Quotes About Rights And Freedom

#1. I believe in, and will to the best of my ability fight for, equal rights and freedom of opinion for everyone, regardless of colour, religion, nationality, orientation - you know the rest.

Binyavanga Wainaina

#2. No! on Human Rights and Freedom, on a subject that is as self-evident as that two and two make four, there is no need of any written authority.

Ernestine Rose

#3. A political prisoner is someone who is out fighting for his or her people's rights and freedom and is imprisoned for that alone.

Leonard Peltier

#4. Would give any woman who believes in reproductive rights and freedom any comfort.

Nan Aron

#5. Those religions that are oppressive to women are also against democracy, human rights, and freedom of expression.

Taslima Nasrin

#6. I swear I will do everything in my power to change the situation in Tibet where human rights are being suppressed. Tibet seeks freedom and democracy and we agree on those values.

Shinzo Abe

#7. The function of Government must be to favor no small group at the expense of its duty to protect the rights of personal freedom and of private property of all its citizens.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

#8. Life is a balancing act. While we have all the rights to be in freedom, peace, harmony and bliss; we do have a responsibility to ensure that others too enjoy their own freedom, peace, harmony and bliss.

Vishwas Chavan

#9. Our goals can only be achieved with a society that respects and equally protects the rights of every human being, old and young, rich and poor, regardless of gender, color, race, or creed. We must reject the initiation of violence by individuals or government as morally repugnant.

Ron Paul

#10. It is necessary to curb the power of government. This is the task of all constitutions, bills of rights and laws. This is the meaning of all struggles which men have fought for liberty.

Ludwig Von Mises

#11. ...the most sacred right of a person is to refuse o be manipulated, handled, cheated, and then kicked in the ass---.

Romain Gary

#12. The vegan lifestyle is a compassionate way to live that supports life, supports fairness and equality, and promotes freedom.

Robert Cheeke

#13. I think that, as Americans, we should never forget that when we tamper with freedom of speech, it is a very sensitive issue that affects all of our constitutional rights and privileges.

Charles B. Rangel

#14. Mandela's message will never die. It will continue to inspire freedom fighters and give confidence to people who defend just causes and universal rights.

Francois Hollande

#15. This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.

Lyndon B. Johnson

#16. I care about a lot of issues. I care about libraries, I care about healthcare, I care about homelessness and unemployment. I care about net neutrality and the steady erosion of our liberties both online and off. I care about the rich/poor divide and the rise of corporate business.

Sara Sheridan

#17. What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty ... Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.

Elbridge Gerry

#18. Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.

George Orwell

#19. The arbitrary power of the Government is unlimited, and unexampled in history; freedom of the Press, of opinion and of movement are as thoroughly exterminated as though the proclamation of the Rights of Man had never been.

Arthur Koestler

#20. Hong Kong is not just a global financial center. It's also a place with a lot of teens and youth who love freedom, democracy, and human rights.

Joshua Wong

#21. I think it is very important for any U.S. administration to be clear that America stands on the side of freedom and democracy and respect for individual rights.

Stephen Hadley

#22. The E.U. is more than just a trade organization or a common market; it is a guarantee of democracy, freedom, justice, and human rights. Nations cannot stay in the E.U. if they do not respect these guarantees.

John Bruton

#23. In this world him who does not abandon himself the Almighty will not desert. Him who helps himself will the Almighty always also help; He will show him the way by which he can gain his rights, his freedom, and therefore his future.

Adolf Hitler

#24. Only by zealously guarding the rights of the most humble, the most unorthodox, and the most despised among us can freedom flourish and endure in our land.

Frank Murphy

#25. 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.

Mark Steyn

#26. What does it mean to be an American? While each of us may have our own specific answer to that question, we likely can agree on the basic principles of America: freedom, equal opportunity, and rights accompanied by responsibilities.

Ben Nelson

#27. It is the press, above all, which wages a positively fanatical and slanderous struggle, tearing down everything which can be regarded as a support of national independence, cultural elevation, and the economic independence of the nation.

Adolf Hitler

#28. The extremists are afraid of books and pens, the power of education frightens them. they are afraid of women.

Malala Yousafzai

#29. In a free and democratic society such as ours, justice should not eternally abrogate one's rights to freedom and liberty, except in the most extreme cases.

Bernard B. Kerik

#30. Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner.

James F. Cooper

#31. The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.

David Harvey

#32. Making Saudi Arabia a world judge on women's rights and religious freedom would be like naming a pyromaniac as the town fire chief.

Hillel Neuer

#33. Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down.

Frederick Douglass

#34. Knocking on doors wasn't working. We had to try something else. Remember the kids whose natural curiosity brought them into our little office on the corner? We set up a Freedom School that was fashioned after the SNCC Freedom Schools in Mississippi and other places.

Junius Williams

#35. You know what offends me? Offended people. In a country with guaranteed rights to freedom of religion, its citizens are constantly trying to make faith in public spheres illegal, I am offended by that contradiction and want to talk about it as a comic.

Brad Stine

#36. What has happened to us? It seems as if we have perverted our freedom, our rights into license, into being irresponsible. Perhaps we did not realise just how apartheid has damaged us so that we seem to have lost our sense of right and wrong.

