Quotes About Rights

I'd always intended to make 'Far North' straight after 'The Warrior.' We had the rights to the short story, the script was in development, and I knew where I wanted to shoot it. It just took a long time getting the script together and raising the finance.

In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, not does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defence.

Wars can be resolved. Human rights atrocities can be stopped. We just have to apply the right policies.

Really, when it comes to gay rights, there's two wars going on. The first war is political. But the culture war is over.

To invent a war means that you've become a wartime president, and you can suspend much if not all of the Bill of Rights.

We have no one to stand up for the fighters' rights. If something bad were to happen, no one backs him, and it's just him alone, and everything gets washed out. We need people to stand up and fight for it.

I suggest that ten thousand Negroes march on Washington, D.C., the capital of the Nation, with the slogan, 'We loyal Negro American citizens demand the right to work and fight for our country.'

There have been more people disenfranchised in Washington than there have been in Kuwait.

I reject 'poor' as the artificial creation of humans. Hunger exists, though, and a hungry creature is entitled to eat.

Feminism means having a choice. And feminism doesn't care which choices you make, either. Just that you have them. The point has never been to establish some principled refusal to give yourself to another human being. The point is to make sure you can give yourself--or not give yourself--of your free will.

The thing about rights is they're not actually supposed to be voted on. That's why they're called rights.

It's a free country. I can walk here if I want to.

Who are you to deny me the right to love?

one who breaks an unjust law, must do it openly and lovingly

As a public interest lawyer, your fund of injustice will never be empty.

Imam Rauf and his backers have every legal right to build their extravagant Islamic center within the lethal radius of Ground Zero. But the rest of us have the right to question why they insist on doing so.

Writing in 1959 – a decade and more after Independence – an Indian editor who was bitterly opposed to Nehru was constrained to recognize his two greatest achievements – the creation of a secular state and the granting of equal rights to Untouchables.

Every attempt through history to limit the definition of humanity has been a prelude to the subjugation, degradation, and slaughter of innocents.

Power is best when it's distributed most broadly. That's what democracy means. That's what freedom means. The right to determine your individual destiny belongs in your hands, and no one else's.

If solidarity is unity of purpose or togetherness, how to span this great divide of inequality, privilege, universal rights, political agency, and even our seeing things completely differently? In constructing this great bridge of international solidarity across the globe, where do we even begin?

A great many people in this country are worried about law-and-order. And a great many people are worried about justice. But one thing is certain: you cannot have either until you have both.

A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you.

A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you.

The precondition to freedom is security.