Our Rights Quotes & Sayings

Our privileges can be no greater than our obligations. The protection of our rights can endure no longer than the performance of our responsibilities. — John F. Kennedy

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

The main difference lies in wage levels, which is because our workers are not yet as well trained as in other countries. We are a poor country. This is why we must accept the conditions that prevail in international markets. But our trade unions do represent the rights of workers. — Nguyen Minh Triet

By strengthening the three pillars of the United Nations - security, development and human rights - we can build a more peaceful, more prosperous and more just world for our succeeding generations. — Ban Ki-moon

Politics should be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage. — Lucille Ball

Writing of only one small part of the broader problem, namely the single-minded pursuit of individualistic 'rights,' [Don] Feder is not wrong to conclude:

Absent a delicate balance--rights and duties, freedom and order--the social fabric begins to unravel. The rights explosion of the past three decades has taken us on a rapid descent to a culture without civility, decency, or even that degree of discipline necessary to maintain an advanced industrial civilization. Our cities are cesspools, our urban schools terrorist training camps, our legislatures brothels where rights are sold to the highest electoral bidder. — D. A. Carson

Yes, and then it's these things that cause the whites to say we're not worthy of first-class citizenship." "Ah ... " He dropped his hands to his sides hard in frustration. "Isn't it so? They make it impossible for us to earn, to pay much in taxes because we haven't much in income, and then they say that because they pay most of the taxes, they have the right to have things like they want. It's a vicious circle, Mr. Griffin, and I don't know how we'll get out of it. They put us low, and then blame us for being down there and say that since we are low, we can't deserve our rights. — John Howard Griffin

Mexico is a country without political freedom, without freedom of speech, without a free press, without a free ballot, without a jury system, without political parties, without any of our cherJ ished guarantees of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is a land where there has been no contest for the office of president for more than a generation, where the executive rules all things by means of a standing army, where political offices are sold for a fixed price. I found Mexico to be a land where the people are poor because they have no rights, where peonage is the rule for the great mass, and where actual chattel slavery obtains for hundreds of thousands. — John Kenneth Turner

While law-abiding Muslims are forced to hide in their homes, and animal-rights activists are labeled as terrorists for undercover filming of abusive treatment at factory farms, right-wing hate groups are free to organize, parade, arm themselves to the hilt and murder with chilling regularity. It's time for our society to confront this very real threat. — Amy Goodman

In submission we are at last free to value other people. Their dreams and plans become important to us. We have entered into a new, wonderful, glorious freedom, the freedom to give up our own rights for the good of others. For the first time we can love people unconditionally. We have given up the right for them to return our love. No longer do we feel we have to be treated in a certain way. We can rejoice with their successes. We feel genuine sorrow at their failures. It is of little consequence that our plans are frustrated, if their plans succeed. We discover that it is far better to serve our neighbor than to have our own way. — Richard J. Foster

But despite the scarcity of confrontation with whites in our neighborhood, race and racism permeated every aspect of our lives. Our parents taught us that in order to succeed, we 'had to be twice as good as white folks.' We were constantly being prepared to enter a world dominated by whites. — Junius Williams

Our Arab mothers and sisters are suffering from injustices like domestic violence, sexual harassment, child marriages and honour killings, some are still fighting for their right to drive or travel without male custody therefore our powerful Arab media was not only expected to broadcast this particular one of a kind Women's march it should have held panels to dissect the issues being brought forth in order for the Arab world to better understand that gender equality is not an idea that one believes in, it is a planned movement that requires an enormous effort on the part of both men and women to reach. — Aysha Taryam

The Church has a special duty to safeguard and strengthen the sacredness of the Eucharist. In our pluralistic and often deliberately secularized society, the living faith of the Christian community - a faith always aware of its rights vis-a-vis those who do not share the faith - ensures respect for this sacredness — Pope John Paul II

We just need to put our foot down. This is a good time for us to bring this to a place of fairness, and girls need to know that being a feminist is a good thing. It doesn't mean that you hate men. It means equal rights. If you're doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way. — Charlize Theron

