Top 1200 Human Rights Quotes & Sayings - Page 7

Fanatics end by subverting their own argument. For instance, animal rights activists have some point, and many people feel sympathy with them. But animal rights fanatics do not have a point. They are the sort of people who threaten human beings in their effort to 'defend' animals.

Yes, the state must intervene to prevent the exploitation of poor Indian women who are enticed or coerced into surrogacy, as well as to protect the rights of surrogate children. However, it should also be empathetic to individuals with alternative lifestyles who are well within their legal and human rights to demand access to surrogacy services.

Protests, such as those in favor of labor rights, women's suffrage, civil rights and gay rights, helped to make America as great as it is.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most sweeping civil rights legislation of its day, and included women's rights as part of its reforms. Ironically, the section on women's rights was added by a senator from Virginia who opposed the whole thing and was said to be sure that if he stuck something about womens' rights into it, it would never pass. The bill passed anyway, though, much to the chagrin of a certain wiener from Virginia.

On human rights, civil rights and environmental quality, I consider myself to be very liberal. On the management of government, on openness of government, on strengthening individual liberties and local levels of government, I consider myself a conservative. And I don't see that the two attitudes are incompatible.

In human rights and peacemaking, it's really about having a solid concrete goal - the reduction of human suffering somewhere in the world - and then doing what is required to get that goal achieved.

Some may more quietly commemorate the suffering, struggle, and sacrifice that has triumphed over much of what was wrong with the original document, and observe the anniversary with hopes not realized and promises not fulfilled. I plan to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution as a living document, including the Bill of Rights and the other amendments protecting individual freedoms and human rights.

The contrast couldn't be clearer between the intentions and the hearts of those of us who care deeply about human rights and human liberty and those who kill. [on the terrorist bombings in London, July 7, 2005

The struggle for human rights is at its core a struggle for human dignity.

War and peace-making, human rights, humanitarian issues have become industries, but nobody looks closely at human greed, at the arms industry and the manufacture of landmines. Art has to take a wider view. The problems of Ireland are my problems, too.

Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.

I wore a uniform to stand up for all rights and that means I don't pick or choose which I defend, whether it's for equality rights or women's rights. I've been consistent on that in my public life. I've also stood up for religious freedom, conscience rights of freedom of speech.

Our founders understood that divine authority was necessary in order to establish a ground on which the weak, the defenseless, the powerless, the poor and the wretched would be able to stand, in the face of every human power whatsoever, and demand respect for their human rights and dignity.

Human rights rest on human dignity. The dignity of man is an ideal worth fighting for and worth dying for.

It is because the human experience is universal that human rights are universal.

It is the indispensable duty of those, who maintain for themselves the rights of human nature, and who possess the obligations of Christianity, to extend their power and influence to the relief of every part of the human race from whatever burden or oppression they may unjustly labor under.

[T]he liberty, the unalienable, indefeasible rights of men, the honor and dignity of human nature, the grandeur and glory of the public, and the universal happiness of individuals, were never so skillfully and successfully consulted as in that most excellent monument of human art, the common law of England.

As Elders, we are fully committed to the principle that all human beings are of equal worth. You will see that we highlight equality for girls and women - not just women's rights. That is important as girls, especially adolescent girls, have been almost invisible in debates on equal rights. Yet it is in adolescence that events can have a huge effect on a girl's life.

Sikhs were considered the champions of fairness, uplifting people, protecting and defending human rights. Defending equality. So when someone sees a Sikh, the turban identifies a person who's going to stand up for rights, even if you disagree with them. The turban is supposed to be a beacon. That someone who is going to help you out.

I would like people to remember that I kept the peace when I was president and I worked for peace, that I espoused human rights in its broadest definition, not only freedom of speech but freedom of assembly, freedom of worship and trial by jury but also the right of people for people to have a decent home to live, food to eat, employment, healthcare, self respect, dignity. So I think the broad gamut of human rights, peace and freedom. I would like to be remembered for those things to the degree that I deserve it and I still have a long way to go.

For those who have envisioned the State of Israel to be a democracy, which although primarily a Jewish polity for Jews is one in which non-Jews can become citizens and enjoy equal civil rights with the Jewish majority, the question of natural law is the question of human rights.

It is individuals who have human rights, not religions or beliefs

The cases involving the question of whether U.S. courts should be open to claims of international human rights violations brought by foreign persons against foreign government officials. And the State Department on the one side has got a very consistent and powerful view that U.S. courts should be open to those claims because there needs to be a place in the world where they can be brought. And those human rights norms ought to be real and enforceable, and we ought to be a beacon to the world.

But look what happens when the government gives you rights. When the government gives you rights, unlike when God gives you rights, the government can take them away. When government gives you rights, the government can tell you how to exercise those rights.

You could not be in the civil rights movement without having an appreciation for everybody's rights. That these rights are not divisible - not something men have and women don't and so on.

People have opinions about everything and especially when you get into that world of animal rights or tree rights or whatever rights, they all have an opinion.

You can't have occupation and human rights.

It's something fundamental to me, human rights that people are equal under law simply because they are human beings. And I can no more imagine falling in love with someone who believed, for instance, as Orthodox Jews do, that women are unclean during their menstrual periods.

Rights mean you have a right to your life. You have a right to your liberty, and you should have a right to keep the fruits of your labor....I, in a way, don’t like to use those terms: gay rights, women’s rights, minority rights, religious rights. There’s only one type of right. It’s the right to your liberty.

