Human Rights Quotes - Page 8

• George W. Bush and his administration embarked on a full-scale assault on civil liberties, human rights and the rule of law, walking away from his international obligations, tearing up international treaties, protocols and UN conventions.

  Bianca Jagger

  Law, Walking Away, Rights

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• It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Inspirational, Motivational, Fear

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

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• For all the tough talk about China during the presidential debates, Romney and Obama evaded any mention of China's suspect human rights record, corruption, and rule of law.
  By not tackling these controversial topics, the candidates are protecting a strategic partnership with China at the expense of essential human values and beliefs.

  Ai Weiwei

  Rights, Controversial Topics, Law

  "Ai Weiwei: Despite flaws, America should be proud" by Ai Weiwei, www.cnn.com. November 6, 2012.

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• I used to always fight for human rights. I still fight for Leonard Peltier, who's spent 35 years in jail for a crime he didn't commit.

  Vivienne Westwood

  Fighting, Jail, Rights

  "Vivienne Westwood Is Fashion’s Global Punk Warrior". Interview with Katharine Zarrella, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 7, 2011.

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• Where there are too many policemen, there is no liberty. Where there are too many soldiers, there is no peace. Where there are too many lawyers, there is no justice.

  Lin Yutang

  Inspirational, Motivational, Veterans Day

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• I used to work for an NGO called Transitions Online, and I was their Director of New Media. I was a very idealistic fellow who thought that he could use blogs, social networks and new media to help promote democracy, human rights and freedom of expression.

  Evgeny Morozov

  Rights, Media, Expression

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• Politics deals with externals: borders, wealth, crimes. Authentic forgiveness deals with the evil in a persons heart, something for which politics has no cure. Virulent evil (racism, ethnic hatred) spreads through society like an airborne disease, one cough infects a whole busload. When moments of grace do occur, the world must pause, fall silent, and acknowledge that indeed forgiveness offers a kind of cure. There will be no escape from wars, from hunger, from misery, from rancid discrimination, from denial of human rights, if our hearts aren't changed.

  Philip Yancey

  War, Fall, Heart

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• There is nothing divine about morality, it is a purely human affair.

  Albert Einstein

  Religious, Science, Words Of Wisdom

  Albert Einstein (2011). “The World As I See It”, p.28, Open Road Media

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• Whether or not we continue to enforce a universal conception of human rights at moments of outrage and incomprehension, precisely when we think that others have taken themselves out of the human community as we know it, is a test of our very humanity.

  Judith Butler

  Taken, Thinking, Rights

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• Dogs do not have many advantages over people, but one of them is extremely important: euthanasia is not forbidden by law in their case; animals have the right to a merciful death.

  Milan Kundera

  Dog, Animal, Law

  "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". Book by Milan Kundera, 1984.

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• And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights -- the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation – the right to breathe air as nature provided it -- the right of future generations to a healthy existence?" (John F. Kennedy, June 10, 1963, American University speech)

  John F. Kennedy

  Peace, June, Rights

  Kennedy, John F. (1964). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963”, p.464, Best Books on

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• So, is there hope for a truly democratic Africa? Long answer: Only if continent-wide improvements in education, human rights and public health are coupled with an aggressive and far-sighted debt-relief program that breaks the cycle of subsistence farming and urban squalor. Short answer: No.

  Jon Stewart

  Rights, Long, Relief

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• Virginia States' rights, as our forefathers conceived it, was a protection of the right of the individual citizen. Those who preach most frequently about states' rights today are not those seeking the protection of the individual citizen, but his exploitation. The time is long past — if indeed it ever existed — when we should permit the noble concept of states' rights to be betrayed.

  Robert Kennedy

  Past, Rights, Long

  "America the Beautiful".

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• Human rights pale beside the rights of machines. In more and more cities, especially in the great metropolises of the South, people have been banned. Automobiles usurp human space, poison the air, and frequently murder the interlopers who invade their conquered territory -and no one lifts a finger to stop them. Is there a difference between violence that kills by car and that which kills by knife or bullet?" (p.231)

  Eduardo Galeano

  Rights, Air, Knives

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• A good motivation is what is needed: compassion without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy; just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their human rights and dignities. That we humans can help each other is one of our unique human capacities.

  Dalai Lama

  Inspirational, Brother, Motivation

  His Holiness The Dalai Lama (2013). “Kindness, Clarity, and Insight”, p.21, Shambhala Publications

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• We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.

  George F. Kennan

  Rights, Should, Standards

  "PPS No. 23". Memo by George Kennan, en.wikisource.org. February 28, 1948.

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• When all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Suicide, Rights, Easy

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1935). “The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography”, p.333, Univ of Wisconsin Press

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• We know, at least, that this decision (ending factory farming) will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural America, decrease human rights abuses, improve publish health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in history.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Animal, America, Rights

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• To view the opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundation of democracy.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Inspirational, Motivational, Views

  Aung San Suu Kyi (1997). “Letters From Burma:”

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• When human rights are abused on a grand scale, the broth of purity boils and feeds the rebellion of a new order.

  James A. Baldwin

  Rights, Order, Revolution

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• Let it never be said by future generations that indifference, cynicism or selfishness made us fail to live up to the ideals of humanism which the Nobel Peace Prize encapsulates. Let the strivings of us all, prove Martin Luther King Jr. to have been correct, when he said that humanity can no longer be tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war.

  Nelson Mandela

  Kings, Selfish, War

  FaceBook post by Nelson Mandela from Aug 28, 2013

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• The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century... unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today.

  John F. Kennedy

  Gay, Rights, Today

  Inaugural address, 20 Jan. 1961, in Vital Speeches 1 Feb. 1961, p. 226

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• This moon man right here stands for a lot more. This is the most important record out of all of them. Gay rights are human rights, there is no separation.

  Macklemore

  Gay, Moon, Men

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• The use of "religion" as an excuse to repress the freedom of expression and to deny human rights is not confined to any country or time.

  Margaret Atwood

  Country, Rights, Expression

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• Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people. The general government . . . can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any despotic or oppresive form so long as there is any virtue in the body of the people.

  George Washington

  Rights, Government, Long

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