A Quote by Matthew Woodring Stover

A human life is defined by its relationship with others: by its duty to its species. In the face of this duty, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are meaningless. What you call individual rights are merely the cultural fantasy of a failed civilization.

Matthew Woodring Stover

Quote Topics

Call Civilization Cultural Defined Duty Face Failed Fantasy Happiness Human Human Life Individual Individual Rights Liberty Life Life Is Meaningless Merely Others Pursuit Pursuit Of Happiness Relationship Rights Species

Quote Author

Matthew Woodring Stover
American - Novelist
Born: January 29, 1962

The chief duty of governments, in so far as they are coercive, is to restrain those who would interfere with the inalienable rights of the individual, among which are the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to the pursuit of happiness and the right to worship God according to the dictates of ones conscience.

William Jennings Bryan

If there ever was a pursuit which stultified itself by its very conditions, it is the pursuit of pleasure as the all-sufficing end of life. Happiness cannot come to any man capable of enjoying true happiness unless it comes as the sequel to duty well and honestly done. To do that duty you need to have more than one trait. From the greatest to the smallest, happiness and usefulness are largely found in the same soul, and the joy of life is won in its deepest and truest sense only by those who have not shirked life's burdens.

Theodore Roosevelt

The idea of cultural relativism is nothing but an excuse to violate human rights. Human rights is the fruit of various civilizations. I know of no civilization that tolerates or justifies violence, terrorism, or injustice. There is no civilization that justifies the killing of innocent people. Those who are invoking cultural relativism are really using that as an excuse for violating human rights and to put a cultural mask on the face of what they're doing.

Shirin Ebadi

America was founded on the principle of inalienable rights, not dictated duties. The Declaration of Independence states that every human being has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It does not state that he is born a slave to the needs of others.

Alex Epstein

I dreamt and saw that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was duty. I served and found that duty was joy. See Life a Duty, Ellen Sturgis Hooper, (1816-1841) Topics: beauty, duty & Life I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty; I woke, and found that life was Duty.

Thomas S. Monson

the right to marry whoever one wishes is an elementary human right ... Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs.

Hannah Arendt

I fell asleep and dreamed that life was only Happiness. I woke and discovered that life was Duty. I did my Duty and discovered that life was Happiness.

Paulo Coelho

For this generation, ours, life is nuclear survival, liberty is human rights, the pursuit of happiness is a planet whose resources are devoted to the physical and spiritual nourishment of its inhabitants.

Jimmy Carter

Colleges have a twofold duty when it comes to dealing with censorship. First, there is the duty to not censor the free expression of ideas, especially important and newsworthy ones. Second, colleges have the duty to protect speakers from being silenced by others. Century has failed miserably on both counts.

Greg Lukianoff

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: this triptych succinctly defines the attractiveness and superiority of Western civilization.

Ibn Warraq

I was a fan of 'Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,' and I got into 'Call Of Duty: Black Ops,' which was my favorite 'Call Of Duty' game of all time.

M. Shadows

It is easily and often overlooked that when Thomas Jefferson asserted that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were inalienable human rights, he did so on the ground that they had been endowed by God, our Creator.

Tom Stoppard

When the founders wrote about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they didn't mean longer vacations and more comfortable hammocks. They meant the pursuit of learning. The pursuit of improvement and excellence. In hard work is happiness.

David McCullough

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is part of our constitutional rights and it belongs to everybody.

Jeffrey Tambor

This country was founded upon the principle that we are all endowed with certain inalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - those rights are what make America great, and they belong to each and every one of us.