Best 453 quotes in «human rights quotes» category

Women in my country take their rights for granted and completely dissociate themselves from the women's rights movement and feminism. But I think anything's possible. If I don't help the women in Afghanistan, they won't be around to help me.

YAZIDIS AND CHRISTIANS WANT TO BE FREE OF NIGHT MIST AND BEHEADING DRIFT!

Yet what greater defeat could we suffer than to come to resemble the forces we oppose in their disrespect for human dignity?

You can exile a man, but you can never exile his idea. You can lock a man up in the prison, but an idea cannot be imprisoned. You can kill a man, but an idea can never be killed.” -Shenita Etwaroo

You cannot defend human rights without fighting religious fanatics - regardless of one's own religious experience - it is unavoidable. Why? Because they are the ones who take issue with how other people live their lives instead of minding their own business.

You cannot stand for civil rights + not support gay marriage. You cannot stand for human rights + not support gay marriage. It's that simple. Everywhere, the voice of the oppressed must echo + ring out or else it will be crushed by the tyranny of wickedness.

You don't have to stand up for your rights to get justice, sometimes you can sit for your rights like Rosa Parks.

Your worst enemy is not the person in opposition to you. It is the person occupying the spot you would be fighting from and doing nothing.

You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.

You live so long as you move and if that motion is forward then you the soul turn more human and less animal, whereas if the motion is backward, then you turn more animal and less human.

You're not under attack when others gain rights and privileges you've always had.

You want Change, today we'll show you Change! Here's your democracy, your human rights, eat it, eat eat eat!

A lot of the countries of Latin America, they may not agree on everything, from how to run your economy to human rights, but one thing they agree on, they don't like to being treated by the United States as being in their backyard.

American Jews are overwhelmingly liberal. By "liberal," I mean, basically, support for the rule of law, support for human rights, support for peace; and on all those counts - rule of law, human rights, peace - Israel's record has become indefensible.

A United Nations that will not stand up for human rights is a United Nations that cannot stand up for itself.

An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.

Caged birds sing of freedom, free birds fly.

Genuine leadership is inherently moral. So the values chosen matter tremendously, and they must be values aligned with society (including the most universal statement of human values in history, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as clear values of sustainability evidenced in global declarations like the Stockholm and Rio Declarations.

Every human being, of whatever origin, of whatever station, deserves respect. We must each respect others even as we respect ourselves.

From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.

Nationality started as something natural, but we should not be restrained by the old politics that make up these clear lines. It should have its own way of evolving. In some places, it will evolve slower and in others, faster. It's like the mountains, the ocean and the rivers. It has its own geological forms. Societies cannot be flat. But during change, human rights, human dignity and free speech have to be protected. Otherwise, we'll be going backward.

If access to health care is considered a human right, who is considered human enough to have that right?

I had the human rights life, and I had the family business life.

Gorsuch, who is a U.S. Supreme Court nominee in the United States, said the real test of law is when a government can lose in its own courts and still respect the order. And I think Canadian need to ask is why would Canada, if it's doing everything right, why wouldn't you want to be watched? If they are contesting the fact that their own courts don't have jurisdiction over the government's human rights violations, then our next step is to go to federal court and find the federal government that can come to court and we will do that.

Happy is the house that shelters a friend.

History proves that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government are transient. Only democratic systems are not transient. Whatever the shortcomings, mankind has not devised anything superior.

If Rosa Parks had taken a poll before she sat down in the bus in Montgomery, she'd still be standing.

I think the issue that concerns us is certainly regaining stability, but issues of human rights are an integral part of our reform policies, of our new constitution.

It is very deplorable that North Korea still does not uphold human rights, which are universal values.

The first thing to say is that the ordinary criminal law in this country, the Human Rights Act, the Children's Act, all of the laws of the country take precedence, but what I'm also saying is that within the context of a secular country, which Britain now kind of is, or at least a country which purports to be relatively equal between religions, there should be some scope for allowing faith communities to govern themselves - subject to it being consensual and subject to everyone's human rights being observed.

North Americans do not understand that you do not throw down human rights like bombs on the Iraqis.

Please use your freedom to promote ours.

Quote words that affirm all men and women are your brothers and sisters.

Right now, American government has stepped back from offering any kinds of protection for human rights and public health. And the fossil fuel industry thinks that they have just absolute free rein to go for it. The one thing in the way is public opposition. It's civil society. It's activism.

The death penalty experiment has failed.

The best way to be more free is to grant more freedom to others.

The Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, if you look at its website, it basically deals with commercial disputes, it's not allowed to deal with matters involving children, it's not allowed to deal with criminal matters, it's subject to judicial review, it's subject to the Human Rights Act, it's subject to the Children's Act, and it's completely proper and right that it should be subject to all those things.

The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.

The idea of cultural relativism is nothing but an excuse to violate human rights. Human rights is the fruit of various civilizations. I know of no civilization that tolerates or justifies violence, terrorism, or injustice. There is no civilization that justifies the killing of innocent people. Those who are invoking cultural relativism are really using that as an excuse for violating human rights and to put a cultural mask on the face of what they're doing.

There is no humiliation more abusive than hunger.

The reason why the war ended in Bosnia was not because of amnesty but because a combined Croat-Bosnian offensive defeated the Serbs on the battlefield. Sometimes naïveté belongs not to the human rights activists but to the politicians.

Tolerance and human rights require each other.

There's a feminist critique of Muslim Arbitration Tribunals, which I'm certainly not unsympathetic to, because as I keep saying, I come from a human rights context. But there's a feminist critique of Muslim Arbitration Tribunals specifically, which says women are going to have their rights eroded by virtue of the fact of these courts are going to negotiate settlements and negotiate the dropping of criminal charges against men. There's not been any evidence of that taking place.

The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.

US law and international human rights law have radically diverged in the past years in terms of the recognition of indigenous people's rights. International human rights law now looks at not whether or not the tribes have formal ownership or legal title in a Western legal conception might have it, but rather they look at the tribe's historical connection to that land.

Unfortunately the situation of human rights in Iran isn't improving. Some of the newspapers were shut down and the government didn't try to reopen the newspapers that were shut down before. And the laws are as bad as before.

We will not keep silent, even if the Formula One is taking place. We will protest for human rights and freedom.

We've seen in Europe after the recent terrorist attacks a certain retrogression in human rights. It depends on how threatened the Turks feel. For example, Turkey became much more tolerant towards Kurdish nationalists when the killing of Turkish soldiers stopped in southeastern Turkey and body bags stopped arriving. Now, since June there's been a revival of Kurdish attacks on Turkish troops - something like 150 people have been killed by terrorists supplied from and operating out of bases in northern Iraq. So Turks are feeling much less tolerant of Kurdish nationalism.

We have less civil liberties than we had on 9/ 1 1 in some significant ways. But we are also, I believe, less safe as a result in many instances of the sacrifice in human rights, civil liberties, and the rule of law that (the Bush) administration has adopted.

Without peace, there is little hope for human rights