Unalienable Quotes & Sayings
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Top Unalienable Quotes
In fact, those who lobby for politicians to respect any of the people's "unalienable rights" do not believe in unalienable rights at all. Rights which require "government" approval are not unalienable, and are not even rights. — Larken Rose
We have forgotten what Thomas Jefferson told us in 1776: that we are endowed by the Creator "with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." Not happiness, mind you, but its pursuit. By implication Jefferson warned that if you pursue happiness for someone else, you deny him the right to pursue it on his own. — John Rosemond
The ostrich is a bird that lost its ability to fly. So 'unalienable rights' should be translated into 'mutable characteristics'. — Yuval Noah Harari
Even if drugs are fully as destructive as they are usually claimed to be, it is morally wrong and demonstrably more destructive for government to deprive people of their unalienable, individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to make an utter mess of their own lives. Since human beings are inclined to learn more from the mistakes they make, rather than from their triumphs, the right to fail, for individuals and groups alike, may be even more important than the right to succeed, and it must be fiercely protected at almost any cost. — L. Neil Smith
No one can take away your Natural Rights, but they can do great damage making you think they can. — J.S.B. Morse
I think at the heart of the pro-life movement is the idea that all people are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights starting with life. — Mike Huckabee
Our unalienable right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, those rights were stripped from college kids in Blackburg and Santa Barbara, and from high schoolers at Columbine. And, and from first graders in Newtown, first graders. — Barack Obama
Government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit and security of the people, nation or community; whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, indefeasible right, to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public Weal. — George Mason
Last time I checked, Congress was created to uphold the values of the Constitution, not the Bible and its biased teachings. 'All men (including women) are created equal' and are afforded unalienable rights. Way to go, Mr. President! Stand up for what you believe and for the people of this country. — Barack Obama
The Declaration of Independence summarizes the civic principles of American life. It agrees with this biblical perspective when it affirms that we are all created equal and endowed by the Creator, God, with our unalienable rights. — Alan Keyes
First there is the democratic idea: that all men are endowed by their creator with certain natural rights; that these rights are alienable only by the possessor thereof; that they are equal in men; that government is to organize these natural, unalienable and equal rights into institutions designed for the good of the governed, and therefore government is to be of all the people, by all the people, and for all the people. Here government is development, not exploitation. — Theodore Parker
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness ... but only when you pay your taxes? That means your freedom is rented, leased, & not unalienable. — Steve Maraboli
The people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government and to reform, alter, or totally change the same when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it. — Alexander Hamilton
The 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. — John Adams
But then in all his words if not deeds Jefferson was so beautifully human, so eminently vague, so entirely dishonest but not in any meretricious way. Rather it was a passionate form of self-delusion that rendered Jefferson as president and as man (not to mention as writer of tangled sentences and lunatic metaphors) confusing even to his admirers. Proclaiming the unalienable rights of man for everyone (excepting slaves, Indians, women and those entirely without property), Jefferson tried to seize the Floridas by force, dreamed of a conquest of Cuba, and after his illegal purchase of Louisiana sent a military governor to rule New Orleans against the will of its inhabitants. — Gore Vidal
Thomas Jefferson understood the greater purpose of the liberty that our Founding Fathers sought during the creation of our Nation. Although it was against the British that the colonists fought for political rights, the true source of the rights of man was clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote that all humans are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights ... It was self-evident to him that denying these rights was wrong and that he and others must struggle to win what was theirs. — William J. Clinton
American Evangelicals are fond of quoting the Declaration of Independence when it insists, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." Curiously, not as much fondness is found for quoting what comes later in the very same sentence: "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it. — Gordon Runyan
Look closely at these self-evident truths, these imperishable articles of American Faith upon which all our government is firmly based. First and foremost is the existence of God. Next comes the truth that all men are equal in the sight of God. Third is the fact of God's great gift of unalienable rights to every person on earth. Then follows the true and single purpose of all American Government, namely, to preserve and protect these God-made rights of God-made man. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
