Best 453 quotes in «human rights quotes» category

Be human. Free your mind

Believers in liberal freedom should worry not whether their regime can prevail in competition with authoritarian ones, but whether they can prevail against their own forms of institutional entropy: elite capture, corruption, and inequality.

Be naïve, be humble, be human, that's all that is needed to heal this wounded world.

Be the one who never sleeps, so that rest of humanity can.

Borders are scratched across the hearts of men, by strangers with a calm, judicial pen, and when the borders bleed we watch with dread the lines of ink along the map turn red.

By weaponizing the discourse of human rights to justify the use of force against governments that resisted the Washington consensus, this group of well-connected liberals was able to stir support where the neocons could not. Their brand of interventionism appealed directly to the sensibility of the Democratic Party's metropolitan base, large swaths of academia, the foundation-funded human rights NGO complex, and the New York Times editorial board. The xhibition of atrocities allegedly committed by adversarial governments, either by Western-funded civil society groups, major human rights organizations or the mainstream press, was the military humanists' stock in trade, enabling them to mask imperial designs behind a patina of "genocide prevention." With this neat tactic, they effectively neutralized progressive antiwar elements and tarred those who dared to protest their wars as dictator apologists.

By saying that human issues are more important than non-human issues, that violence to humans is more relevant than violence to animals, one forgets that the animal liberation movement implies a message of peace for every being on earth and the opposition against the mindset of oppression. To make a distinction between one violence and another is exactly the root of all violence: Some wouldn't do any harm to those who share with them a flag, a religion, a language, etc. but would easily condemn to suffering and death those who are different. This tragic use of diversity as an excuse to inflict pain on others for a matter of profit and convenience is the cause of suffering for both human and non-human animals.

Call up the ever-pure, the effulgent and the ever-radiant character of true humanism in yourself and in others, and no racism shall have the power to thrive in such society even for a few seconds.

By creating a society in which all people, of all colors, were granted freedom and citizenship, the Haitian Revolution forever transformed the world. It was a central part of the destruction of slavery in the Americas, and therefore a crucial moment in the history of democracy, one that laid the foundation for the continuing struggles for human rights everywhere. In this sense we are all descendents of the Haitain Revolution, and responsible to these ancestors.

Calling for an end to hate shouldn't be treated as a punishable offense.

Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature such as self preservation? (CIA Document, Project ARTICHOKE, MORI ID 144686, 1952) As cited by Dr Ellen P. Lacter, p57

Children will often rise or fall according to the expectations of loved ones in their lives.

Civility applies while dealing with humans, but while dealing with primitive apes in the shape of humans, you must be firm, because if you are not, these apes will turn this world back into the jungle whence we came.

Christian Faith For me, being a Christian is all about true love. The Gospel of John instructs us, “Dear Friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” I believe that first we need to love ourselves, even when we are told that we do not deserve love. Then we need to love others, especially those who have not been treated with love. And of course, we need to love Jesus. Love for Jesus can be the foundation for living a good life, a life full of compassion and joy. Loving Jesus is where I believe a Christian life starts, because that love spreads all around, to people, animals, and the world. Animal Rights During my life so far, animals have brought me joy and comfort when I thought that I would never find happiness. My bunny Neon taught me so much about unconditional love. This experience showed me that animals have souls deserving of love just as much as humans, and they can be some of the purest examples of God’s love on Earth. I believe we can all show animals the compassion and love they deserve by choosing products that are fur-free and cruelty-free and by eating a vegan diet. Even people who aren’t prepared to commit to a vegan lifestyle can make thoughtful everyday choices that reduce needless cruelty against animals. Human Rights I have myself been a victim of abuse, so I know how hopeless life can seem to those in dark situations. However, I also know how much of a difference a small ray of light can make. My goal in life now is to shine that ray of light onto as many people in need as possible. As an advocate for human rights, I aim to raise awareness and help others who are suffering. From volunteering for organizations, to simply looking out for a neighbor or friend, we can all make a difference in helping others. Human rights of freedom and safety belong to each of us, and we all have a responsibility to support people who are the most vulnerable.

Clinton had a universe of faults but under her administration we likely wouldn't have seen married people being picked up and separated by border patrol. Health care, including Planned Parenthood, which is the only access to prenatal and gynecological health care many poor women have at all, wouldn't be at risk. The Paris Climate Accord wouldn't have been tossed out. We wouldn't be going the other way on mass incarceration, prison privatization and the drug war. We wouldn't be facing the rebirth of the old Jim Crow. Which is not to say that a Clinton presidency would have meant peace and justice for all. It wouldn't have. She would have pushed an agenda that elevated the American Empire in terrible ways. But the loss of even the most compromising of agreements, accords and legislation means that we are starting from negative numbers. It means that we can't focus on pushing for something far better than the ACA -- like single-payer health care -- but that we have to fight for even the most basic of rights.

