Quotes About Rights

The [Republican] party's mainstream option was probably voiced by Massachusetts Congressman Henry L. Dawes, who admitted the medicine was extreme but asked whether any alternative existed: Am I to abandon the attempt to secure to the American citizen these rights, given to him by the Constitution? [Note: in reference to Enforcement Acts of 1870/71]

The law on the side of freedom is of great advantage only where there is power to make that law respected. - Frederick Douglass

While freedom can be achieved, it may also be reduced or rescinded, It can never be taken for granted.

Issues that agitate American politics—who is an American citizen and what rights come along with citizenship, the relative powers of the national government and the states, affirmative action, the relationship between political and economic democracy, the proper response to terrorism—are Reconstruction questions.

The Fourteenth Amendment was a crucial step in transforming, in the words of the Republican editor George William Curtis, a government "for white men" into one "for mankind."34

If their way was a blind alley, let us not deny them the longing for liberty and justice which moved them.

En términos morales, los imperios siempre se han justificado a sí mismos, y en ocaciones no sin una cierta sinceridad, tanto cuando afirmaban que llevaban (su versión de) civilización o la religión a unos pueblos sumidos en la ignorancia, como cuando decían llevar (su versión de) la libertad a los oprimidos (por otro imperio) o, en la actualidad, cuando se presentan como los campeones de los derechos humanos.

The sort of reasoning that would try a woman for murder if she sought an abortion could well lead to renewed witch-hunts.

When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically. They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission. Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.

What is needed is not a rejection of the positive role of the market mechanism in generating income and wealth, but the important recognition that the market mechanism has to work in a world of many institutions. We need the power and protection of these institutions, provided by democratic practice, civil and human rights, a free and open media, facilities for basic education and health care, economic safety nets, and of course, provisions for women's freedom and rights

Effective elementary education has in practice ceased to be free in substantial parts of the country, which of course is a violation of a basic right.

Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.

Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.

Lawsuit, n. a machine which you go into as a pig and come out as a sausage.

I, for one, hope for the day when women will know no restrictions because of sex but will be individuals free to live their lives as men are free—irrespective of the continent or country where they happen to live.

Ä°ki gül kondurdum yanaklar?na, açan bir gülücük yapt?m dudaklar?nda. Geriye itme beni, Yasa'm?z aç?k, EktiÄŸini biçme hakk? da Vard?r her insan?n.

she talked until she was hoarse about the basic rights of every citizen: equal education, equal pay, equal representation, and equal participation. Everyone quoted her and lots of people hated her,

Sure it is," Trav said, realizing it as he said it. "It's why there's all the fuss about legalizing gay marriage. When you're happy, you want the world to acknowledge that your happiness is valid.

There just had to be something morally wrong about telling a ten-year-old he had to have government approval for sexual activity.

La seule minorité qui n'a pas besoin de quelqu'un pour défendre ses droits, ce sont les milliardaires

Ninguém deve ser forçado a ler nada. Ler é um direito de cada cidadão, não é um dever.

I mean, if there was any justice in the world you wouldn't even have to go to school during your period.

Is it not amazing," wrote Henry, "that at a time when the rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a country above all others fond of liberty … we find men professing religion the most humane, mild, gentle, and generous, adopting a principle as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and destructive to liberty?" Henry

Upon the sacredness of property civilization itself depends—the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings bank, and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his millions.