Basic Rights Quotes

• Religious freedom doesn't mean you can force others to live by your own beliefs

  Barack Obama

  Religious, Mean, Belief

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• Everyone has a right to peaceful coexistence, the basic personal freedoms, the alleviation of suffering, and the opportunity to lead a productive life.

  Jimmy Carter

  Peace, Freedom, Opportunity

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• Fear is not the natural state of civilized people.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Fear, People, Basic Human Rights

  Aung San Suu Kyi (1991). “Freedom from fear: and other writings”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• Look, you are interested in trying to make sure that governments keep a clean environment, have regard for the lifestyles of indigenous peoples, and work for fair trade rules. Well, it's exactly the same for human rights - from non-discrimination to the basic rights to food, safe water, education and health care. We are talking rights not needs. There are standards that governments have signed up to - but nobody is holding them to account.

  Mary Robinson

  Talking, Rights, Government

  Source: www.opendemocracy.net

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• ...chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans are thinking, self-aware beings, capable of planning ahead, who form lasting social bonds with others and have a rich social and emotional life. The great apes are therefore an ideal case for showing the arbitrariness of the species boundary. If we think that all human beings, irrespective of age or mental capacity, have some basic rights, how can we deny that the great apes, who surpass some humans in their capacities, also have these rights?

  Peter Singer

  Emotional, Thinking, Animal

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• A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit.... A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states.

  Vaclav Havel

  Lying, Exercise, Rights

  "Living in Truth". Book by Vaclav Havel, 1986.

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• People, regardless of political views, matter in this state and in this country and in this world. And, you know, when people attack people's basic rights and livelihoods, I'm concerned about it. And as a citizen of Queensland and nothing else, I've got the right to express my view.

  Clive Palmer

  Country, Australia, Rights

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• The Bill of Rights existed long before President Obama was elected, and as long as I’m a U.S. Senator, I will fight to protect the basic rights and liberties that belong to all of us as American citizens.

  Rand Paul

  Fighting, Rights, Long

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• There can only be one answer to this hideous act of jihad against the staff of Charlie Hebdo. It is the obligation of the Western media and Western leaders, religious and lay, to protect the most basic rights of freedom of expression, whether in satire on any other form. The West must not appease, it must not be silenced. We must send a united message to the terrorists: Your violence cannot destroy our soul.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Religious, Media, Expression

  "How to Respond to Islamist Kalashnikovs in the Heart of Paris" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 7, 2015.

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• It's a travesty that people have forced someone who is gay to have to make their case that they deserve the same basic rights...

  Jon Stewart

  Gay, Rights, People

  "David Bianculli's Top 10 TV Shows Of 2008". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. December 23, 2008.

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• The international community cannot accept that whole communities are marginalized because of the color of their skin. People of African descent are among those most affected by racism. Too often, they face denial of basic rights such as access to quality health services and education. Such fundamental wrongs have a long and terrible history.

  Ban Ki-moon

  Rights, Race, Color

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• We need to finally accept that all sentient creatures are deserving of basic rights. I define basic rights as this -the ability to pursue life without having someone else's will involuntarily forced upon you.

  Moby

  Acceptance, Animal, Rights

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• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - This great and inspiring instrument was born of an increased sense of responsibility by the international community for the promotion and protection of man's basic rights and freedoms. The world has come to a clear realization of the fact that freedom, justice and world peace can only be assured through the international promotion and protection of these rights and freedoms.

  U Thant

  Responsibility, Men, Rights

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• I firmly believe in the rule of law as the foundation for all of our basic rights.

  Sonia Sotomayor

  Believe, Rights, Law

  "Obama Picks Hispanic Woman For Supreme Court". "National Public Radio News", www.npr.org. May 27, 2009.

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• The old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him how to fish has been updated by a reader: Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries! Moreover, some politician who wants his vote will declare all these things to be among his 'basic rights.'

  Thomas Sowell

  Teaching, Men, Rights

  Thomas Sowell (2013). “Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays”, p.328, Hoover Press

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• When the man who feeds the world by toiling in the fields is himself deprived of the basic rights of feeding, sheltering, and caring for his own family, the whole community of man is sick.

  Cesar Chavez

  Caring, Men, Rights

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• No, you can't deny women their basic rights and pretend it's about your 'religious freedom'. If you don't like birth control, don't use it. Religious freedom doesn't mean you can force others to live by your own beliefs.

  Barack Obama

  Religious, Freedom, Women

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• Until relatively recently, mass political movements were still about basic rights of food, shelter, education and self sufficiency. The reasons fewer people vote these days, or turn up for political meetings, is that for the vast majority of us those rights have been fulfilled. These days it's in the adverts for mobile phones or foreign holidays where phrases like "Join the Revolution!" and "Cry Freedom!" are bandied about for a generation which knows nothing of their provenance. Just as now we have luxury illnesses to replace real ones, so now we have luxury politics.

  John Diamond

  Real, Holiday, Rights

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• If we in Asia want to speak credibly for Asian values, we must be prepared to also champion those ideals which are universal and belong to humanity as a whole...It is altogether shameful, if ingenious, to cite 'Asian values' as an excuse for autocratic practices and the denial of basic rights and civil liberties.

  Anwar Ibrahim

  Practice, Rights, Champion

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• You talk about the Pro-Life movement being one of the great shames of our nation. I think, if you want number two, I think - I think it's that. I think it's absolute - it's a travesty that people have forced someone who is gay to make their case that they deserve the same basic rights.

  Jon Stewart

  Gay, Thinking, Rights

  "The Daily Show", conversation with Mike Huckabee, December 9, 2008.

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• Ironically, to my children, bedtime is a punishment that violates their basic rights as human beings.

  Jim Gaffigan

  Children, Rights, Punishment

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• I know what I am fighting for. I am fighting for the most basic rights of innocent children. And that is why I never take the criticism too deep under my skin.

  Waris Dirie

  Children, Fighting, Rights

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• [Nicolas Maduro] completely controls the judicial branch, controls the courts, has denied their basic rights and the responsibility that the legislative branch has in that country.

  Marco Rubio

  Country, Responsibility, Rights

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• Liberal constitutional democracy is supposed to ensure that each citizen is free and equal and protected by basic rights and liberties.

  John Rawls

  Rights, Democracy, Liberty

  John Rawls, Samuel Richard Freeman (1999). “Collected Papers”, p.621, Harvard University Press

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• In the African matrilineal society, the lineage of the bloodline comes down through the female side. The Arabs who invaded East Africa and other parts of Africa reversed it to the patrilineal where everything comes down through the male side and the woman has no basic rights except that which the male is willing to grant her.

  John Henrik Clarke

  Rights, East Africa, Lineage

  Source: www.ourtimepress.com

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