Quotes About Rights

leading Massachusetts Antifederalist Elbridge Gerry, who had also been an important dissenting delegate at the Philadelphia convention, noted that "however respectable the members may be who signed the Constitution, it must be admitted that a free people are the proper guardians of their rights and liberties—that the greatest men may err—and that their errors are sometimes of the greatest magnitude

First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.

Debates about justice and rights are often, unavoidably, debates about the purpose of social institutions, the goods they allocate, and the virtues they honor and reward. Despite our best attempts to make law neutral on such questions, it may not be possible to say what's just without arguing about the nature of the good life.

We do not expect diverse countries to share the same cultures, traditions or even systems of government. But we do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties: to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation.

The Obama administration has refused to back down on the insurance mandate that needlessly pits health care against the rights of the religious... This administration simply doesn't get it.

Abolitionists believe that, as all men are born free, so all who are now held as slaves in this country were born free, and that they are slaves now is the sin, not of those who introduced the race into this country, but of those, and those alone, who now hold them and have held them in slavery from their birth.

We have to protect the rights of every person and group to follow their sincere religious belief peacefully without hurting other people.

Every single one of us deserves access to quality, affordable health care.

The greatness of this country lies in how every single person can exercise their right to be himself or herself.

Denial of childhood and denial of freedom are the biggest sins which humankind has been committing and perpetuating for ages.

On the one hand, she is cut off from the protection awarded to her sisters abroad; on the other, she has no such power to defend her interests at the polls, as is the heritage of her brothers at home.

The #MeToo movement doesn't belong to Republicans or the Democrats. The #MeToo movement belongs to women who are having the courage to come forward and say this is wrong. People should be protected. We want that for all of our daughters and all of our sisters. We also want there to be rights for the accused.

All of us have mothers, sisters, daughters at home and it is our responsibility to protect them and make them aware of their rights.

I can't sit here and be a hypocrite and say I'm for limited government, but I think the government should decide what women do with their bodies.

The authority of any governing institution must stop at its citizen's skin.

A free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination, even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin.

There is a fantasy as old as the modern gay rights movement that if all our skins turned lavender overnight, the majority, confounded by our numbers and our diversity, and recognising a few of our faces, would at once let go of prejudice forevermore.

I love my people. They have the right to live like any other nation on Earth.

More than ever I'm proud to be an American, to live in a country that respects the rights of all to marry whomever they love. The Supreme Court decision gives new meaning to the freedoms we cherish.

I would love to have the same rights as everybody else. I would love, I don't care if it's called marriage. I don't care if it's called, you know, domestic partnership. I don't care what it's called.

I love free speech.

Let me ask you, do you love your freedom that you have here in America? Well, so do I.

For that is love's nature that it lays claim to exclusive right and that all other claims are nil.

We have to love our freedom, not just for the private opportunities it provides, but for the goodness it makes possible.