Desmond Tutu

#37. If a woman or a gay person has a right, by conservative logic, then the right is not actually a right but instead an assault on rights. Women and gays: So evil that we can turn actual rights into assaults on freedom just by having them.

Amanda Marcotte

#38. The arc of American history almost inevitably moves toward freedom. Whether it's Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, the expansion of women's rights or, now, gay rights, I think there is an almost-inevitable march toward greater civil liberties.

James McGreevey

#39. Mr. President: We, women political prisoners of the Soviet Union, congratulate you on your reelection to the spot of President of the USA. We look with hope to your country which is on the road of FREEDOM and respect for HUMAN RIGHTS. We wish you success on this road.

Ronald Reagan

#40. The day that the black man takes an uncompromising step and realizes that he's within his rights, when his own freedom is being jeopardized, to use any means necessary to bring about his freedom or put a halt to that injustice, I don't think he'll be by himself.

Malcolm X

#41. politicians and pundits tell you what your rights are. Read this book to learn your constitutional rights and together, we can keep the spirit of freedom alive in this great nation. Click here to view this

Sean Patrick

#42. And it's one thing to give people freedom and something else to deny the rights of Christians to assert their faith in order to keep Hindus from feeling upset.

Pat Robertson

#43. From the very beginning, the American dream meant proving to all mankind that freedom, justice, human rights and democracy were no utopia but were rather the most realistic policy there is and the most likely to improve the fate of each and every person.

Nicolas Sarkozy

#44. The sea, as well as the air, is a free and common thing to all; and a particular nation cannot pretend to have the right to the exclusion of all others, without violating the rights of nature and public usage.

Elizabeth I

#45. We wish for a broad-based government with the active participation of women, which will promote freedom and equal rights for women

Sima Samar

#46. You can't pick and choose which types of freedom you want to defend. You must defend all of it or be against all of it.

Scott Howard Phillips

#47. Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.

Ayn Rand

#48. Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid.

Penn Jillette

#49. Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this great struggle, every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished.

Robert Green Ingersoll

#50. Although we have, in theory, abolished human slavery, recognized women's rights, and stopped child labor, we continue to enslave other species who, if we simply pay attention, show quite clearly that they experience parental love, pain, and the desire for freedom, just as we do.

Ingrid Newkirk

#51. Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.

Ronald Reagan

#52. What are we having this liberty for? We are having this liberty in order to reform our social system, which is full of inequality, discrimination and other things, which conflict with our fundamental rights.

B.R. Ambedkar

#53. The civil rights movement didn't begin in Montgomery and it didn't end in the 1960s. It continues on to this very minute.

Julian Bond

#54. If you are for freedom and equal rights, which we hear a lot of talk about these days, then you have to include the LGBTQ community in that. And if you're not willing to put your time where your mouth is, then I don't know quite what you mean by commitment in your life.

Hal Sparks

#55. Freedom sees in religion the companion of its struggles and its triumphs, the cradle of its infancy, the divine source of its rights. It considers religion as the safeguard of mores; and mores as the guarantee of laws and the pledge of its duration.

Alexis De Tocqueville

#56. Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature such as self preservation? (CIA Document, Project ARTICHOKE, MORI ID 144686, 1952)
As cited by Dr Ellen P. Lacter, p57

Orit Badouk Epstein

#57. The use of "religion" as an excuse to repress the freedom of expression and to deny human rights is not confined to any country or time.

Margaret Atwood

#58. EQUAL RIGHTS and FREE DISCUSSION will be fearlessly advocated and maintained. Sectarian dogmas or tenets will be investigated and compared.

Abner Cole

#59. Many of us persons of the tinted persuasion care about human rights and artistic freedom too.

Salman Rushdie

#60. Welfare states come in different shapes and sizes; they are constructed on diverging conceptions of social rights and duties; some stress equality and solidarity, others freedom; and the range of policy objectives is vast and widely dissimilar.

Kees Van Kersbergen

#61. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.

Joseph Heller

#62. Of course, there are dangers in religious freedom and freedom of opinion. But to deny these rights is worse than dangerous, it is absolutely fatal to liberty.

Harry S. Truman

#63. Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth.

Liu Xiaobo

#64. Dr. King's famous 'I Have a Dream' speech was delivered at 'The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,' a call to justice beyond the traditional civil rights movement's focus.

Charles B. Rangel

#65. I am not here as a public official, but as a citizen of a troubled world who finds hope in a growing consensus that the generally accepted goals of society are peace, freedom, human rights, environmental quality, the alleviation of suffering, and the rule of law.

Jimmy Carter

#66. I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in - and the West in general - into an unbearable hell and a choking life.

Osama Bin Laden

#67. President Bush met repeatedly with human rights activists and freedom fighters from all over the world to give them encouragement and protection and to advance their cause.

Elliott Abrams

#68. You have to remember, rights don't come in groups we shouldn't have 'gay rights'; rights come as individuals, and we wouldn't have this major debate going on. It would be behavior that would count, not what person belongs to what group.

