Famous Quotes & Sayings

John Stossel

All our rights are gradually eroded as government gets bigger.

John Sparkman

The Civil Rights Commission should never have been brought into existence. It has been most prejudiced in its viewpoint, and has fomented trouble and racial disturbance since its inception. It should be abolished, not extended.

Ted Olson

The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that marriage is one of the most fundamental rights that we have as Americans under our Constitution.

Ted Nelson

The World Wide Web was precisely what we were trying to PREVENT— ever-breaking links, links going outward only, quotes you can't follow to their origins, no version management, no rights management.

Theodore Roosevelt

All constitutions, those of the States no less than that of the nation, are designed, and must be interpreted and administered so as to fit human rights.

Theodore Roosevelt

Just as little can we afford to follow the doctrinaires of an impossible - and incidentally of a highly undesirable - social revolution which, in destroying individual rights - including property rights - and the family, would destroy the two chief agents in the advance of mankind, and the two chief reasons why either the advance or the preservation of mankind is worthwhile.

Michael Foley

The 1970s was the decade of liberation, of anger at injustice and demands for recognition and rights. But over time, the demand for specific rights degraded into a generalized sense of entitlement, the demand for specific recognition into a generalized demand for attention and the anger at specific injustice into a generalized feeling of grievance and resentment. The result is a culture of entitlement, attention-seeking and complaint.

Michelle Alexander

If we continue to tell ourselves the popular myths about racial progress or, worse yet, if we say to ourselves that the problem of mass incarceration is just too big, too daunting for us to do anything about and that we should instead direct our energies to battles that might be more easily won, history will judge us harshly. A human rights nightmare is occurring on our watch.

Michelle Bachelet

The respect for human rights is nowadays not so much a matter of having international standards, but rather questions of compliance with those standards.

Michele Bachmann

People were floored when they saw that the underwear bomber, after less than 50 minutes of interrogation, was given the rights, privileges, and immunities of an American citizen under the Constitution.

Max Mosley

Defend yourselves! If people don't defend their rights, they lose them.

Principles-and I have in mind such principles as states' rights or national sovereignty or the free market or pacifism-have a way of drying up while the sap of life goes flowing in another direction.

Mark Skousen

In a free society, individuals have the right to do right or wrong, as long as they don't threaten or infringe upon the rights or property of others.

Pat Paulsen

Why should we tell kidnappers, murderers, and embezzlers their rights? If they don't know their rights, they shouldn't be in the business.

Lech Walesa

The defense of our rights and our dignity, as well as efforts never to let ourselves to be overcome by the feeling of hatred - this is the road we have chosen.

Lee Child

I don't want to put the world to rights... I just don't like people who put the world to wrongs.

John Tyler

When the happy era shall arrive for the emancipation of nations, hastened on as it will be by the example of America, shall they not resort to the Declaration of our Independence as the charter of their rights, and will not its author be hailed as the benefactor of the redeemed?

John Tyler

The institutions under which we live, my countrymen, secure each person in the perfect enjoyment of all his rights.

John Stuart Mill

He who cannot by his labor suffice for his own support has no claim to the privilege of helping himself to the money of others. By becoming dependent on the remaining members of the community for actual subsistence, he abdicates his claim to equal rights for them I other respects.

John Shelby Spong

The Bible has lost every major battle it has ever fought. The Bible was quoted to defend slavery and the bible lost. The Bible was quoted to keep women silent, and the Bible lost. And the Bible is being quoted to deny homosexuals their equal rights, and the Bible will lose.

John Rawls

The concept of justice I take to be defined, then, by the role of its principles in assigning rights and duties and in defining the appropriate division of social advantages. A conception of justice is an interpretation of this role.

John Ralston Saul

Rights are a protection from society. But only by fulfilling their obligations to society can the individual give meaning to that protection. (V - From Ideology Towards Equilibrium)

James K. Polk

All distinctions of birth or of rank have been abolished. All citizens, whether native or adopted, are placed upon terms of precise equality. All are entitled to equal rights and equal protection.

James K. Polk

One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.

Mark Steyn

The story of the Western world since 1945 is that, invited to choose between freedom and government 'security,' large numbers of people vote to dump freedom every time - the freedom to make your own decisions about health care, education, property rights, and a ton of other stuff.

Nicole Kidman

One in three women may suffer from abuse and violence in her lifetime. This is an appalling human rights violation, yet it remains one of the invisible and under-recognized pandemics of our time.

Nicole Kidman

Violence against women is an appalling human rights violation. But it is not inevitable. We can put a stop to this.

Nick Lampson

Moreover, as we live in an era of the ascendancy of democracy and human rights, we must see that Taiwan has been a vibrant democracy with a democratically elected president and legislature.

Peter Drucker

The postwar WWII GI Bill of Rights-and the enthusiastic response to it on the part of America's veterans-signaled the shift to the knowledge society. Future historians may consider it the most important event of the twentieth century. We are clearly in the midst of this transformation; indeed, if history is any guide, it will not be completed until 2010 or 2020. But already it has changed the political, economic and moral landscape of the world.

Peter Benenson

Those who today still feel a sense of impotence can do something: they can support Amnesty International. They can help it to stand up for freedom and justice.

Peter Benenson

The candle burns not for us, but for all those whom we failed to rescue from prison, who were shot on the way to prison, who were tortured, who were kidnapped, who "disappeared". That's what the candle is for

Penn Jillette

The first thing I said to myself on 9/11 was, 'There go our civil rights.' I found out by comparing notes later that George Carlin and I both said that at the exact same time. That's the first thing that popped into our head.

Marjane Satrapi

Death, torture and prison are part of daily life for the youth of Iran. They are not like us, my friends and I at their age; they are not scared. They are not what we were. They hold hands and scream: 'Don't be afraid! Don't be afraid! We are together!' They understand that no one will give them their rights; they must go get them.