Rights Quotes - Page 21

• ... every man on the planet Has just as much right as yourself to the road.

  John Boyle O'Reilly

  Men, Planets, Every Man

  John Boyle O'Reilly (1882). “Songs, Legends and Ballads”

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• Martin Luther King (Jr.) during the civil rights movement used to exclaim that he looked forward to heaven where he would be "Free at last." That is the inscription on his tomb in Atlanta.

  Billy Graham

  Kings, Freedom, Atlanta

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• By rights you're a king. If I was you, I'd call for a new deal.

  O. Henry

  Kings, Deals, New Deal

  O. Henry (1995). “100 Selected Stories”, p.86, Wordsworth Editions

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• The chief duty of governments, in so far as they are coercive, is to restrain those who would interfere with the inalienable rights of the individual, among which are the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to the pursuit of happiness and the right to worship God according to the dictates of ones conscience.

  William Jennings Bryan

  Pursuit Of Happiness, Government, Liberty

  William Jennings Bryan (1917). “Heart to Heart Appeals”

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• The government being the peoples business, it necessarily follows that its operations should be at all times open to the public view. Publicity is therefore as essential to honest administration as freedom of speech is to representative government. Equal rights to all and special privileges to none is the maxim which should control in all departments of government.

  William Jennings Bryan

  Government, Views, Freedom Of Speech

  William Jennings Bryan (1914). “The Royal Art”

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• The right to kill: supposing the life of X ... were linked with our own so that the two deaths had to be simultaneous, should we still wish him to die? If with our whole body and soul we desire life and if nevertheless without lying, we can reply 'yes'> then we have the right to kill.

  Simone Weil

  Lying, Two, Soul

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.86, Psychology Press

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• If you believe in justice, if you believe in democracy, if you believe in people's rights, if you believe in the harmony of all humankind - then you have no choice but to back Fidel Castro as long as it takes!

  Harry Belafonte

  Believe, Long, People

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• I've been active in animal rights and all kinds of environmental stuff and children's charities over the years.

  Martina Navratilova

  Children, Animal, Years

  "Martina Navratilova On Staying Fit, Coming Out, Battling Cancer And Transcending Sports". Interview With Laura Rowley, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 10, 2012.

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• Every country should realize that its turn at world domination, domination because its rights coincided more or less with the character or progress of the epoch, must terminate with the change brought about by this progress.

  Juan Ramon Jimenez

  Country, Character, Progress

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• Well, take the evolution of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It began as hackers' rights. Then it became general civil liberties of everybody - government stay away.

  Esther Dyson

  Government, Liberty, Foundation

  "On the Frontier: An Interview with Esther Dyson". Interview with Virginia Postrel, reason.com. October, 1996.

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• Women's rights, men's rights-human rights-all are threatened by the everpresent specter of war so destructive now of human material and moral values as to render victory indistinguishable from defeat.

  Rosika Schwimmer

  War, Men, Victory

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• No one is immune from the larger events of his or her time - the Depression, World War II, civil rights, Vietnam, the spring of 1989 in China. These events intrude upon our lives and radically affect our directions.

  Paul Tsongas

  Spring, War, Events

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• There are significant human rights abuses in China. In some areas, the situation is worse today than in the past. In other areas, there have been improvements. We will recognize the latter, and be critical of the former.

  Max Baucus

  Past, Abuse, Today

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• A [Jewish] woman could not divorce her husband, but she could petition for divorce, and the religious courts could force him to grant the divorce on grounds of impotence, denial of conjugal rights, or unreasonable restriction of her freedom-for example, preventing her from attending funerals or wedding parties.

  Israel Shenker

  Religious, Husband, Party

  Israel Shenker (1985). “Coat of Many Colors: Pages from Jewish Life”, Doubleday Books

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• The only salvation of the world today... is the rapid dissemination of the basic values of the West, that is, the ideas of democracy, human rights, the civil society, and the free market.

  Vaclav Havel

  Ideas, Democracy, World

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• Pres. Lyndon Johnson was a middle-aged man of smalltown America, both a Westerner and a Southerner, and except where politics had demonstrably forced his growth-as on the question of civil rights-he functioned like most men, as a product of his background.

  Tom Wicker

  Character, Men, America

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• Offices are not powerful because they exist; men make them so. Rights are not honored because they exist; men compel their recognition.

  Tom Wicker

  Powerful, Men, Office

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• We must ask the high cadres ... When you suppressed the rights of others to express freely their political views, did you secure your own?

  Wei Jingsheng

  Views, Political, Oppression

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• An accurate charting of American women's progress through history might look more like a corkscrew tilted slightly to one side, its loops inching closer to the line of freedom with the passage of time-but, like a mathematical curve approaching infinity, never touching its goal.

  Susan Faludi

  Curves, Goal, Touching

  Susan Faludi (1991). “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women”

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• By gold all good faith has been banished; by gold our rights are abused; the law itself is influenced by gold, and soon there will be an end of every modest restraint.

  Propertius

  Law, Gold, Ends

  "Elegies, III". Book by Sextus Propertius, c. 24 B.C.

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• I am in favor of carrying out the Declaration of Independence to women as well as men. Women having to suffer the burdens of society and government should have their equal rights in it. They do not receive their rights in full proportion.

  Leland Stanford

  Men, Should Have, Independence

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• Liberty lies in the rights of that person whose views you find most odious.

  John Stuart Mill

  Philosophy, Lying, Views

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• The poor Americans are so busy defending the rights of Hindus in Pakistan, Moslems in India, Jews in Palestine, Koreans in Japan, Italians in Yugoslavia and Hungarians in Czechoslovakia that they simply cannot give a thought to Negroes in the United States.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humorous, Japan

  George Mikes (1959). “How to scrape skies: the United States explored, rediscovered and explained”

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• If one benefits tangibly from the exploitation of others who are weak, is one morally implicated in their predicament? Or are basic rights of human existence confined to the civilized societies that are wealthy enough to afford them? Our values are defined by what we will tolerate when it is done to others.

  William Greider

  Done, Benefits, Enough

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• It had never occurred to us that the Kremlin's new anti-booze campaign would apply to journalists. Now, that's a human-rights violation.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Humorous, Russia

  P.J. O'Rourke (2012). “Holidays in Hell”, p.188, Atlantic Books Ltd

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