Famous Quotes & Sayings

Robert Frost

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.

Thomas Paine

The Bill of Rights should contain the general principles of natural and civil liberty. It should be to a community what the eternal laws and obligations of morality are to the conscience. It should be unalterable by any human power ...

Thomas Paine

The right of voting for representatives , is the primary right by which other rights are protected.

Thomas Hutchinson

[The] prevailing reason at this time is, that the Act of Parliament is against the Magna Charta, and the natural rights of Englishmen, and therefore, according to Lord Coke, null and void.

Samantha Power

In the '90s, there was scant presidential leadership and insufficient domestic political mobilization for foreign policy grounded in human rights.

Rupert Friend

Until civil rights are enjoyed by all of us, we're simply not civilized.

Tom G. Palmer

What libertarians assert is simply that differences among normal adults do not imply different fundamental rights.

Tommy Shaw

When you sign with a label, they do insist upon certain rights, and if you have a competent attorney, your rights will be protected.

Stephanie Cutter

This is nothing new. We saw this with the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Right Act - constitutional challenges were brought to all three of these monumental pieces of legislation.

Vaclav Havel

The only salvation of the world today... is the rapid dissemination of the basic values of the West, that is, the ideas of democracy, human rights, the civil society, and the free market.

Vaclav Havel

It was never the people who complained of the universality of human rights, nor did the people consider human rights as a Western or Northern imposition. It was often their leaders who did so.

Vaclav Havel

Human rights are universal and indivisible. Human freedom is also indivisible: if it is denied to anyone in the world, it is therefore denied, indirectly, to all people. This is why we cannot remain silent in the face of evil or violence; silence merely encourages them.

Susana Martinez

We call on the Senate to reject any judicial nominee who does not affirm fundamental civil rights, including a woman's right [to obtain an abortion on demand]. The threat an [pro-life] judiciary poses to women's lives demands nothing less.

Taslima Nasrin

I have lectured at the U.N. and travelled widely, giving lectures on human rights and gender inequalities in universities. But this is a life I do not wish to live. I don't want to be a showcase, I want to be in a battlefield where I can stand beside the oppressed and the poor.

Tariq Ramadan

Many times I have asked Muslim women not to nurture the victim mentality. stand up for your rights

Steven Pinker

The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.

Susan L. Taylor

Everything hinges on education. Without it, you can't advocate for proper health care, for housing, for a civil rights bill that ensures your rights.

Richard Stallman

All governments should be pressured to correct their abuses of human rights.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Paramount is the need to secure human rights. The form of rule should be such that the citizen does not have to fear the State, but gives it direction and confidently participates in its administration.

Sammy Davis, Jr.

The civil rights movement wasn't easy for anybody.

Samuel Alito

Under the president's spying program, there are no checks and balances. There is no outside review of the legality of this brazen infringement on the civil rights and liberties of the American people. Undeterred by the public outcry, the president [George Bush] vows to continue spying on American citizens.

Samuel Adams

But there are some persons who wouldpersuade the people never to make use of their constitutional rights.

Tariq Ramadan

Compelling a woman to wear a headscarf is against Islam, and compelling her to remove it is against human rights.

Now is the time to take up the cause of the advancement of human rights for all and the moment is yours to grasp.

Reinhold Niebuhr

While it is possible for intelligence to increase the range of benevolent impulse, and thus prompt a human being to consider the needs and rights of other than those to whom he is bound by organic and physical relationship, there are definite limits in the capacity of ordinary mortals which makes it impossible for them to grant to others what they claim for themselves.

Rebecca Solnit

Violence always seems to me the worst form of tyranny. It deprives people of their rights, including the right to live.

Stuart Wilde

One day we'll have a system that includes the rights of the people to make money and keep it, rather than a system where you can vote for the fox or the wolf, but there's no little box that endorses the chickens. Our time will come, you can be sure of that.

Stjepan Mesic

The global response to global terrorism must not endanger fundamental human rights and freedoms.

Sonia Johnson

Women have to risk civil disobedience for their rights.

Rutherford B. Hayes

My judgment is that neither House of Congress, nor both combined, have any right to interfere in the count. It is for the Vice-President to do it all.... There should be no compromise of our Constitutional rights.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

A prime part of the history of our Constitution is the story of the extension of constitutional rights to people once ignored or excluded.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Women's rights are an essential part of the overall human rights agenda, trained on the equal dignity and ability to live in freedom all people should enjoy.

Roger Tory Peterson

The other creatures with which we share this world have their rights too, but not speaking our language, they have no voice, no vote; it is our moral duty to take care of them.