We hear from time to time about horrible human rights atrocities happening around the globe. Our government claims that it stands in favor of human rights, and our leaders are in the news demanding consequences for other countries that are abusing their populations. But there is a huge denial about how widespread and common these kinds of atrocities are in the United States, and that we are not nearly as different from other countries as we would like to believe we are. — Lundy Bancroft

Our country as a whole, no less than the Hastings College of Law, values tolerance, cooperation, learning, and the amicable resolution of conflicts. But we seek to achieve those goals through "[a] confident pluralism that conduces to civil peace and advances democratic consensus-building," not by abridging First Amendment rights. — Samuel Alito

We need common-sense judges who understand our rights were derived from God — George W. Bush

The United States of America was once a great nation... but this United States is not the one our founding fathers set out to build over 200 years ago. This United States stands for everything its citizens have fought against throughout its history: oppression, unwarranted violence against innocent and weaker countries or its own citizens, trampling of human rights, crooked legal systems, and socialism. — J.C. Allen

I wasn't looking for notoriety [when we marched]. But if that's what it took [to get attention], I didn't care how many licks I got. It just made me even more determined to fight for our cause. — Amelia Boynton Robinson

That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate. — Thomas Jefferson

The sin of quick anger is an idol of the heart that is not dying to our own rights. — Ron Pearce

Men tend to treat women as fragile creatures, but our bodies were built to withstand pain and hard work, think with profound insight. We were created to do what men can't. And if that isn't reason enough for us to be treated equal, I'm not sure what is. — Caroline George

Why should we be denied basic human rights just because we've messed up our relationships? — Nick Hornby

We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights. — Martin Luther King Jr.

As though there were a tie And obligation to posterity. We get them, bear them, breed, and nurse: What has posterity done for us. That we, lest they their rights should lose, Should trust our necks to gripe of noose? — John Trumbull

Human rights' are a fine thing, but how can we make ourselves sure that our rights do not expand at the expense of the rights of others. A society with unlimited rights is incapable of standing to adversity. If we do not wish to be ruled by a coercive authority, then each of us must rein himself in ... A stable society is achieved not by balancing opposing forces but by conscious self-limitation: by the principle that we are always duty-bound to defer to the sense of moral justice. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

A good motivation is what is needed: compassion without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy; just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their human rights and dignities. That we humans can help each other is one of our unique human capacities. — Dalai Lama

When female stories are muted, we are teaching our kids that their dignity is second class and the historical accounts of their lives [are] less relevant. This lowered value carries over when women face sexual objectification and systemic brutalization from inside and outside the community. — Aurin Squire

Our nation was not founded because we all looked alike, or prayed alike, or descended from the same family tree. But our founders, in their genius, in this, the oldest constitutional democracy, put forth on this earth the idea that all are created equal; that we all have inalienable rights. — Cory Booker

Nor ought we ever to allow any growing power to acquire such a degree of strength as to be able to tear from us, without resistance, our natural, undisputed rights. — Polybius

And that brings me to one last point. I've got a simple message for all the dedicated and patriotic federal workers who have either worked without pay, or who have been forced off the job without pay for these last few weeks. Including most of my own staff. Thank you. Thanks for your service. Welcome back. What you do is important. It matters. You defend our country overseas, you deliver benefits to our troops who earned them when they come home, you guard our borders, you protect our civil rights, you help businesses grow and gain footholds in overseas markets. You protect the air we breathe, and the water our children drink, and you push the boundaries of science and space, and you guide hundreds of thousands of people each day through the glories of this country. Thank you. What you do is important, and don't let anybody else tell you different. — Barack Obama

The 'Rise, Rebel, Resist' video is a reflection of the outrage the American people are feeling at the absurd hypocrisy, and overwhelming nonsense and balderdash plaguing Washington D.C. It uses a bit of satire and a bit of wishful thinking to form this powerful amalgam of imagery that nourishes and empowers the living art of the song. Our message is clear: Either these elected officials do their job and protect the rights and lives of ALL Americans or be prepared to face the consequences. — Otep Shamaya

In real life, the monsters are the ones abducting and killing children or flying hijacked airplanes into skyscrapers or looting our treasury and sending our kids off to fight a bullshit war just so they can line their own pockets and the pockets of their corporate buddies or eradicating our Bill of Rights in the name of national security. Those are the real monsters. — Brian Keene