Conquest occurred through violence, and over-expolitation and oppression necessitate continued violence, so the army is present. There would be no contradiction in that, if terror reigned everywhere in the world, but the colonizer enjoys, in the mother country, democratic rights that the colonialist system refuses to the colonized native. In fact, the colonialist system favors population growth to reduce the cost of labor, and it forbids assimilation of the natives, whose numerical superiority, if they had voting rights, would shatter the system. Colonialism denies human rights to human beings whom it has subdued by violence, and keeps them by force in a state of misery and ignorance that Marx would rightly call a subhuman condition. Racism is ingrained in actions, institutions, and in the nature of the colonialist methods of production and exchange. Political and social regulations reinforce one another. Since the native is subhuman, the Declaration of Human Rights does not apply to him; inversely, since he has no rights, he is abandoned without protection to inhuman forces - brought in with the colonialist praxis, engendered every moment by the colonialist apparatus, and sustained by relations of production that define two sorts of individuals - one for whom privilege and humanity are one, who becomes a human being through exercising his rights; and the other, for whom a denial of rights sanctions misery, chronic hunger, ignorance, or, in general, 'subhumanity.

Coming to America for opportunities should be met with opportunities, not abject hatred.” -Shenita Etwaroo

Dehumanization isn’t a way of talking. It’s a way of thinking—a way of thinking that, sadly, comes all too easily to us. Dehumanization is a scourge, and has been so for millennia. It acts as a psychological lubricant, dissolving our inhibitions and inflaming our destructive passions. As such, it empowers us to perform acts that would, under other circumstances, be unthinkable.

Countless souls are starving to death around the world, yet you keep wasting heaps of money on alcohol, cigarettes and cheap thrills - how can you be so nonchalant, my friend!

Das Feindstrafrecht betrachtet sein Subjekt als Sphinx: halb Mensch, halb Tier.

Das war ein Vorspiel nur; dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen." (Almansor)

Democracy is not simply a license to indulge individual whims and proclivities. It is also holding oneself accountable to some reasonable degree for the conditions of peace and chaos that impact the lives of those who inhabit one’s beloved extended community.

Der Lebensschutz des potentiellen Opfers soll mehr wiegen als die Menschenwürde des potenziellen Täters.

Dieting was cruel; it was an abuse of human rights. Yes, that's what it was, and she should not allow herself to be manipulated in this way. She stopped herself. Thinking like that was nothing more than coming up with excuses for breaking the diet. Mma Ramotswe was made of sterner stuff than that, and so she persisted.

Dictatorship must be wiped clean from the face of the earth like a disease.

Discourse and critical thinking are essential tools when it comes to securing progress in a democratic society. But in the end, unity and engaged participation are what make it happen.

Direct democracy is lazy anarchy, for people who don't want to be governed but are too lazy to govern themselves. They want participation served to them.

Don’t just pray or wish for peace without doing the necessary things in our homes. Let us bring it about. Charity they say, begins at home.” -Shenita Etwaroo

Ein Individuum, das sich nicht in einen bürgerlichen Zustand zwingen [lässt], [kann] den Segnungen des Begriffs „Person“ nicht teilhaftig werden.

Dove c'è il potere (di interesse) li si trova la politica; il potere è un fattore attorno al quale si muovono gli interessi. Cioè, non arrivi in cima facendosi degli amici, se si desidera il potere (di interesse), devi avere "alleati" e le alleanze hanno "interessi comuni" non amici .... è uno stile di vita superficiale, materialista per niente legale: l'arte del rubare. E' fondamentalmente l'ambizione di alcuni su altri. Questa idea delle esigenze di alcuni su altri riflette l'egoismo di prendere decisioni per il proprio guadagno, trascurando come influenza gli altri. Ed è qui che l'incompatibilità di interessi diversi porta al conflitto, e come raggiungere gli interessi di alcuni su altri è una priorità: è necessario minacciare, rubare, manipolare, mentire, comprare, uccidere, togliere, dimostrare e usare il potere per realizzare il summenzionato obiettivo principale. E poi, la perseveranza e la sopravvivenza di quei pochi altri dipendono strettamente dagli "ottimisti" che credono nella politica e la capacità di influenzare gli altri e fargli fare ciò che vuole (usare il potere). Chi fa davvero cambiamenti positivi di ​​cui tutti beneficiano non ha bisogno né voto, né alleati, ne della politica, semplicemente lo fanno.

Education is discovering your full potential and flourishing that potential for the benefit of the humanity.

Eritrean people are strong and caring. And despite all that we had been through we were brimming with optimism. Our country was on the verge of huge change.

Être humain, c'est la bonne religion.

