criminalizing homosexuality, it should be remembered that was true of the United States until very recently. Women's rights were unheard of. Civil rights proponents were horribly treated, not just in the South. It was awful there, but pretty bad here. Environmental issues did not exist. Opposition to aggression was virtually zero. In fact, so little, that to this day, even scholarship mentions the Vietnam War as beginning in 1965.

When the United States stands up for human rights, by example at home and by effort abroad, we align ourselves with men and women around the world who struggle for the right to speak their minds, to choose their leaders, and to be treated with dignity and respect. We also strengthen our security and well being, because the abuse of human rights can feed many of the global dangers that we confront - from armed conflict and humanitarian crises, to corruption and the spread of ideologies that promote hatred and violence.

If you're patriotic, stand up for the Bill of Rights because once they strip your rights from you, you will pay hell to get them back. You will and we're in the process of it right now.

But, although America cannot be justly charged with violating the rights of Turkey, Turkey nevertheless can be justly charged with violating the rights of America.

We've placed a lot of emphasis in this country on the idea of people's rights. That's how it should be, but it makes no sense to talk about rights without also talking about responsibilities.

No guarantees come with children's liberation. But neither the promise of great benefits to all nor the prediction of great difficulties ahead can serve as the reason for granting or denying rights to children. Rights will be granted because without them children are incapacitated, oppressed, and abused.