God says in the bible that we should love our neighbor and he created us all as equals. I know in my heart that gays and lesbians should have the same government rights that Spencer and I will when we get married. So, yes, this blonde Christian believes in gay marriage. — Heidi Montag

When we contend, let us contend for all our rights - the doubtful and the certain, the unimportant and essential. It is as easy to contend, or even more so, for the whole as for a part. At the termination of the contest, secure all that our wisdom and valour and the fortune of war will permit. — John C. Calhoun

When sins become civil rights, there is a temptation for Christians to keep our mouths shut and turn what is supposed to be a public faith into a private faith, but we are commanded to not be ashamed of the gospel. — Mark Driscoll

The instinct to tell our children that they are better than someone else's children, based on nothing more than the color of their skin, is now a fossilized aberration that serves no useful purpose. — Aberjhani

To cheapen the lives of any group of men, cheapens the lives of all men, even our own. This is a law of human psychology, or human nature. And it will not be repealed by our wishes, nor will it be merciful to our blindness. — William Pickens

The underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us ... — Barack Obama

These are universals, as is the fear women feel during times of political upheaval that occur in what could still be called the outside world of men--whether during the Taiping Rebellion so many years ago or today for women in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan, or even right here in this country in the post-9/11 era. On the surface, we as American women are independent, free, and mobile, but at our cores we still long for love, friendship, happiness, tranquility, and to be heard. — Lisa See

Freedom is a choice, and we have to defend our choices. — Vahid Asghari

It happens that I'm heterosexual, but I don't care about that. I do care about protecting the rights of 10 percent of our population who are homosexual and who don't have the ability to protect their rights. — Ed Koch

The protection of human rights to promote the dignity of the individual is too important a matter for symbolic gestures alone. It is only through the pursuit of practical and effective efforts to promote human rights that we show our real commitment to the welfare of individuals and society. — Alexander Downer

We must return to them their lawful rights, assure equality of justice - and then everybody leave everybody else to hell alone. Paternalistic - we show our prejudice in our paternalism - we downgrade their dignity. — John Howard Griffin

No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority. — Thomas Jefferson

The victim is always morally superior to the master; that is the victim's ambivalent triumph. That is why there have been so few notoriously wicked women in comparison to the number of notoriously wicked men; our victim status ensures that we rarely have the opportunity. — Angela Carter

The laboring classes constitute the main part of our population. They should be protected in their efforts peaceably to assert their rights when endangered by aggregated capital and all statutes on this subject should recognize the care of the State for honest toil and be framed with a view of improving the condition of the workingman — Grover Cleveland

There are only two parties in France: the people and its enemies. We must exterminate those miserable villains who are eternally conspiring against the rights of man ... We must exterminate all our enemies. — Maximilien De Robespierre

After 25-plus years as a lawyer, prosecutor, and defense attorney, I have developed a deep appreciation for both the wisdom of the law and the role that jurists play in framing the rights and responsibilities that define our society. — Eliot Spitzer

The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period. — George Washington

[I suspect] that in the drive toward the liberal universalist notion of human rights that characterized the last fifty or so years, there has been an accompanying oversensitivity that, in practice, keeps us atomized and more likely to be manipulated and have our rights impinged upon. — Darren O'Donnell

It is not a dirty word, 'feminism'. I just think that women belong in the human population with the same rights as everybody else ... The problem is, 'A feminist looks like this, or is like that'. We are taught not to like ourselves as women, we are taught what we're supposed to look like what our measurements are supposed to be. I never hear what measurements men are supposed to be. Just women. — Cyndi Lauper

The impulse to make ourselves safer by making ourselves less free is an old one ... When we are badly frightened, we think we can make ourselves safer by sacrificing some of our liberties. We did it during the McCarthy era out of fear of communism. Less liberty is regularly proposed as a solution to crime, to pornography, to illegal immigration, to abortion, to all kinds of threats. — Molly Ivins

I would sign an executive order protecting religious liberty, our first amendment rights, so Christian business owners and individuals don't face discrimination for having a traditional view of marriage. — Bobby Jindal

