Rights Quotes - Page 2

• Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person...Withou t concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Home, Progress, Citizens

  Remarks at presentation of booklet on human rights, In Your Hands, to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, United Nations, New York, March 27, 1958.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• No single person, including the President of the United States, should ever be given the power to make a medical decision for potentially millions of Americans. Freedom over one's physical person is the most basic freedom of all, and people in a free society should be sovereign over their own bodies. When we give government the power to make medical decisions for us, we in essence accept that the state owns our bodies.

  Ron Paul

  Freedom, Acceptance, Government

  84 Copy quote

• If women took up arms to defend their reproductive rights, the GOP would ban assault rifles yesterday.

  Steve Marmel

  Gun, Yesterday, Rifles

  7 Copy quote

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

  Robert Frost

  Political, Icy, Libertarian

  96 Copy quote

• The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with.

  Eleanor Holmes Norton

  Peace, Ubuntu, People

  66 Copy quote

• Maybe this is crazy, but I think the right to own a gun is trumped by the right not to be shot by one.

  Andy Borowitz

  Funny, Crazy, Gun

  FaceBook post by Andy Borowitz from Dec 18, 2012

  65 Copy quote

  Show source

• The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.

  Albert Gallatin

  Gun, People, Second Amendment

  61 Copy quote

• Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion. -quoting John Locke's argument.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Argument, Pagan, Quoting

  11 Copy quote

• If we destroy human rights and rule of law in response to terrorism, they have won.

  Joichi Ito

  Law, Terrorism, Terrorist

  55 Copy quote

• Gay rights are human rights.

  Hillary Clinton

  Gay, Humans, Gay Rights

  International Human Rights Day Address at Palais des Nations, delivered 6 December 2011, Geneva, Switzerland

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm not an activist; I don't look for controversy. I'm not a political person, but I'm a person with compassion. I care passionately about equal rights. I care about human rights. I care about animal rights.

  Ellen DeGeneres

  Compassion, Animal, Political

  "Ellen DeGeneres: Nice Girls Finish First". Interview with David Hochman, www.goodhousekeeping.com. September 10, 2011.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Home, Community, Dignity

  Eleanor Roosevelt, Allida Mae Black (2013). “Courage in a Dangerous World: The Political Writings of Eleanor Roosevelt”, p.190, Columbia University Press

  88 Copy quote

  Show source

• Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.

  Jimmy Carter

  Inspirational, Motivational, Soul

  "Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, 1978, Book 1: January 1 to June 30, 1978". Book by Jimmy Carter, 1979.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism, are all too frequently those who . . . ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism-the right to criticize, the right to hold unpopular beliefs, the right to protest, the right of independent thought.

  Margaret Chase Smith

  Independent, America, Freedom Of Speech

  Margaret Chase Smith (1972). “Declaration of conscience”

  117 Copy quote

  Show source

• All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Dignity, Born Free, Equal

  Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Steve Neal (2002). “Eleanor and Harry: The Correspondence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman”, p.277, Simon and Schuster

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Positive, Philosophical, Compassion

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2016). “101 Facts of life”, p.8, Publishdrive

  104 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample underfoot.

  Horace Greeley

  Men, Feet, Inferiors

  36 Copy quote

• At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.

  Anthony Kennedy

  Life, Freedom, Heart

  "Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833". A joint opinion coauthored with Justices Souter and O'Connor, caselaw.findlaw.com. 1992.

  74 Copy quote

  Show source

• The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  War, Government, Historical

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.116, Rowman & Littlefield

  65 Copy quote

  Show source

• Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth.

  Liu Xiaobo

  Mother, Truth, Freedom

  "Liu Xiaobo: 'No Enemies, No Hatred,' Only Courage". Statement prepared for court, www.npr.org. February 16, 2012.

  143 Copy quote

  Show source

• We discovered that peace at any price is no peace at all. We discovered that life at any price has no value whatever; that life is nothing without the privileges, the prides, the rights, the joys which make it worth living, and also worth giving. And we also discovered that there is something more hideous, more atrocious than war or than death; and that is to live in fear.

  Eve Curie

  Fear, War, Pride

  22 Copy quote

• When it comes to the common rights and needs of men and women, there is no clash of civilizations. The requirements of freedom apply fully to Africa and Latin America and the entire Islamic world. The peoples of the Islamic nations want and deserve the same freedoms and opportunities as people in every nation. And their governments should listen to their hopes.

  George W. Bush

  Latin, Inspiration, Islamic

  Transcript of President Bush's commencement address at the United States Military Academy at West Point, www.nytimes.com. June 1, 2002.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• For too long the development debate has ignored the fact that poverty tends to be characterized not only by material insufficiency but also by denial of rights. What is needed is a rights-based approach to development. Ensuring essential political, economic and social entitlements and human dignity for all people provides the rationale for policy. These are not a luxury affordable only to the rich and powerful but an indispensable component of national development efforts.

  Kofi Annan

  Powerful, Luxury, Long

  9 Copy quote

• What we want to see is the development of human rights and greater democracy, not just because it is our system but because we think that's the best way that economic and political development go hand in hand.

  Tony Blair

  Thinking, Hands, Political

  9 Copy quote

• The human rights we are to discuss here at Vienna are . . . the quintessential values through which we affirm together that we are a single human community.

  Radhika Coomaraswamy

  Community, Together, Vienna

  8 Copy quote