There are natural and imprescriptible rights which an entire nation has no right to violate. —MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE — Michelle Moran
Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts. — Jeremy Bentham
Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can. — Samuel Adams
Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. — Frederic Bastiat
The right of nature... is the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life. — Thomas Hobbes
True republicanism is the sovereignty of the people. There are natural and imprescriptible rights which an entire nation has no right to violate. — Marquis de Lafayette
Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature. — Benjamin Franklin
The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God. — John F. Kennedy
Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. — Mother Teresa
the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. — Thomas Jefferson
Human rights are inscribed in the hearts of people; they were there long before lawmakers drafted their first proclamation. — Mary Robinson
Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man. — Thomas Jefferson
[E]ach person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. — John Rawls
A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. — Ramsey Clark
The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule. — Samuel Adams
Short Natural Rights Quotes
A child, like all other human beings, has inalienable rights. — Lucretia Mott
All sentient beings should have at least one right—the right not to be treated as property — Gary L. Francione
When all other rights are taken away, the right of rebellion is made perfect. — Thomas Paine
One's right to life, liberty, and property depends on the outcome of no election. — Robert H. Jackson
Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself. — John Locke
The right to happiness is fundamental. — Anna Pavlova
It takes no compromise to give people their rights — Harvey Milk
Top 10 Natural Rights Quotes
Not to hurt our humble brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission - to be of service to them whenever they require it. — Francis of Assisi
We all need to get the balance right between action and reflection. With so many distractions, it is easy to forget to pause and take stock. — Queen Elizabeth II
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man. — Charles Darwin
Elegance must be the right combination of distinction, naturalness, care and simplicity. Outside this, believe me, there is no elegance. Only pretension. — Christian Dior
Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth. — Liu Xiaobo
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton
All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering, the animals are our equals. — Peter Singer
I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being. — Abraham Lincoln
Zoos are becoming facsimiles - or perhaps caricatures - of how animals once were in their natural habitat. If the right policies toward nature were pursued, we would need no zoos at all. — Michael J. Fox
Natural Rights Image Quotes
Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life. Tip top if you must, but take the step.
Declaration Of Natural Rights Quotes
Its Constitution--the glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence. — Rufus Choate
Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. — Thomas Jefferson
The Bill of Rights does not come from the people and is not subject to change by majorities. It comes from the nature of things. It declares the inalienable rights of man not only against all government but also against the people collectively. — Walter Lippmann
Live your life. Take chances. Be crazy. Don't wait. Because right now is the oldest you've ever been and the youngest you'll ever be again.
Men speak of natural rights, but I challenge any one to show where in nature any rights existed or were recognized until there was established for their declaration and protection a duly promulgated body of corresponding laws. — Calvin Coolidge
Our founders got it right when they wrote in the Declaration of Independence that our rights come from nature and nature's God, not from government. — Paul Ryan
Some other natural rights... [have] not yet entered into any declaration of rights. — Thomas Jefferson
Be patient with yourself, nothing in nature blooms all year.
The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State. — Eleanor Roosevelt
To ask whether the natural rights philosophy of the Declaration of Independence is true or false, is essentially a meaningless question. — Carl L. Becker
Here, in this very first paragraph of the Declaration, is the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for how can 'the consent of the governed' be given if the right to vote be denied? — Susan B. Anthony
Founding Fathers Quotes
If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking. — Benjamin Franklin
The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government. — Edward Abbey
Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances. — Benjamin Franklin
If things go wrong, don’t go with them.
When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil. — Thomas Jefferson
Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry. — Unknown Author
Our heavenly Father understands our disappointment, suffering, pain, fear, and doubt. He is always there to encourage our hearts and help us understand that He's sufficient for all of our needs. When I accepted this as an absolute truth in my life, I found that my worrying stopped. — Charles Stanley
Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyways.
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. — Thomas Jefferson
A Brother may not be a Friend, but a Friend will always be a Brother. — Benjamin Franklin
I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. — Thomas Jefferson
Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first, the most basic, expression of Americanism. Thus, the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus with God's help, it will continue to be. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
Nature Freedom Quotes
While people are struggling unhappily in the cities against the cruel authorities, a waterfall happily and cheerfully flows in the nature; there is happiness only if there is freedom! — Mehmet Murat Ildan
Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. — Marquis de Lafayette
Freedom does not consist in any dreamt-of independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends. — Friedrich Engels
The axe forgets what the tree remembers.
The landscape affects the human psyche - the soul, the body and the innermost contemplations - like music. Every time you feel nature deeper you resonate better with her, finding new elements of balance and freedom. — Nikos Kazantzakis
Only spread a fern-frond over a man's head and worldly cares are cast out, and freedom and beauty and peace come in. — John Muir
The conservative "thinks of political policies as intended to preserve order, justice, and freedom. The ideologue, on the contrary, thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature. In his march toward Utopia, the ideologue is merciless. — Russell Kirk
Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and start being excited of what could go right.
In a world where so much that is wild and free has been lost to us, we must leave these beautiful animals free to swim as they will and must. They do us no harm and wish us none and we should let them alone. — Ric O'Barry
It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony. — Benjamin Britten
When we return wild animals to nature, we merely return them to what is already theirs. For man cannot give wild animals freedom, they can only take it away. — Jacques Yves Cousteau
It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony. — Benjamin Britten
Natural Law Quotes
As long as judges tinker with the Constitution to 'do what the people want,' instead of what the document actually commands, politicians who pick and confirm new federal judges will naturally want only those who agree with them politically. — Antonin Scalia
The laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics. — Galileo Galilei
The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God. — Euclid
Knowledge is having the right answer. Intelligence is asking the right questions.
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. — Immanuel Kant
Those who look for the laws of Nature as a support for their new works collaborate with the creator. — Antoni Gaudi
In the state of nature... all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law. — Baron de Montesquieu
Nothing will stop us. The road to the stars is steep and dangerous. But we're not afraid . . . Space flights can't be stopped. This isn't the work of one man or even a group of men. It is a historical process which mankind is carrying out in accordance with the natural laws of human development. — Yuri Gagarin
When the righteous rule, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule, the people groan. — William Paterson
There is no god and there is no soul. Hence, there is no need for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, then immutable truth is dead and buried. There is no room for fixed and natural law or permanent moral absolutes. — John Dewey
God and Nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own created genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law. Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our measurement. — Marcus Garvey
Unalienable Rights Quotes
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 right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children is among the unalienable rights with which the Declaration of Independence proclaims 'all Men are endowed by their Creator.' — Antonin Scalia
God forbid that the day should ever come when, in the American mind, the thought of man as a consumer shall submerge the old American thought of man as a creature of God, endowed with unalienable rights. — Benjamin Harrison
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed — Walter E. Williams
Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right. — James Madison
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
Human beings have an unalienable right to invent themselves; when that right is pre-empted it is called brain-washing. — Germaine Greer
It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all. — Thomas Jefferson
A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate. — Thomas Jefferson
Unalienable rights are essential limitations to all governments. — Francis Hutcheson
Inalienable Rights Quotes
Revolution is an inalienable right of mankind. Freedom is an imperishable birth right of all. Labor is the real sustainer of society, the sovereignty of the ultimate destiny of the workers. — Bhagat Singh
Any law which violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all. — Maximilien Robespierre
I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way. — Robert Frost
Do not make the mistake of the ignorant who think that an individualist is a man who says: “I’ll do as I please at everybody else’s expense.” An individualist is a man who recognizes the inalienable individual rights of man—his own and those of others. — Ayn Rand
The constitutional freedom of religion is the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights — Thomas Jefferson
Factual information alone isn't sufficient to guide you through life's labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation. One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive a mysteriously useful omen every day of your life. — Rob Brezsny
Government itself is founded upon the great doctrine of the consent of the governed, and has its cornerstone in the memorable principle that men are endowed with inalienable rights. — Leland Stanford
Individualism regards man-every man-as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. — Ayn Rand
There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech. — Aldo Leopold
Too many Americans now believe that the checks they receive every month from the unemployment office - like the checks they get from the welfare office, from Medicare, from Social Security - are inalienable rights. They are not. — Ben Shapiro
Fundamental Rights Quotes
To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. — Thurgood Marshall
The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount…If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State. — Harry S. Truman
Privatization is a neoliberal and imperialist plan. Health can't be privatized because it is a fundamental human right, nor can education, water, electricity and other public services. They can't be surrendered to private capital that denies the people from their rights. — Hugo Chavez
Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life . . . — Nelson Mandela
To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching. — Warren E. Burger
The issue of human rights is one of the most fundamental human issues and also one of the most sensitive and controversial. — Ali Khamenei
Each state, so that it does not abridge the great fundamental rights belonging, under the Constitution, to all citizens, may grant or withhold such civil rights as it pleases; all that is required is that, in this respect, its laws shall be impartial. — Lyman Trumbull
What libertarians assert is simply that differences among normal adults do not imply different fundamental rights. — Tom G. Palmer
Scotland is not a region of the U.K.; Scotland is a nation, and if we cannot protect our interests within a U.K. that is going to be changing fundamentally, then that right of Scotland to consider the options of independence has to be there. — Nicola Sturgeon
Basic Rights Quotes
Child labour is an issue of grave importance. It must become a top priority for all governments of the world. How can the world move into the twenty-first century with children still being exploited for their labour and denied their basic right to an education? — Craig Kielburger
We all require and want respect, man or woman, black or white. It's our basic human right. — Aretha Franklin
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism, are all too frequently those who . . . ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism-the right to criticize, the right to hold unpopular beliefs, the right to protest, the right of independent thought. — Margaret Chase Smith
This is not just Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This is the beginning of a war against Europe, against European structures, against democracy, against basic human rights, against a global order of law, rules and peaceful coexistence. — Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Everyone has a right to peaceful coexistence, the basic personal freedoms, the alleviation of suffering, and the opportunity to lead a productive life. — Jimmy Carter
Basically, right before college I got into the Guinness book for my feet and started to do local commercials and little radio spots, just little things and found I really liked it. — Matthew McGrory
No man can always be right. So the struggle is to do one's best, to keep the brain and conscience clear, never be swayed by unworthy motives or inconsequential reasons, but to strive to unearth the basic factors involved, then do one's duty. — Sayings
In times of life crisis, whether wild fires or smoldering stress, the first thing I do is go back to basics... am I eating right, am I getting enough sleep, am I getting some physical and mental exercise everyday. — Edward Albert
We must build a movement for education, not incarceration. A movement for jobs, not jails. A movement that will end all forms of discrimination against people released from prison - discrimination that denies them basic human rights to work, shelter and food. — Michelle Alexander
Legal Rights Quotes
When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. — Frederic Bastiat
Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims. — Ayn Rand
I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution. — Thomas Jefferson
The right to be able to speak openly and confidentially to another is, at times, codified legally if not ethically. — Gad Saad
There have been times throughout American history where what is right is not the same as what is legal. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to break the law. — Edward Snowden
My feminism, as intended by me, extends to empowering women to make legal choices, not to judge the legal choices they make. My fight is for rights. — Maajid Nawaz
All I did in Chicago was to exercise my legal right to speak on my own behalf and I was given four years in jail as a result. But I think the most serious injustice perpetrated by the court system in America is the inability of a black man to get a jury of his peers. — Bobby Seale
Well, when I think of steroids I think of an image. You have the advantage over someone, which is a form of cheating. I guess it wouldn't be right unless it was legal for everybody. Reason it's not legal for everybody is because it can hurt people seriously. — Evander Holyfield
If it is right to be legally married, it is right to be legally divorced ... To be deprived of a Divorce is like being shut up in prison because someone attempted to kill you. It is just as honorable to get out of matrimonial trouble legally, as to be freed from any other wrong. — Mary Edwards Walker
Prior to Roe , ... whether one could obtain a legal abortion in the face of an unwanted pregnancy was a crap shoot. For 30 years now, it's been a constitutionally guaranteed right — David Garrow
