Natural Rights Philosophy Quotes & Sayings

In the vision of Enoch, we find ourselves drawn to a God who prevents all the pain He can, assumes all the suffering He can, and weeps over the misery He can neither prevent nor assume. — Terryl L. Givens

I never did anything dishonest. — T. Boone Pickens

Government exists to protect the product of men's labor, their property, and therewith life and liberty. The notion that man possesses inalienable natural rights, that they belong to him as an individual prior, both in time and in sanctity, to any civil society, and that civil societies exist for and acquire their legitimacy from ensuring those rights, is an invention of modern philosophy. Rights, like the other terms discussed in this chapter, are new in modernity, not a part of the common-sense language of politics or of classical political philosophy." from "Closing of the American Mind" by Allan Bloom, Saul Bellow, Andrew Ferguson — Allan Bloom

Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, ... whence it becomes expedient for promoting the publick happiness that those persons, whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens, and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or accidental condition of circumstance. — Thomas Jefferson

No one can take away your Natural Rights, but they can do great damage making you think they can. — J.S.B. Morse

Rourk didn't even know her name, but he knew he'd never seen anyone so magnificent in his life. Her wavy hair glistened in the sunlight. She had a delicate, round face with large, blue-green eyes and full lips. With her cheeks flushed from the cold fall air, she reminded him of a porcelain doll. He knew that her looks deceived; her bold, daring eyes gave her away. She constantly observed her surroundings. Rourk smiled to himself; soon they would be together. — Julia Crane

I don't believe in rushing and saying this is done and over with. That form of rebellion doesn't make sense to me. I've always attempted to familiarize myself with the traditions, and consider that a responsibility of the artist. — Twyla Tharp

The folks who go after grand challenges are impatient. They're pissed off. They're sick and tired, but in a passionate way. They're driven by a fire in their bellies to make a difference. — Peter Diamandis

Perhaps the greatest difference among people is between those who never have to worry about money and those who do. — James Cook

How glorious, then, is the prospect, the reverse of all the past, which is now opening upon us, and upon the world. Government, we may now expect to see, not only in theory and in books but in actual practice, calculated for the general good, and taking no more upon it than the general good requires, leaving all men the enjoyment of as many of their natural rights as possible, and no more interfering with matters of religion, with men's notions concerning God, and a future state, than with philosophy, or medicine. — Joseph Priestley

To ask whether the natural rights philosophy of the Declaration of Independence is true or false, is essentially a meaningless question. — Carl L. Becker

I heard a neigh. Oh, such a brisk and melodious neigh it was. My very heart leapt with the sound. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

I am just a person who is human, down to earth enjoying life ... whatever god blesses you with. Enjoying life for me is just normal. — Mohamed Al-Fayed

I wasn't predicted to be anything. I just followed an inner spirit, and it put me in the right place and the right time. I didn't want to be the mayor of Atlanta. I didn't want to run for Congress. I didn't want to work for Martin Luther King Jr. I wanted to work close to him and be a writer and write about the movement. — Andrew Young

If there be such a principle as justice, or natural law, it is the principle, or law, that tells us what rights were given to every human being at his birth; what rights are, therefore, inherent in him as a human being, necessarily remain with him during life; and, however capable of being trampled upon, are incapable of being blotted out, extinguished, annihilated, or separated or eliminated from his nature as a human being, or deprived of their inherent authority or obligation. — Lysander Spooner

Art is a habit-forming drug. Art has absolutely no existence as veracity, as truth. People always speak of it with this great, religious reverence, but why should it be so revered? — Marcel Duchamp

Feed yourself with the food of wisdom.
Wisdom is recognised by joy and peace.
When you allow your ways to be light you go high.
When your path supports heaviness it weighs you down. — Raphael Zernoff

The history of liberty is the history of limitations on the power of government, not the increase of it. When we resist, therefore, the concentration of power, we are resisting the processes of death, because concentration of power is what always precedes the destruction of human liberties. — Woodrow Wilson

The error I found in the philosophy of Henry George was its cocksureness, its simplicity, and the small value that it placed upon the selfish motives of men. The doctrine was a hang-over from the seventeenth century in France, when the philosophers had given up the idea of God, but still thought that there must be some immovable basis for man's conduct and ideals. In this dilemma they evolved the theory of natural rights. If 'natural rights' means anything it means that the individual rights are to be determined by the conduct of Nature. But Nature knows nothing about rights in the sense of human conception. — Clarence Darrow

A libertarian is somebody who believes, of course, in personal liberty. And liberty is a personal thing; it is not collective. You don't gain liberty because you belong to a group. So we don't talk about women's rights or gay rights or anything else. Everybody has an absolute equal right as an individual, and it comes to them naturally. — Ron Paul

If we want the world to change, the healing of culture and greater balance in nature, it has to start inside the human soul. — Michael Meade