We should be tolerant, fair, open, and we should understand the rights that all people have in our society. — Rudy Giuliani

We must recognise that we have a great inheritance in our possession, which represents the prolonged achievement of the centuries; that there is not one of our simple uncounted rights today for which better men than we are have not died on the scaffold or the battlefield. We have not only a great treasure; we have a great cause. Are we taking every measure within our power to defend that cause? — Winston Churchill

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, declaring that all men were created equal, he owned slaves. Women couldn't vote. But, throughout history, our abolitionists, suffragettes, and civil rights leaders called on our nation, in reality, to live up to the nation's professed ideals in that Declaration. — Marvin Ammori

Democracies have been, and governments called, free; but the spirit of independence and the consciousness of unalienable rights, were never before transfused into the minds of a whole people ... The feeling of equality which they proudly cherish does not proceed from an ignorance of their station, but from the knowledge of their rights; and it is this knowledge which will render it so exceedingly difficult for any tyrant ever to triumph over the liberties of our country. — Sarah Josepha Hale

The first thing I said to myself on 9/11 was, 'There go our civil rights.' I found out by comparing notes later that George Carlin and I both said that at the exact same time. That's the first thing that popped into our head. — Penn Jillette

But today, government is taking those rights from us, pretending that it gives us our rights. Indeed, those rights come from God, and it was recognized throughout our history as such. — Roy Moore

Strangely, the subsequent AIDS works that have become iconic in our culture rarely mention the movement, or the engaged community of lovers, but both formations were inseparable from the crisis itself. Now, looking back, I fear that the story of the isolated helpless homosexual was one far more palatable to the corporations who control the reward system in the arts.The more truthful story of the American mass - abandoning families, criminal governments, indifferent neighbors - is too uncomfortable and inconvenient to recall. The story of how gay people who were despised, had no rights, and carried the burden of a terrible disease came together to force the country to change against its will, is apparently too implicating to tell. Fake tales of individual heterosexuals heroically overcoming their prejudices to rescue helpless dying men with AIDS was a lot more appealing to the powers that be, but not at all true. — Sarah Schulman

In our everyday garden grow the rosemary, juniper, ferns and plane trees, perfectly tangible and visible. For these plants that have an illusory relationship with us, which in no way alters their existentiality, we are merely an event, an accident, and our presence, which seems so solid, laden with gravity, is to them no more than a momentary void in motion through the air. Reality is a quality that belongs to them, and we can exercise no rights over it. — Leo Lionni

When the day comes in which the Kingdom of God will bear rule, the flag of the United States will proudly flutter unsullied on the flag staff of liberty and equal rights, without a spot to sully its fair surface; the glorious flag our fathers have bequeathed to us will then be unfurled to the breeze by those who have power to hoist it aloft and defend its sanctity. — Brigham Young

We are captured, brother, surrounded by the majoritarian bandits of America. And this has happened here, in our only home, and the terrible truth is that we cannot will ourselves to an escape on our own. Perhaps that was, is, the hope of the movement: to awaken the Dreamers, to rouse them to the facts of what their need to be white, to talk like they are white, to think that they are white, which is to think that they are beyond the design flaws of humanity, has done to the world. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens. As Americans, we are blessed with circumstances that protect our human rights and our religious freedom, but for many people around the world, deprivation and persecution have become a way of life. — Jimmy Carter

Our world is utterly saturated with fear. We fear being attacked by religious extremists, both foreign and domestic. We fear the loss of political rights, a loss of privacy, or a loss of freedom. We fear being injured, robbed or attacked, being judged by others, or neglected, or left unloved. — Brendan Myers

Every American, regardless of their background, has the right to live free of unwarranted government intrusion. Repealing the worst provisions of the Patriot Act will reign in this gross abuse of power and restore to everyone our basic Constitutional rights. — Pete Stark

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

This thing called Patriot Act, through which we abdicated a lot of our civil rights to defend the country against terrorism, it's a four-year story. — Neil Young

A growing and increasingly influential movement of philosophers, ethicists, law professors and activists are convinced that the great moral struggle of our time will be for the rights of animals. — Michael Pollan

One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them. — Martin Luther King Jr.