Ron Paul

#69. We are not going to always agree with each other, but we should have the dignity to always respect each other's freedom of speech and of choice. Democracy is practiced when we have respect for human rights.

Ellen J. Barrier

#70. Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights).

Robert Nozick

#71. It's freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences and/or ridicule.

A.E. Samaan

#72. In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining ... . We demand this fraud be stopped.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#73. The civil rights movement is understanding your freedom under the Constitution of these United States and if anyone tries to take those freedoms from you, you better rise up and fight and that's what we're doing together.

Ken Hutcherson

#74. But whether the risks to which liberty exposes us are moral or physical our right to liberty involves the right to run them. A man who is not free to risk his neck as an aviator or his soul as a heretic is not free at all; and the right to liberty begins, not at the age of 21 years but 21 seconds.

George Bernard Shaw

#75. Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#76. The strength of this country lies in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and the freedom of speech and thought.

George Soros

#77. Rights and empowerment are interconnected: unless a substantial number of women in a community come to believe that they have rights and demand to exercise them, right remains an abstraction.

Mahnaz Afkhami

#78. I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man.

Mary Wollstonecraft

#79. We [The United States] believe the Iranian people want a future of freedom and human rights: the right to vote, to run for office, to express their views without fear and to pursue political causes. We would welcome the progress, prosperity and freedom of the Iranian people.

Condoleezza Rice

#80. Our democracy depends on an informed citizenry to survive, Your Honor. Besides the advancement of truth, science and morality in general, the freedom of the press is a backbone of democracy. It exists to keep the government transparent, and the human instruments of government honest.

Kenneth Eade

#81. What began as a bitter dispute over Union and States' Rights, ended as a struggle over the meaning of freedom in America. At Gettysburg in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said perhaps more than he knew. The war was about a new birth of freedom.

Bruce Catton

#82. I've fought for religious freedom and I can tell you that anti-gay 'religious freedom' bills aren't it.

DaShanne Stokes

#83. So the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is out there preserving and fighting for, and sometimes winning and sometimes losing, the fight for First Amendment rights in comics and, more generally, for freedom of speech.

Neil Gaiman

#84. We are a nation of immigrants, a quilt of many colors, and we've managed over more than two centuries to create a way of life that allows for a reasonable degree of upward mobility, that prizes individual liberty, promotes freedom of religion and genuinely values equal rights for all citizens.

Jay Parini

#85. It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights - the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery - hay and a barn for human cattle.

Alexis De Tocqueville

#86. The search for liberation is a rejection of the responsibilities of freedom in favor of a release into the irresponsibility of rights. And a right is irresponsible because it is a legally entrenched liberty that does not contain within itself the limitations instinctive in a free society.

Kenneth Minogue

#87. In the name of freedom, there has to be a correlation between rights and duties, by which every person is called to assume responsibility for his or her choices, made as a consequence of entering into relations with others.

Pope Benedict XVI

#88. Well we are hoping that the power of the community of free nations is such that our sovereignty our rights are not going to be challenged by anybody who's going try to undermine the freedom, the openness of our societies and our security.

Douglas Feith

#89. In almost every case (where the United States has fought wars) our overwhelming commitment to freedom, democracy and human rights has required us to support those regimes that would deny freedom, democracy and human rights to their own people.

Gore Vidal

#90. The enemy was not the Klan but the inside-outside lock that racism and classism had on the minds of the people: It operated from the inside through self-hate and self-doubt, and from the outside through the police, carnivorous landlords, and the welfare system.

Junius Williams

#91. When I went off to the army when I was 17 years old, I believed in America and the rights of freedom. But today I believe my government is lying to the American people and that my president, George Bush, is a criminal.

Jack Herer

#92. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

#93. freedom of speech becomes mere license when it goes so far as to criticize the Army, differ with the D.A.R., and advocate the rights of the Mob.

Sinclair Lewis

#94. When a people lose the courage to resist encroachment on their rights, then they can't be saved by an outside force. Our belief is that people always have the kind of government they want and that individuals must bear the risks of freedom, even to the extent of giving their lives.

A.E. Van Vogt

#95. We should seek international support for our mutual objectives abroad, in promoting freedom, democracy, respect for human rights, and also the elimination of weapons of mass destruction.

Bob Menendez

#96. The unrestrained freedom of thinking and of openly making known one's thoughts is not inherent in the rights of citizens and is by no means worthy of favor and support.

Pope Gregory XVI

#97. Everyone has a right to peaceful coexistence, the basic personal freedoms, the alleviation of suffering, and the opportunity to lead a productive life ...

Jimmy Carter

#98. The freedom to share one's insights and judgments verbally or in writing is, just like the freedom to think, a holy and inalienable right of humanity that, as a universal human right, is above all the rights of princes.

Karl Friedrich Bahrdt

#99. Our true nature is one of innocence and freedom to choose how we live. We need to be brave enough not to give that away. Don't give up on your right to, and sense of, TRUTH, Justice, and GRACE.

Jay Woodman

#100. I had my first amendment rights removed by a USA judge for a video that I recorded in the public sidewalk. The right to free speech and freedom of the press only partially exists in the USA.

Steven Magee