Magna Carta Quotes

• The Bible has been the Magna Charta of the poor and of the oppressed.

  Thomas Huxley

  Poor, Has Beens, Oppressed

  "The Essence of T. H. Huxley: Selections Form His Writings".

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• Here is a law which is above the King and which even he must not break. This reaffirmation of a supreme law and its expression in a general charter is the great work of Magna Carta; and this alone justifies the respect in which men have held it

  Winston Churchill

  Kings, Men, Expression

  Sir Winston Churchill, Timothy Baker (1968). “The island race”

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• [Magna Carta provided] "a system of checks and balances which would accord the monarchy its necessary strength, but would prevent its perversion by a tyrant or a fool.

  Winston Churchill

  Tyrants, Balance, Fool

  Randolph Spencer Churchill, Winston Churchill, Martin Gilbert (1983). “Winston S. Churchill: Companion Vol. V, Part Three, the Coming of War 1936-1939”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

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• We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.

  Winston Churchill

  Men, Rights, Expression

  The Sinews of Peace, delivered 5 March 1946 Westminster College, Fulton Missouri

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• The Magna Carta is an early reminder of the crucial difference between freedom and liberty. Liberty is freedom that is unique to humans, it is guaranteed by law. All animals are free, but in a system of humans total freedom is anarchy. Humans have thrived by letting a dominant authority regulate freedom. Liberty is a freedom that the authority has granted or has been persuaded to grant. For centuries, the state and the people have negotiated, peacefully and violently.

  Manu Joseph

  Animal, Unique, Law

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• The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history. It is human history.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Phases, Aspiration, Democratic

  Franklin D. Roosevelt (1995). “The Essential Franklin Delano Roosevelt”, Gramercy

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• This [Magna Carta] has been forced from the King. It constitutes an insult to the Holy See, a serious weakening of the royal power, a disgrace to the English nation, a danger to all Christendom, since this civil war obstructs the crusade. Therefore?we condemn the charter and forbid the King to keep it, or the barons and their supporters to make him do so, on pain of excommunication.

  Pope Innocent III

  Kings, Pain, War

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• I do think that Magna Carta and international law are worth paying some attention to.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Law, Attention

  Noam Chomsky (2013). “Power Systems: Conversations with David Barsamian on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire”, p.46, Penguin UK

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• "Magna Carta is the Law: Let the King look out." So it has always been with tyrants among our own people: when the King was tyrant, let him look out. And it has always been the same, and will be the same, whether the tyrant be the Barons, whether the tyrant be the Church, whether he be demagogue or dictator - let them look out.

  Stanley Baldwin

  Kings, Law, Tyrants

  Speech at Westminster Hall on July 04, 1935. "This Torch of Freedom: Speeches and Addresses". Book by Stanley Baldwin, p. 4, 1935.

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• All art is based on nonconformity ... Without nonconformity we would have had no Bill of Rights or Magna Carta, no public education system, no nation upon this continent, no continent, no science at all, no philosophy, and considerably fewer religions.

  Ben Shahn

  Art, Philosophy, Rights

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• 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.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Country, Men, Rights

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• When John Adams - when - James Madison was writing - pretty much writing the Constitution, he got a letter from Thomas Jefferson, who was then-ambassador to France. And Jefferson said - I am paraphrasing - `Do not forget to keep habeas corpus and strengthen it.' That - in - that's the oldest English-speaking right. It goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215.

  Nat Hentoff

  Writing, Letters, Ambassadors

  Source: thedailyhatch.org

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• Terrorists in 6 weeks have been able to command 300 million North Americans to do away with the entirety of their civil liberties that took 700 years to advance from the Magna Carta onward. The terrorists have already won the political and ideological war with one terrorist act. It is mindboggling that we are that weak as a society.

  Rocco Galati

  War, Years, Political

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• The liberty of the press, trial by jury, the Habeas Corpus Writ, even Magna Carta itself, although justly deemed the paladia of freedom, are all inferior considerations, when compared with the general distribution of real property among every class of people.

  Noah Webster

  Wisdom, Real, Class

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• Magna carta. Master charga.

  Michael Keaton

  Money, Masters

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• I'm not a politician, and I do not think I am as effective in this way as people who actually prepare for it - is to focus on technical reform, because I speak the language of technology. I spoke with Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who invented the World Wide Web. We agree on the necessity for this generation to create what he calls the Magna Carta for the Internet. We want to say what "digital rights" should be. What values should we be protecting, and how do we assert them.

  Edward Snowden

  Technology, Thinking, Rights

  Source: www.thenation.com

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• The argument now that the spread of pop culture and consumer goods around the world represents the triumph of Western civilization trivializes Western culture. The essence of Western civilization is the Magna Carta, not the Magna Mac. The fact that non-Westerners may bite into the latter has no implications for their accepting the former.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Essence, Civilization, Culture

  Samuel P. Huntington (1997). “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”, p.58, Penguin Books India

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