They who plead an absolute right cannot be satisfied with anything short of personal representation, because all natural rights must be the rights of individuals; as by nature there is no such thing as politic or corporate personality; all these things are mere fictions of law, they are creatures of voluntary institution; men as men are individuals, and nothing else. They, therefore, who reject the principle of natural and personal representation, are essentially and eternally at variance with those who claim it. As to the first sort of reformers, it is ridiculous to talk to them of the British constitution upon any or upon all of its bases; for they lay it down that every man ought to govern himself, and that where he cannot go himself he must send his representative; that all other government is usurpation; and is so far from having a claim to our obedience, it is not only our right, but our duty, to resist it. — Edmund Burke

The notion of a world government to defend our rights would have sent the founding fathers running for their muskets. — Pat Buchanan

Loving the Earth with a fierce devotion can mean that we view the damage being done to nature as attacks on our own family and kinship group. The despair and rage we feel as witnesses to terracide, animal exploitation and the everyday callous disregard for the environment can be channelled into creating awareness, resistance efforts, the earth rights movement, and by rejecting the numbing and destructive values of Empire. By opening our hearts to the Earth in our thoughts, words, actions and cultural life we will find sacred purpose in the co-creation of an earth-honoring society. Our re-enchantment with the natural world is essential for devoting ourselves to eco-activism, environmental healing, earth restoration and rewilding, and the future rests with us! — Pegi Eyers

Without Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence, there would have been no American revolution that announced universal principles of liberty. Without his participation by the side of the unforgettable Marquis de Lafayette, there would have been no French proclamation of The Rights of Man. Without his brilliant negotiation of the Louisiana treaty, there would be no United States of America. Without Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, there would have been no Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, and no basis for the most precious clause of our most prized element of our imperishable Bill of Rights - the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. — Christopher Hitchens

We, the People of this country, have no unalienable rights ... all our rights are subject to modification ... the Constitution of the United States of America is nothing more than a piece of paper and ... our government should not be restrained by the Constitution because our government can do good things for people. — Alan Dershowitz

And these great natural rights may be reduced to three principal or primary articles: the right of personal security; the right of personal liberty; and the right of private property; because as there is no other known method of compulsion, or of abridging man's natural free will, but by an infringement or diminution of one or other of these important rights, the preservation of these, inviolate, may justly be said to include the preservation of our civil immunities in their largest and most extensive sense. — William Blackstone

For some time, I've said this issue of comprehensive immigration reform is not just an issue about immigration or human rights or civil rights, it's about our economy. You take 11 million people from out of the dark and into the light. The think tanks have surmised that you are talking about trillions of dollars infused into the economy. — Antonio Villaraigosa

There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. — Smedley Butler

Every sensitive person should make his point of view let known, at least, to one person other than yourself on every subject that gets you worked up. This is basic to every social being. And like theory of vibration it gains momentum as the time passes. However, it also happens that it can turn out to be wasted effort. Because we are common people. The fact that we are of no consequence, so are our utterances and statements, makes us indifferent to a lot of issues and situations around us. However, in a set-up we live in, it becomes incumbent upon every educated individual to air our views for the general good of all. Like wise, as public-spirited individuals we must believe in doing something, rather than grumble at home over the breakfast table that the World is not a pleasant place. After all, lighting a lamp is wiser than cursing the darkness. — Manasa Rao

Like other discriminatory legislation in our country's history, immigration laws define and differentiate legal status on the basis of arbitrary attributes. Immigration laws create unequal rights. People who break immigration laws don't cause harm or even potential harm (unlike, for example, drunk driving, which creates the potential for harm even if no accident occurs). Rather, people who break immigration laws do things that are perfectly legal for others, but denied to them
like crossing a border or, even more commonly, simply exist. — Aviva Chomsky

Make ethical choices in what we buy, do, and watch. In a consumer-driven society our individual choices, used collectively for the good of animals and nature, can change the world faster than laws. — Marc Bekoff

If we can't preserve the privacy of our right to procreate, I can't imagine what rights we will be able to protect. — Faye Wattleton

