Quotes About Rights

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

They [the signers of the Declaration of Independence] did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right; so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.

Two principles have stood face-to-face from the beginning of time; and they will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings.

Aqueles que negam liberdade aos outros não merecem para si mesmos.

He is not my equal in many respects, but in his right to enjoy 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' in his right to put into his mouth the bread that his hands have earned, he is my equal...

We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty. And I intend no modification to my oft expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. (The Prayer of Twenty Millions 1862)

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty... We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. --April 18, 1864 Address at Baltimore

To secure to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.

Enquanto não se puser fim à funesta ideia da desigualdade das raças e da seleção entre diferentes espécies humanas, a luta dos povos de origem africana por aquilo que poderíamos chamar de "igualdade das partes" — e, portanto, dos direitos e das responsabilidades —, continuará a ser uma luta legítima.

The standard of emancipation is now unfurled . . . I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch: And I will be heard, Posterity will bear testimony that I was right.

We should be eternally vigilant against the attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.

A sense of rights can be contagious

To prohibit a great people, however, from making all that they can of every part of their own produce, or from employing their stock and industry in the way that they judge most advantageous to themselves, is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind.

THE SHE-GOATS AND THEIR BEARDS Jupiter granted beards to the She-Goats at their own request, much to the disgust of the he-Goats, who considered this to be an unwarrantable invasion of their rights and dignities. So they sent a deputation to him to protest against his action. He, however, advised them not to raise any objections. "What's in a tuft of hair?" said he. "Let them have it if they want it. They can never be a match for you in strength.

the most remarkable features of these first state constitutions were certain overarching elements that are now so commonplace that we forget how truly revolutionary they were in 1776: writtenness, concision, replicability, rights declaration, democratic pedigree, republican structure, and amendability. Never before in history had this particular combination of features come together.

Unions gave us the forty-hour workweek, the weekend, and the middle class.

Aspirations don't disappoint, so long as you realize that the struggle for liberty, justice and anything else worth pursuing never stays won.

Equality and freedom are not luxuries to lightly cast aside. Without them, order cannot long endure before approaching depths beyond imagining.

Professor Kimberle Crenshaw saw the dilemma a dozen years ago, but concluded that as long as race consciousness thrives, blacks will have to rely on rights rhetoric to protect their interests.16 There are, though, limited options to those deemed the Other in making specific demands for inclusion and equality. Doing so in the quest for racial justice, though, means that "winning and losing have been part of the same experience.

Washington's intentions, the surrender of basic citizenship rights in the hope that hostile whites would reciprocate with schooling and better jobs, deserved the condemnation it received from black leaders

E.A. Partridge of the Grain Growers' Guide wondered pointedly why the vote was available to "the lowest imbruted foreign hobo" but not to Canadian women.

Ram is her husband, not her master. As his wife, she has duties towards him but he has no rights over her.