Famous Quotes & Sayings

Learned Hand

It is still in the lap of the gods whether a society can succeed which is based on "civil liberties and human rights" conceived as I have tried to describe them; but of one thing at least we may be sure: the alternatives that have so far appeared have been immeasurably worse.

Laurence Tribe

[The Bill of Rights is] designed to protect individuals and minorities against the tyranny of the majority, but it's also designed to protect the people against bureaucracy, against the government.

Larry Sabato

The Constitution remains brilliant in its overall design and sound with respect to the Bill of Rights and the separation of powers. But there are numerous archaic provisions that inhibit constructive change and adaptation. These constitutional bits affect the daily life of the republic and every citizen in it.

L. Neil Smith

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.

L. Neil Smith

The Bill of Rights isn't about us, it's about them . It isn't a list of things we're permitted to do, it's a list of things they aren't allowed even to consider.

L. Neil Smith

Like the government, corporations must be bound with the chains of the Constitution, and especially of the Bill of Rights.

L. Neil Smith

We're most likely to lose our rights when we allow ourselves to be persuaded to deprive others of theirs.

P. J. O'Rourke

Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are, like God's infinite mercy, a last resort.

Ismail Haniyeh

The answer is to let Israel say it will recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, release the prisoners, and recognize the rights of the refugees to return to Palestine. Hamas will have a position if this occurs.

Gloria Steinem

The androcentric, patriarchal cultures, whatever you want to call it, are quite new. So, every economic statement should start with reproduction, not production. Every statement for human rights ought to include reproduction as a basic human right, like freedom of speech.

Gioconda Belli

Peace is the respect for the rights of the other person.

Harry S Truman

I have little patience with people who take the Bill of Rights for granted. The Bill of Rights, contained in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, is every American's guarantee of freedom.

Kate Chopin

She's got some sort of notion in her head concerning the eternal rights of women.

Julian Bond

Unlike mainstream civil rights groups, which merely sought integration of blacks into the existing order, SNCC sought structural changes in American society itself,

Julian Bond

The humanity of all Americans is diminished when any group is denied rights granted to others.

Mona Simpson

The more you learn about animals and animal rights - it's an intriguing, fascinating world.

Michael Douglas

Human Rights for everyone is the necessary foundation upon which all of us may build a world where everybody may live in peace and serenity and plenty.

Michael Badnarik

If someone kills you, they will deprive you of life, but they can never deprive you of your right to life.

Michael Badnarik

Communities don't have rights. Only individuals in the community have rights.

Ravi Zacharias

We cannot discuss human rights, when we are denying people the right to live.

Ravi Zacharias

We talk so much about one's rights... so little about what is actually right.

Ramsey Clark

A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you.

Rand Paul

No Republican questions or disputes civil rights. I have never wavered in my support for civil rights or the civil rights act.

Rand Paul

Let me be clear: I support the Civil Rights Act because I overwhelmingly agree with the intent of the legislation, which was to stop discrimination in the public sphere and halt the abhorrent practice of segregation and Jim Crow laws.

Rand Paul

Well, there’s 10 — there’s 10 different — there’s 10 different titles, you know, to the Civil Rights Act, and nine out of 10 deal with public institutions and I’m absolutely in favor of. One deals with private institutions, and had I been around, I would have tried to modify that.

Rand Paul

The callous use of general warrants and the disregard for the Bill of Rights must end. Forcing us to choose between our rights and our safety is a false choice and we are better than that as a nation and as a people.

Rand Paul

I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court,

Ralph Nader

The Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights... have pressured retailers on campus and off to publicly disclose the factory names and addresses.

Ralph Nader

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.

Ralph Bunche

The United Nations exists not merely to preserve the peace but also to make change - even radical change - possible without violent upheaval. The United Nations has no vested interest in the status quo. It seeks a more secure world, a better world, a world of progress for all peoples. In the dynamic world society which is the objective of the United Nations, all peoples must have equality and equal rights.

Everything African-Americans - every freedom they have obtained - came from Republicans, not Democrats. All the way back to the Emancipation Proclamation, to the Civil Rights movement. Civil Rights legislation was passed by a Republican Congress.

Shane Claiborne

There is an innocence or purity that we see in renewals and in the Mennonite church and a new an invigorated civil rights movement.

Michelle Moran

There are natural and imprescriptible rights which an entire nation has no right to violate. —MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE