Quotes About Rights

Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance.

Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man.

que fenômeno estranho vem a ser este que bloqueia e apaga a capacidade de julgar dos homens, que lhes furta esse direito ou os condiciona a abdicar, em absurda exultação, desse mesmo direito?

Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.

I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.

Clearly, only very unequal intellectual and moral standing could justify having equality imposed, whether the people want it or not, as Dworkin suggests, and only very unequal power would make it possible.

The only way anyone can have a right to something that has to be produced is to force someone else to produce it for him. The more things are provided as rights, the less the recipients have to work and the more others have to carry their load.

Freedom must be distinguished from democracy, with which it is often confused.

The essence of bigotry is denying others the same rights you claim for yourself. Green bigots are a classic example.

It is easy to give up freedom and hard to get it back.

All of us can think of a book... that we hope none of our children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf -that work I abhor- then you also have exactly the same right and so does everyone else. And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us.

All of us can think of a book... that we hope none of our children or any other children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf - that work I abhor - then you also have exactly the same right and so does everyone else. And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us.

business corporations may be said to possess religious belief systems and enjoy the right of freedom of conscience.

We are so used to the idea that the First Amendment is for liberals, and that it is our bulwark against fascist movements, that we fail to notice when it has been turned around and used as a wedge instead.

an especially effective way to reduce abortions is to promote access to long-acting contraception.

The religious right is quick to extol the principle of free speech when it comes to, say, public school officials preaching to children in their care or shouting at women through bullhorns outside of reproductive health clinics. And yet they are eager to regulate and restrict the speech of medical professionals delivering reproductive health services.

The end goal is to create a new reality on the ground in which women have no real ability to exercise a right that they are supposedly guaranteed.

Forcing women to go through the side door to access essential forms of health care imposes logistical and financial burdens.

You maximize the moral anguish of those whose "values" you share and protect their "rights" wherever possible. And you minimize the suffering of those who don't belong to the group and treat their rights as merely selfish demands.

What today's Christian nationalists call "religious liberty" is in reality a form of religious privilege—for their kind of religion.

There is no official count of the number of pregnant women who have turned to Catholic hospitals and clinics when something goes wrong, only to be denied the medical care they need.

What's waking up in me as a result of my rage? How can I use the intensity of this energy to fuel positive change in my life? What rights am I now willing to stand up for?

First and foremost, I'm a feminist. And basically that stems from a strong belief that all people and creatures deserve equal opportunity, rights and respect.