There must be a world revolution which puts an end to all materialistic conditions hindering woman from performing her natural role in life and driving her to carry out man's duties in order to be equal in rights. — Colonel Muhammar Qaddafi
But beauty is about finding the right fit, the most natural fit, To be perfect, you have to feel perfect about yourself --- avoid trying to be something you're not. For a goddess, that's especially hard. We can change so easily. -Aphrodite — Rick Riordan
It should not be believed that all beings exist for the sake of the existence of man. On the contrary, all the other beings too have been intended for their own sakes and not for the sake of anything else. — Maimonides
The right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of oppression, if they are strong enough, whether by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable. — Ulysses S. Grant
The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased. — Alexander Hamilton
We must go beyond the arrogance of human rights. We must go beyond the ignorance of civil rights. We must step into the reality of natural rights because all of the natural world has a right to existence and we are only a small part of it. There can be no trade-off. — John Trudell
All men were made brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free should be content when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. — Chief Joseph
How does a pansy, for example, select the ingredients from soil to get the right colors for the flower? Now there's a great miracle. I think there's a supreme power behind all of this. I see it in nature. — Clyde Tombaugh
The social pact, far from destroying natural equality, substitutes, on the contrary, a moral and lawful equality for whatever physical inequality that nature may have imposed on mankind; so that however unequal in strength and intelligence, men become equal by covenant and by right. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. — Thomas Jefferson
We experience ourselves our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. — Albert Einstein
Whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance. So Ambrosius says, and it is also to be found in the Decretum Gratiani: The bread which you withhold belongs to the hungry: the clothing you shut away, to the naked: and the money you bury in the earth is the redemption and freedom of the penniless. — Thomas Aquinas
What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses. — Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver. — Martin Luther
How far, O rich, do you extend your senseless avarice? Do you intend to be the sole inhabitants of the earth? Why do you drive out the fellow sharers of nature, and claim it all for yourselves? The earth was made for all, rich and poor, in common. Why do you rich claim it as your exclusive right? — Ambrose
To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed. — Theodore Roosevelt
Composing is a natural fit. As far as the creative process goes, I'd rather do this than anything else, by far. Something different happened to me when I started to write music to images. It was a feeling of excitement and connection and a sense of being in the right place that I never had before. — James Newton Howard
With stammering lips and insufficient sound I strive and struggle to deliver right the music of my nature. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Man was born to be rich, or grow rich by use of his faculties, by the union of thought with nature. Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
While I am a great believer in the free enterprise system and all that it entails, I am an even stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollution-free environment. — Barry Goldwater
The scarcest resource is not oil, metals, clean air, capital, labour, or technology. It is our willingness to listen to each other and learn from each other and to seek the truth rather than seek to be right — Donella Meadows
I will simply express my strong belief, that that point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to resist its desires and inclinations, until they are proved to be right, is the most important of all, not only in things of natural philosophy, but in every department of dally life. — Michael Faraday
A nation is born into freedom on the day when such a people, moulded into a nation by a process of cultural evolution and sense of oneness born of common struggle and suffering, announces to the world that it asserts its natural right to liberty and is ready to defend it with blood, life, and honor. — Diosdado Macapagal
Don't be ashamed to weep; 'tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us. — Brian Jacques
I am an optimist by nature and I reserve the right to be wrong. — Rakesh Jhunjhunwala
The Founders believed, and the Conservative agrees, in the dignity of the individual; that we, as human beings, have a right to live, live freely, and pursue that which motivates us not because man or some government says so, but because these are God-given natural rights. — Mark Levin
Thanks to the high standing which science has for so long attain and to the impartiality of the Nobel Prize Committee, the Nobel Prize for Physics is rightly considered everywhere as the highest reward within the reach of workers in Natural Philosophy. — Guglielmo Marconi
[The] prevailing reason at this time is, that the Act of Parliament is against the Magna Charta, and the natural rights of Englishmen, and therefore, according to Lord Coke, null and void. — Thomas Hutchinson
If modernist naturalism were true, there would be no objective truth outside of science. In that case right and wrong would be a matter of cultural preference, or political power, and the power already available to modernists ideologies would be overwhelming. — Phillip E. Johnson
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