The whole of the Bill is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals ... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of. — Albert Gallatin
Before the formation of this Constitution it had been affirmed as a self evident truth, in the Declaration of Independence, very deliberately made by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled that 'all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights' This declaration of Independence was received and ratified by all the States in the Union & has never been disannuled. May we not from hence conclude, that the doctrine of Liberty and Equality is an article in the political creed of the United States. — Samuel Adams
The Declaration calls us to recognize the inherent equality of all people. And when it becomes unmistakably evident that a government is denying the governed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it's the right of people to establish a new government to secure these unalienable rights. — Mike Crapo
The dissemination of the individual's opinions on matters of public interest is for us, in the historic words of the Declaration of Independence, an 'unalienable right' that 'governments are instituted among men to secure.' History shows us that the Founders were not always convinced that unlimited discussion of public issues would be 'for the benefit of all of us' but that they firmly adhered to the proposition that the 'true liberty of the press' permitted 'every man to publish his opinion'. — John Marshall Harlan II
He amended the thought to say that men were "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," thus — Christopher Hitchens
Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man. — Thomas Jefferson
Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost. — Robert A. Heinlein
[A]ll power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people. That government is instituted and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people; which consists in the enjoyment of life and liberty and the right of acquiring property, and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. That the people have an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform or change their government whenever it be found adverse or inadequate to the purpose of its institution. — James Madison
It requires emphasis that the states established the American Republic and, through the Constitution, retained for themselves significant authority to ensure the republic's durability. This is not to say that the states are perfect governing institutions. Many are no more respectful of unalienable rights than is the federal government. But the issue is how best to preserve the civil society in a world of imperfect people and institutions. The answer, the Framers concluded, is to diversify authority with a combination of governing checks, balances, and divisions, intended to prevent the concentration of unbridled power in the hands of a relative few imperfect people. — Mark R. Levin
Sovereignty ... as understood in the Declaration of Independence was originally, and by nature, the equal and unalienable possession of individual human beings. The original equality of all human beings was an equality of sovereignty; no man had more right to rule another than the other had to rule him. — Harry V. Jaffa
The people "have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge- I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers." — John Adams
You see, good education - complete education - liberal education must be grounded in the conservative respect for and the conservation of what is immutable and right and just and real. It should seek to reclaim what has been co-opted and to reveal what has been compromised. It should be free of intimidation and should honor open inquiry and the right to dissent. It should have confidence in the measuring rod of Truth - that unalienable standard that is bigger and better than the crowd or the consensus. Education - good, liberal education - is the business of pursuing Truth. It — Everett Piper
You know, that man has a spirit, that each man and woman is unique, that we have duty to promote our unalienable rights and to protect them, that we have a duty to our families and ourselves, to take care of ourselves, to contribute to charity, that we have a duty to support a just and righteous law that is stable and predictable. — Mark R. Levin
Human beings have an unalienable right to invent themselves; when that right is pre-empted it is called brain-washing. — Germaine Greer
America stands for liberty, for the pursuit of happiness and for the unalienable right for life. This right to life cannot be granted or denied by government because it does not come from government, it comes from the creator of life. — George W. Bush
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
All men are, or ought to be free, possessing unalienable rights, and the high and noble qualifications of the laws of nature and of self-preservation, to think, and act, and say as they please, while they maintain a due respect to the rights and privileges of all other creatures, infringing upon none. — Joseph Smith Jr.
The right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children is among the unalienable rights with which the Declaration of Independence proclaims all men [and women] are endowed by their creator. — Antonin Scalia
Unalienable rights are essential limitations to all governments. — Francis Hutcheson
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men - yes, black men as well as white men - would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ... America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.' — Martin Luther King Jr.