I fundamentally believe in freedom and human rights.

Contrary to what certain governments say, human rights are universal. Arbitrary detention, torture and discrimination hurt the human dignity of anybody, whatever his or her country of origin, religion, descent, or any other ground.

Abortion is a states' rights issue. Education is a states' right issue. Medicinal marijuana is a states' rights issue. Gay marraige is a states' rights issue. Assisted suicide- like Terri Schiavo- is a states' rights issue. Come to think of it, almost every issue is a states' rights issue. Let's get the federal government out of our lives.

Atheism has no room for human rights.

And what sort of philosophical doctrine is thi - that numbers confer unlimited rights, that they take from some persons all rights over themselves, and vest these rights in others.

Historians have often censored civil rights activists' commitment to economic issues and misrepresented the labor and civil rights movements as two separate, sometimes adversarial efforts. But civil rights and workers' rights are two sides of the same coin.

I went to my first civil rights rally when I was 17 years old. I was a little skinny blond kid, scared to death, marching against the KKK in South Georgia. And I have never stopped marching in protests since. Not ever. I mean, LGBT rights, women's rights, the rights of people of color... I'm your guy. I'm going to be out there marching!

We will have an unchallenged, open, panoramic opportunity on a global scale to demonstrate the finest aspects of what we know in this country: peace, freedom, democracy, human rights, benevolent sharing, love, the easing of human suffering. Is that going to be our list of priorities or not?

We live in the age of "Everything Has Rights." Now, I'm not denying that the concept of rights is valid, but I wonder ? whatever happened to obligations? One rarely hears the term anymore. Indeed, have you ever heard of a "human obligations movement?" ? The very ideal that holds a democracy together--the willingness to make personal sacrifice for the common good--is going quickly by the wayside.

You don't need to justify your rights as a citizen - that inverts the model of responsibility. The government must justify its intrusion into your rights. If you stop defending your rights by saying, "I don't need them in this context" or "I can't understand this," they are no longer rights.

For inspiration, we still demand the rhetorical high notes. Clinton has hit them before, in her speech in Beijing as first lady when she said, 'Women's rights are human rights,' and in her 2008 concession speech, when she talked about the '18 million cracks' in the glass ceiling.

When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights.

To no human charter am I indebted for my rights.

I would like to invite the citizens of Great Britain and the citizens of the U.S. and the citizens of the world to come here and walk freely through the streets of Venezuela, to talk to anyone they want, to watch television, to read the papers. We are building a true democracy, with human rights for everyone, social rights, education, health care, pensions, social security, and jobs.

When I say, 'I stand for equal rights,' I mean equal rights for all persons... from the moment of conception until natural death. I mean that I believe in the equal human dignity of all persons, no matter the 'contribution' they make to society.

Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much room do individual rights leave for the state?

In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.

China-led globalization in some ways worries me because they are not concerned about human rights, labor rights. They probably aren't even really concerned about competitive marketplaces. So in some ways, they're like Mr. Trump.

Now there are laws in many parts of the world which reflect the best of human nature. These laws treat people touched by HIV with compassion and acceptance. These laws respect universal human rights and they are grounded in evidence.

It has been the fashion to speak of the conflict between human rights and property rights, and from this it has come to be widely believed that the use of private property is tainted with evil and should not be espoused by rational and civilized men... the only dependable foundation of personal liberty is the personal economic security of private property. The Good Society.

Civil rights and women's rights and gay rights all take time in this country.

Men realize that they have work to do, to pull up women and take ownership on where we are as a society, and that they have work to do to help their female relatives and friends - to give a voice to women, not in a patriarchal way, but in a supportive way. It is all of our jobs to make sure that women's rights are human rights, and that they do have a place at the table, and we all push toward equality.

Religious freedom is one of the most fundamental of human rights because religious freedom comes from the dignity of the human being as God's creature.

We cannot allow some people to be left at the back of the human rights bus... We must ensure the rights of individual groups or people -be they indigenous peoples, or peoples of Asian or African or American descent, or Jews or Muslims- are not sacrificed on an altar of progress for some while there are setbacks to others.

Fundamentalists tell us to fear the specter of special rights for gay citizens, though of course gay Americans aren't after special rights - merely equal rights. The irony is that special rights actually do exist in this country-for religious groups.

The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of Government. But what is Government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

Despite the fact that Rouhani has been a long-time insider in a government that has committed countless human rights violations, and that he himself called for the execution of peaceful activists in 1999, many people inside and outside Iran are optimistic that he might indeed favor greater respect for the rights of the Iranian people.

Human beings have rights, because they are moral beings: the rights of all men grow out of their moral nature; and as all men have the same moral nature, they have the same rights.

..I think there is less cynicism about human rights than there was. The work we are doing is part of the overall pattern of human development, whatever the political system, whatever the country, whatever the cultural background, whatever the religion.

I don't see a direct conflict between the rights of individuals and the rights of communities, because I don't perceive of communities as having rights in a way that individuals do. Communities certainly have interests, but they don't exactly have rights.

It is above all in the present democratic age that the true friends of liberty and human grandeur must remain constantly vigilant and ready to prevent the social power from lightly sacrificing the particular rights of a few individuals to the general execution of its designs. In such times there is no citizen so obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be oppressed, and there are no individual rights so unimportant that they can be sacrificed to arbitrariness with impunity.