Rights Of Minorities Quotes

#1. Governments exist to protect the rights of minorities. The loved and the rich need no protection: they have many friends and few enemies.

Wendell Phillips

#2. No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of minorities.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

#3. To say that majorities, as such, have a right to rule minorities, is equivalent to saying that minorities have, and ought to have, no rights, except such as majorities please to allow them.

Lysander Spooner

#4. In establishing democracy, we have to be sensitive to the regional and national context. Democracy also means to guarantee the rights of the minorities. That's my job as a king. We have for example a Jewish ambassador in the US and a Christian in the UK.

Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa

#5. I made it clear that I will consider - this is the important phrase I am trying to say - myself most fortunate if Jesus Christ will accept the sacrifice of my blood to raise the voice for the justice and rights of the persecuted and victimized Christians and other minorities in Pakistan.

Shahbaz Bhatti

#6. The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

Ayn Rand

#7. Thought that is silenced is always rebellious. Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions.

Alan Barth

#8. The minorities have been confined to the city by a moat of bigotry.

Shirley Chisholm

#9. The people in Arab countries are now speaking out and asking many questions about human rights, minorities, religion, democracy, "the other," and so on.

Hassan Blasim

#10. And one by one, these normal people would describe fantasies that were all to be found in that famous treatise on erotic minorities: a book, in fact, that defended the right of everyone to have the orgasm they chose, as long as it did not violate the rights of their partner.

Paulo Coelho

#11. Individual rights are not subject to a public vote. A majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority. The political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities, and the smallest minority on earth is the individual.

Ayn Rand

#12. Iran's continued, widespread persecution of ethnic minorities, human rights defenders and political prisoners is a disgrace and stands as a shameful indictment of Iran's leaders.

William Hague

#13. The argument on the other side of special rights is completely bogus. It's bogus because you could make exactly the same claim about racial or ethnic or religious minorities.

Tom Allen

#14. The Bundists did not wait for the Messiah, nor did they plan to leave for Palestine. They believed that Poland was their country and they fought for a just, socialist Poland, in which each nationality would have its own cultural autonomy, and in which minorities' rights would be guaranteed.

Marek Edelman

#15. The liberal psyche wants to protect minorities, to apologize for imperialism, colonialism, slavery, and the appalling treatment of black people during the civil rights movement. At the same time, they want to continue to defend the rights of individuals.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

#16. [The Bill of Rights is] designed to protect individuals and minorities against the tyranny of the majority, but it's also designed to protect the people against bureaucracy, against the government.

Laurence Tribe

#17. It's not my victory, it's yours and yours and yours. If a gay can win, it means there is hope that the system can work for all minorities if we fight. We've given them hope.

Harvey Milk

#18. There's a very big gulf between the black civil rights leadership in America and the black middle class in America. The black middle class are conservative. Many of those minorities can be persuaded to be members of the Republican Party.

Pete Du Pont

#19. I grew up as a discriminated minority in a dictatorship, so obviously the issue of human rights is a matter of concern for me.

Henry A. Kissinger

#20. Minorities have never been given their rights. They have always had to wage a political and legal battle to win them.

Gloria Allred

#21. You have fewer rights because you are a minority. Absolutely, that's how democracy works.

Jacob Zuma

#22. The recognition of rights for women and minorities became a large part of my understanding of what this country is all about.

Faye Wattleton

#23. In the Islamic Republic the rights of the religious minorities are respectfully regarded.

Ruhollah Khomeini

#24. In Turkey the religious minorities have more rights than they do in Europe.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

#25. A government is free in proportion to the rights it guarantees to the minority.

Alf Landon

#26. No American president can support an Egypt that calls into question the historic treaty between Israel and Egypt. And no American president can support an Egypt that doesn't fully recognize women's rights or the rights of religious minorities.

Condoleezza Rice

#27. Of strong importance to me is the defense of minority rights, not just racial minorities, but ideological and religious minorities.

Rand Paul

#28. I wanted to represent minorities in the respect of people who had been bullied in school or people who were gay or lesbian or trans or people who aren't blonde haired and blue-eyed. I have short hair, and I am covered in tattoos. I like showing people that it's within their rights to be different.

Ruby Rose

#29. One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.

James K. Polk

#30. Democracy is based on the majority principle. This is especially true in a country such as ours where the vast majority have been systematically denied their rights. At the same time, democracy also requires that the rights of political and other minorities be safeguarded.

Nelson Mandela