Rights Quotes

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Thomas Jefferson

People say that if we work for the Single European Act, women will get their rights, the water will be purer, and training will be better. That is rubbish. It is part of the attempt to consolidate the EEC.

Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn

On a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority, trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other.

James Madison

The environment is the most important, the most fundamental, civil-rights issue.... Four out of every five toxic-waste dumps in America is in a black neighborhood.

Robert Kennedy, Jr.

The Imperial German Government will not expect the Government of the United States to omit any word or any act necessary to the performance of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment.

William Jennings Bryan

If the abstract rights of man will bear discussion and explanation, those of women, by a parity of reasoning, will not shrink from the same test: though a different opinion prevails in this country.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

If the abstract rights of man will bear discussion and explanation, those of women, by a parity of reasoning, will not shrink from the same test.

Mary Wollstonecraft

It puts limits on criminals' rights to destroy unborn children without the permission of the woman.

Lindsey Graham

I rise in support of a Canada in which liberties are safeguarded, rights are protected and the people of this land are treated as equals under the law.

Paul Martin

You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; right derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe

John Adams

The struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity. It is a struggle that encompasses our political, social and economic aspirations.

Aung San Suu Kyi

There has been only a civil rights movement, whose tone of voice was adapted to an audience of liberal whites.

Stokely Carmichael

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments

Thomas Jefferson

Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights

Thomas Jefferson

No President has ever done more for human rights than I have.

George Walker Bush