... Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
The negative side of democracy is that the position of ideological minorities is not in power. However, the ideological minorities are often smarter than the herd. Ilkin Santak
First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others. Michael J Sandel, Liberalism and Its Critics
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people’s stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified. Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
You’re under arrest for multiple counts of murder. You have the right to not much at all, really. Do you have anything to say in your defense? Derek Landy, Mortal Coil
Some of us have to fight. There are great traditions of liberty to defend. I am no partisan man. Where I see the infamy I seek to erase it. Party names mean nothing. The tradition of liberty means all. The common people will let it go, oh yes. They will sell liberty for a quieter life. That is why they must be prodded, prodded. Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 is a foundational document for a bourgeois, market-based individualism and as such cannot provide a basis for a thoroughgoing critique of liberal or neoliberal capitalism. Whether it is politically useful to insist that the capitalist political order live up to its own foundational principles is one thing, but to imagine that this politics can lead to a radical displacement of a capitalist mode of production is, in Marx’s view, a serious error. David Harvey, A Companion to Marx’s Capital
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. The researches of the human mind after social happiness have been carried to a great extent, the treasures of knowledge acquired by the labours of philosophers, sages, and legislators, through a long succession of years, are laid open to our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily employed in the establishment of our forms of government. George Washington
I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights. Desmond Tutu
In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights. Desmond Tutu
Our civilization is not Christian. It does not come from the skies. It is not a result of ‘inspiration’. It is the child of invention, of discovery, of applied knowledge – that is to say, of science. When man becomes great and grand enough to admit that all have equal rights; when thought is untrammeled; when worship shall consist in doing useful things; when religion means the discharge of obligations to our fellow-men, then, and not until then, will the world be civilized. Robert G Ingersoll
This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself. Robert G Ingersoll, The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child
Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself. Robert G Ingersoll
The peoples owe all political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or lesser measure, not to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength. One need only study the history of the past three hundred years to understand by what relentless struggles every right has had to be wrested inch by inch from the despots. Rudolf Rocker
The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it. Eleanor Roosevelt
The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. James Madison
Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing. Ronald Reagan
I favour the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary. Ronald Reagan
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
To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity. Nelson Mandela
When the government violates the people’s rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensable of duties. Marquis de LaFayette
A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights. Napoleon Bonaparte
In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so. Immanuel Kant
If we must die, we die defending our rights. Sitting Bull
If a country doesn’t recognize minority rights and human rights, including women’s rights, you will not have the kind of stability and prosperity that is possible. Hillary Clinton
For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent. What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice, necessity and importance of political and social rights. B R Ambedkar
I believe all Americans who believe in freedom, tolerance and human rights have a responsibility to oppose bigotry and prejudice based on sexual orientation. Coretta Scott King
Where trade unions are most firmly organized, there are the rights of the people most respected. Samuel Gompers
Those religions that are oppressive to women are also against democracy, human rights, and freedom of expression. Taslima Nasrin
Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God, as can be your own. William E Gladstone
If the abstract rights of man will bear discussion and explanation, those of women, by a parity of reasoning, will not shrink from the same test. Mary Wollstonecraft
In the literal sense, there has been no relevant evolution since the trek from Africa. But there has been substantial progress towards higher standards of rights, justice and freedom – along with all too many illustrations of how remote is the goal of a decent society. Noam Chomsky
One of the most effective democratising forces has always been the labor movement – labor unions – the history on that is completely clear. In countries that have a strong labor movement, there is also a very strong tendency or correlation with a real-live functioning social contract that includes not only rights for working people but for people who need help and protection, for the defenceless, for children, for women, for families, for people who need assistance generally and for the general public ...