Famous Quotes & Sayings

Haruki Murakami

Of course you got rights, the law's on your side, but sometimes the law takes a long time to kick in and so it gets put in the hands of us poor suckers on duty. You get my drift?

Hans Rosling

My interest is not data, it's the world. And part of world development you can see in numbers. Others, like human rights, empowerment of women, it's very difficult to measure in numbers.

Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa

Democracy is not just constitutional and legislative rules; it is a culture and practice and adhering by the law and respecting international human rights principles.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights.

John Bruton

The E.U. is more than just a trade organization or a common market; it is a guarantee of democracy, freedom, justice, and human rights. Nations cannot stay in the E.U. if they do not respect these guarantees.

Luis Gutierrez

The next step has to be the necessary step. It's always to put the immigrant community and the civil rights movement ahead of partisan politics.

John Charles Polanyi

Today, Academies of Science use their influence around the world in support of human rights.

Mark Skousen

In a free society, individuals have the right to do right or wrong, as long as they don't threaten or infringe upon the rights or property of others.

Judith Butler

Obama's failure to close Guantanamo is yet another instance where the rhetoric of democratic and constitutional rights proved not useful for his international relations, relations which are always pursued in ways that continue to link and fortify securitarian power with the opening of new markets.

Gerald R. Ford

The Declaration [of Independence] was not a protest against government, but against the excess of government. It prescribed the proper role of government, to secure the rights of individuals and to effect their safety and happiness. In modern society, no individual can do this alone. So government is not a necessary evil but a necessary good.

Jim DeMint

Today is a celebration of hope for the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people can now take control of their government and their future by creating a society that protects the rights endowed to us by our creator - life, liberty and freedom.

Glenn Beck

What we don't have a right to is healthcare, housing, or handouts. We don't have those rights.

Glenn Beck

You cannot take away freedom to protect it, you cannot destroy the free market to save it, and you cannot uphold freedom of speech by silencing those with whom you disagree. To take rights away to defend them or to spend your way out of debt defies common sense.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Without authority there is no liberty. Freedom is doomed to destruction at every turn, unless there is a recognized right to freedom. And if there are rights, there is an authority to which we appeal for them.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

I would give a woman not more rights, but more privileges. Instead of sending her to seek such freedom as notoriously prevails in banks and factories, I would design specially a house in which she can be free.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

I defy anybody to say what are the rights of a citizen, if they do not include the control of his own diet in relation to his own health.

Patrick Leahy

This is a time when the protections of Americans' liberties are directly at risk, as are the checks and balances that have served to constrain abuses of power for more than 200 years. The Supreme Court is relied upon by all of to us protect our fundamental rights.

Patrick Leahy

The rights of copyright holders need to be protected, but some draconian remedies that have been suggested would create more problems than they would solve.

Patrick Henry

It is when a people forget God, that tyrants forge their chains.

Joseph Sobran

The Second Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, was meant to inhibit only the federal government, not the states. The framers, as The Federalist Papers attest (see No. 28), saw the state militias as forces that might be summoned into action against the federal government itself, if it became tyrannical.

Paul Robeson

Whether I am or am not a Communist is irrelevant. The question is whether American citizens, regardless of their political beliefs or sympathies, may enjoy their constitutional rights.

Patricia Arquette

Women have more rights, and women do have their own power in the world.

Pasquier Quesnel

Zeal is very blind, or badly regulated, when it encroaches upon the rights of others.

Leopoldo Lopez

We must not allow the practices of an anti-democratic State that abuses the powers of government to violate the human rights of Venezuelans.

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.

Nawal El Saadawi

What we require is not a formal return to tradition and religion, but a rereading, a reinterpretation, of our history that can illuminate the present and pave the way to a better future. For example, if we delve more deeply into ancient Egyptian and African civilisations we will discover the humanistic elements that were prevalent in many areas of life. Women enjoyed a high status and rights, which they later lost when class patriarchal society became the prevalent social system.

Mikhail Bakunin

The right to unite freely and to separate freely is the first and most important of all political rights.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

President Lyndon Johnson's high spirits were marked as he circulated among the many guests whom he had invited to witness an event he confidently felt to be historic, the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.... The bill that lay on the polished mahogany desk was born in violence in Selma, Alabama, where a stubborn sheriff... had stumbled against the future.

Mark Udall

Ranchers need clean water for their stock, farmers need it for their crops, every employer needs it to stay in business, and every living thing needs it for life... The law needs to be clear to protect water quality and the rights of landowners.

Nicholas D. Kristof

In general, talking about human rights tends to be very persuasive for people who care about human rights.

Nathanael Greene

I am determined to defend my rights and maintain my freedom or sell my life in the attempt.

Nathan Myhrvold

If people don't get paid for their inventions, that's not a good thing. In the case of many patents, there are people who aren't in a position to take them to the next level. If you don't enforce your rights, no one is going to enforce them for you.