Quotes About Rights

Some of us may just, in one-on-one conversations with our family, with our friends, over the back fence with our neighbors, talk about the reality of our lives and realize that we're not alone, that we have a right to be physically safe and emotionally safe in our own homes.

In the law, rights are islands of empowerment. . . . Rights contain images of power, and manipulating those images, either visually or linguistically, is central in the making and maintenance of rights. In principle, therefore, the more dizzyingly diverse the images that are propagated, the more empowered we will be as a society.

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it! Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! (American Revolutionary War)

The great object is that every man be armed.

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.

Give me liberty or give me death." [From a speech given at Saint John's Church in Richmond, Virginia on March 23, 1775 to the Virginia House of Burgesses; as first published in print in 1817 in William Wirt's Life and Character of Patrick Henry .]

A King, by disallowing Acts of this salutary nature, from being the father of his people, degenerated into a Tyrant and forfeits all rights to his subjects' obedience.

Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense?

The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.

Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings - give us that precious jewel and you may take everything else!

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.

Patrick Henry] wanted the Constitution to have a Bill of Rights attached to it -- a list of powers that the government could never use against the people of the United States.

If we do not provide education for every single American, we are consigning those without an education to second-class status.

It's your right to not justify your behavior with excuses. You don't have to give reasons or agree to things you don't want to do because you're worried that your reason doesn't seem good enough. If you don't want to attend an event because you want to spend quality time with your dog, that's valid and no one can judge. You don't owe someone something just because your justification doesn't align with their values.

Copyright (C) 2012 by Elizabeth Bear

As a wise man named Ben Franklin once said, those who would sacrifice liberty for security desire neither. I

No hay nada que disimular. Tiene usted derecho a sus propios sentimientos.

Response: The First Amendment protects a speaker's right to speak and the listeners' right to listen. Hecklers who shout down speakers or disrupt proceedings illegally violate the rights of everyone present who came to both speak and to be spoken to.

James Madison said it another way: "I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

America is a land of opportunity, not entitlement, which is clearly spelled out by our inspired Founding Fathers who wrote the U.S. Constitution.

true freedom is having the right to be a slave.

Moral relativism and rights don't mix. Relativism undermines any appeal to rights: If rights exist, relativism is false; if rights exist, where do they come from? Again, we're pointed in the direction of a good God in whose image humans have been made—and thus who sets the parameters regarding our sexuality.

Facts, like people, want to be free — and when they're free, liberty is usually around the corner.

Civil and political rights are critical, but not often the real problem for the destitute sick. My patients in Haiti can now vote but they can't get medical care or clean water.