True unalienable rights do not require one to trample other unalienable rights. — J.S.B. Morse
The right of conscience and private judgment is unalienable, and it is truly the interest of all mankind to unite themselves into one body for the liberty, free exercise, and unmolested enjoyment of this right. — Ezra Stiles
Harming one's unalienable rights in order to serve justice is injustice. — J.S.B. Morse
Either 'the group' is superior or the individual is superior. Marxism, socialism, fascism, and pure democracy are all forms that give power to 'the group' and then use violence to force individuals to obey the dictates of 'the group'. The concept of liberty is one in which the individual - in the exercise of his unalienable rights - is superior to every and all powers. That is what the Founders intended. That is what we are supposed to have under the 'contracts' of the Declaration of Independence and the state and federal constitutions. That is what I am entitled to as an American. That is what I insist upon. And that is what I will kill for. — Dave Champion
Majority rule must stop at our unalienable rights. Without that, pure democratic rule is a terrible thing. It's like two wolves and a lamb voting to see what's for dinner. — LaVoy Finicum
It's illegal to forcefully take money from people unless you're the government. It's illegal to take someone's liberty, unless you're the government. It's illegal to kill someone, unless you're the government. Private organizations can do everything that government can do except for legally break the law. — J.S.B. Morse
If a juror feels that the statute involved in any criminal offence is unfair, or that it infringes upon the defendant's natural god-given unalienable or constitutional rights, then it is his duty to affirm that the offending statute is really no law at all and that the violation of it is no crime at all, for no one is bound to obey an unjust law. — Harlan F. Stone
It is evident that the right of acquiring and possessing property, and having it protected, is one of the natural, inherent, and unalienable rights of man. Men have a sense of property: Property is necessary to their subsistence, and correspondent to their natural wants and desires; its security was one of the objects, that induced them to unite in society. No man would become a member of a community, in which he could not enjoy the fruits of his honest labour and industry. — William Paterson
All men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that no particular sect or society of Christians ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others. — George Mason
Rights are not self-evident. They're not unalienable. They are subject to modification just like anything else. — Alan Dershowitz
The "pursuit of happiness" is such a key element of the "American (ideological) dream" that one tends to forget the contingent origin of this phrase: "We holds these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Where did the somewhat awkward "pursuit of happiness" come from in this famous opening passage of the US Declaration of Independence? The origin of it is John Locke, who claimed that all men had the natural rights of life, liberty, and property - the latter was replaced by "the pursuit of happiness" during negotiations of the drafting of the Declaration, as a way to negate the black slaves' right to property. — Slavoj Zizek
Those who have ever valued liberty for its own sake believed that to be free to choose, and not to be chosen for, is an unalienable ingredient in what makes human beings human. — Isaiah Berlin
Finally, the physical damage Osama and friends can do us - terrible as it has been thus far - is as nothing as to what he is doing to our liberties. Once alienated, an "unalienable right" is apt to be forever lost, in which case we are no longer even remotely the last best hope of earth but merely a seedy imperial state whose citizens are kept in line by SWAT teams and whose way of death, not life, is universally imitated. — Gore Vidal
We should remember that the Declaration of Independence is not merely a historical document. It is an explicit recognition that our rights derive not from the King of England, not from the judiciary, not from government at all, but from God. The keystone of our system of popular sovereignty is the recognition, as the Declaration acknowledges, that 'all men are created equal' and 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.' Religion and God are no alien to our system of government, they're integral to it. — Mark R. Levin
I stand before you today heart broken, I know history and I love this country ... God blessed this country and it took sacrifice because even though they were endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that's an inheritance. And if you are not willing to fight for you inheritance, even when you leave your children, if they won't fight for it, they don't keep it. Mean greedy evil people will take it away. — Louie Gohmert
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
The intensive and concerted effort to exclude references to religion or God from public places is an attack on our founding principles. It's an attempt to bolster a growing reliance on the government
especially the judiciary
as the source of our rights. But if our rights are not unalienable, if they don't come from a source higher than ourselves, then they're malleable at the will of the state. This is a prescription for tyranny. — Mark R. Levin