[A ruler is merely] the trustee of the rights of other men and he must always stand in dread of having in some way violated these rights.
It proved easier to buy the farm to get the mineral rights than to buy the coal rights alone.
Gun control advocates need to realize that passing laws that honest gun owners will not obey is a self-defeating strategy. Gun owners are not about to surrender their rights, and only the most foolish of politicians would risk the stability of the government by trying to use the force of the state to disarm the people.
If a person wants to be of any use to himself, he better insist on getting his fair share of beauty and pleasure, and if there's something about the system that's keeping him from getting his share, then I think he's well within his rights to fight to change that.
We cannot guarantee the human rights of any oppressed group alone.
We, the Black masses, don't want these leaders who seek our support coming to us representing a certain political party. They must come to us today as Black Leaders representing the welfare of Black people. We won't follow any leader today who comes on the basis of political party. Both parties (Democrat and Republican) are controlled by the same people who have abused our rights, and who have deceived us with false promises every time an election rolls around.
A share in the sovereignty of the state, which is exercised by the citizens at large, in voting at elections is one of the most important rights of the subject, and in a republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law.
The rights of no oppressed people have ever yet been obtained by a voluntary act of justice on the part of the oppressors.
The right to life is the first among human rights.
You know, "Moonlight" deserves best picture [on Oscar]. What I mean by tarnished is the moment - being able to be in front of all your peers and being able to thank everyone involved and particularly when it's a movie that has some pivotal social relevance, like "Moonlight," particularly in a time where, with this new transitional government, LGBT rights are just being stripped. This win means something.
I am above eighty years old. . . I suppose I am about the only colored woman that goes about to speak for the rights of the colored women. I want to keep the thing stirring, now that the ice is cracked.
We stand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind, that is the approval by the General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Animals should have rights and should be treated with compassion and empathy; we are their caretakers. If you don't have it in your heart to help them, then just leave them alone and do no harm.
Their prejudice allowed white Southerners to look the other way when blacks were denied their most basic human rights, and it encouraged the worst of them to engage in unspeakable acts of cruelty and violence.
It is my conviction that movie stars are not entitled to any rights of privacy.
The Bill of Rights existed long before President Obama was elected, and as long as I’m a U. S. Senator, I will fight to protect the basic rights and liberties that belong to all of us as American citizens.
I'm not going to say I was opposed to the Vietnam War. I'm going to say I'm opposed to war. But I'm also opposed to protests that deny other people their rights.
[There is] a duty in refusing to cooperate in any undertaking that violates the Constitutional rights of the individual. This holds in particular for all inquisitions that are concerned with the private life and the political affiliations of the citizens.
Friendship has no civil, and few emotional, rights in our society.
When one comes to think of it, there are no such things as divine, immutable, or inalienable rights. Rights are things we get when we are strong enough to make good our claim on them.