Rights are not the language of democracy. Compromise is what democracy is about. Rights are the language of freedom, and are absolute because their role is to protect our liberty. By using the absolute power of freedom to accomplish reforms of democracy, we have undermined democracy and diminished our freedom. — Philip K. Howard

Sexual and reproductive health and rights are universal human rights!They are an indivisible part of the broader human rights and development equation. Their particular power resides in the fact that they deal with the most intimate aspects of our identities as individuals and enable human dignity, which is dependent on control of our bodies, desires and aspirations. — Babatunde Osotimehin

When human beings are regarded as moral beings, sex, instead of being enthroned upon the summit, administering upon rights and responsibilities, sinks into insignificance and nothingness. My doctrine then is, that whatever it is morally right for man to do, it is morally right for woman to do. Our duties originate, not from difference of sex, but from the diversity of our relations in life, the various gifts and talents committed to our care, and the different eras in which we live. — Angelina Grimke

If we buy into the notion that somehow property rights are less important, or are in conflict with, human or civil rights, we give the socialists a freer hand to attack our property. — Walter E. Williams

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

What a man! He certainly seems to have the run of this country. Just shows how one can push a democracy around, what with habeas corpus and human rights and all the rest. Glad we haven't got him on our hands in England. — Ian Fleming

Whether we assert our rights by sea, or attempt their maintenance by land whithersoever we turn ourselves, this phantom incessantly pursues us. Already has it had too much influence on the councils of the nation. — Henry Clay

Her [Jurdge Sandra Day O'Connor] judgment has also been critical in protecting our environmental rights. She joined in 5-4 majorities affirming reproductive freedom and religious freedom and the Voting Rights Act. — Patrick Leahy

You humans drink our milk and eat the eggs of the chickens and the ducks. Isn't that enough for you? Isn't it enough that we give you our children and what's meant for our children? And if not, when is it enough? All you humans do is take, take, take from the earth and its beautiful creatures, and what do you give back? Nothing. I know humans consider it a grave insult to be called an animal. Well, I would never give a human the fine distinction of being called an animal, because an animal may kill to live but an animal never lives to kill. Humans have to earn the right to be called animals again. — David Duchovny

What did The Battle Hymn of the Republic and Uncle Tom's Cabin and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and all that have to do with our present enthusiasm for women's rights? Not that much, really. Women just got lucky this time. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

We will never find joy in church membership when we are constantly seeking things our way. But paradoxically, we will find the greatest joy when we choose to be last. That's what Jesus meant when He said the last will be first. True joy means giving up our rights and preferences and serving everyone else. — Thom S. Rainer

The point I wish plainly to bring before you on this occasion is the individuality of each human soul
our Protestant idea, the right of individual conscience and judgment
our republican idea, individual citizenship. In discussing the rights of woman, we are to consider, first, what belongs to her as an individual, in a world of her own, the arbiter of her own destiny, an imaginary Robinson Crusoe with her woman Friday on a solitary island. Her rights under such circumstances are to use all her faculties for her own safety and happiness. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

I do not think I was a hothead - not then and not now. I thought I was right. I had read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bible. Segregation seemed evil from the time I was a boy. Slavery is an abomination on the American soul, ineradicable stain on our body politic. But Penn Center lit a fire that has never gone out, and the election of President Barack Obama was one of the happiest days of my life. — Pat Conroy

The crisis is arrived when we must assert our rights, or submit to every imposition, that can be heaped upon us, till custom and use shall make us as tame and abject slaves, as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway. — George Washington

We have not sought this conflict; we have sought too long to avoid it; our forbearance has been construed into weakness, our magnanimity into fear, until the vindication of our manhood, as well as the defence of our rights, is required at our hands. — Robert Toombs

I am a men's liberationist (or "masculist") when men's liberation is defined as equal opportunity and equal responsibility for both sexes. I am a feminist when feminism favors equal opportunities and responsibilities for both sexes. I oppose both movements when either says our sex is THE oppressed sex, therefore, "we deserve rights." That's not gender liberation but gender entitlement. Ultimately, I am in favor of neither a women's movement nor a men's movement but a gender transition movement. — Warren Farrell

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