A Quote by Thomas Jefferson

The declaration of rights [Bill of Rights] is, like all other human blessings, alloyed with some inconveniences and not accomplishing fully its object. But the good in this instance vastly outweighs the evil.

Thomas Jefferson

Quote Topics

Bill Bill Of Rights Blessings Declaration Evil Fully Good Human Instance Like Object Other Rights Some Vastly

Quote Author

Thomas Jefferson
American - President
April 13, 1743 - July 4, 1826

You don't know who the next group is that's unpopular. The Bill of Rights isn't for the prom queen. The bill of rights isn't for the high school quarterback. The Bill of Rights is for the least among us. The Bill of Rights is for minorities. The Bill of Rights is for those who have minority opinions.

Rand Paul

Terrorists and their allies believe the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Bill of Rights and every charter of liberty ever written are lies to be burned and destroyed and forgotten.

George W. Bush

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

The way we need to view aid is as a fulfillment of rights, and Mexico, as other countries around the world, have agreed and signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the covenants of Human Rights and that includes the right to food, the right to water, the right to housing and the right to education.

Kerry Kennedy

The basic human rights documents-the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man-were written by political, not by religious, leaders.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

However, if the religions in essence merely repeat statements from the United Nations Human Rights Declaration, such a Declaration becomes superfluous; an ethic is more than rights.

Hans Kung

The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.

Albert Gallatin

Some other natural rights... [have] not yet entered into any declaration of rights.

Thomas Jefferson

The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to 'create' rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.

William J. Brennan, Jr.

I don't have any doubts either about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Perhaps some more should be added to the list, but I don't have the slightest doubt about human rights.

Antonio Tabucchi

To draft a bill of rights that simply replicates the European convention on human rights gives the game away; namely that the Human Rights Act does, in fact, offer appropriate protection to all of our citizens according to universally accepted standards.

Keir Starmer

Human rights are something you were born with. Human rights are your God-given rights. Human rights are the rights that are recognized by all nations of this earth.

Malcolm X

The rights of some must not be enjoyed by denying the rights of others. Neither can we permit states' rights at the expense of human rights.

George W. Romney

We stand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind. This declaration may well become the international Magna Carta for all men everywhere. We hope its proclamation by the General Assembly will be an event comparable to the proclamation in 1789 [of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man], the adoption of the Bill of Rights by the people of the U.S., and the adoption of comparable declarations at different times in other countries.

Eleanor Roosevelt

It is up to each and every one of us to raise our voice against crimes that deprive countless victims of their liberty, dignity and human rights. We have to work together to realize the equal rights promised to all by the United Nations Charter. And we must collectively give meaning to the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that "no one shall be held in slavery or servitude"