Every animal is biologically designed by Nature to do wrong in return. It takes a human being to not do wrong in return.

Every person has the choice to contribute to or drain from this world.

Every child born in the world must be considered as deriving its existence from God. The world is this new to him as it was to the first that existed, and his natural right in it is of the same kind.

Every second you spend holding someone else back is time not running the race yourself.

Every man — in the development of his own personality — has the right to form his own beliefs and opinions. Hence, suppression of belief, opinion and expression is an affront to the dignity of man, a negation of man’s essential nature." [Toward a General Theory of the First Amendment (1963)]

Everyone has a right to the alleviation of suffering, the basic personal freedoms, peaceful coexistence and the opportunity to lead a productive life…” -Shenita Etwaroo

Every single creature on earth manages to survive one way or another, but not every creature truly lives.

Every single day an estimated eighteen million men gratuitously waste the future of our country, by needlessly ejaculating one hundred million citizens of our country, which had they been born, would have made us the strongest country on the planet.

Faith is intrinsic to humanity and the freedom to practice one's religion is a right no power can deny

Failure to recognize the historical specificity of the bourgeois conception of rights and duties leads to serious errors. It is for this reason that Marx registers...a vigorous indictment of the anarchist Proudhon... Proudhon in effect took the specifics of bourgeois legal and economic relations and treated them as universal and foundational for the development of an alternative, socially just economic system. From Marx's standpoint, this is no alternative at all since it merely re-inscribes bourgeois conceptions of value in a supposedly new form of society. This problem is still with us, not only because of the contemporary anarchist revival of interest in Proudhon's ideas but also because of the rise of a more broad-based liberal human rights politics as a supposed antidote to the social and political ills of contemporary capitalism. Marx's critique of Proudhon is directly applicable to this contemporary politics. 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.

Fallujah was a Guernica with no Picasso. A city of 300,000 was deprived of water, electricity, and food, emptied of most of its inhabitants who ended up parked in camps. Then came the methodical bombing and recapture of the city block by block. When soldiers occupied the hospital, The New York Times managed to justify this act on grounds that the hospital served as an enemy propaganda center by exaggerating the number of casualties. And by the way, just how many casualties were there? Nobody knows, there is no body count for Iraqis. When estimates are published, even by reputable scientific reviews, they are denounced as exaggerated. Finally, the inhabitants were allowed to return to their devastated city, by way of military checkpoints, and start to sift through the rubble, under the watchful eye of soldiers and biometric controls.

Fight for peace, not power. Fight for freedom, not fame. Fight for truth, not titles. Fight for justice, not money. Fight for equailty, not wealth. Fight for love, not acclaim. Fight for honor, not glory. Fight for family, not possessions. Fight for destiny, not for fortune. Fight for dignity, not for reputation. Fight for character, not for prominence. Fight for country, not for position. Fight for virtue, not for evil. Fight for humanity, not for acclaim. Fight for tomorrow, not for yesturday. Fight for all, not for some.

Fear is one of the persistent hounds of hell that dog the footsteps of the poor, the dispossessed, the disinherited. There is nothing new or recent about fear—it is doubtless as old as the life of man on the planet. Fears are of many kinds—fear of objects, fear of people, fear of the future, fear of nature, fear of the unknown, fear of old age, fear of disease, and fear of life itself. Then there is fear which has to do with aspects of experience and detailed states of mind. Our homes, institutions, prisons, churches, are crowded with people who are hounded by day and harrowed by night because of some fear that lurks ready to spring into action as soon as one is alone, or as soon as the lights go out, or as soon as one’s social defenses are temporarily removed. The ever-present fear that besets the vast poor, the economically and socially insecure, is a fear of still a different breed. It is a climate closing in; it is like the fog in San Francisco or in London. It is nowhere in particular yet everywhere. It is a mood which one carries around with himself, distilled from the acrid conflict with which his days are surrounded. It has its roots deep in the heart of the relations between the weak and the strong, between the controllers of environment and those who are controlled by it. When the basis of such fear is analyzed, it is clear that it arises out of the sense of isolation and helplessness in the face of the varied dimensions of violence to which the underprivileged are exposed. Violence, precipitate and stark, is the sire of the fear of such people. It is spawned by the perpetual threat of violence everywhere. Of course, physical violence is the most obvious cause. But here, it is important to point out, a particular kind of physical violence or its counterpart is evidenced; it is violence that is devoid of the element of contest. It is what is feared by the rabbit that cannot ultimately escape the hounds.

Fighting cruelty with just criticism is like fighting against sword with a stick.

Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general--but to choose to use the vague expression "human rights" is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women. That the problem was not about being human, but specifically about being a female human.

For the first time in human history, let’s rewrite the destiny of humanity with our own active conscience, instead of with loyalty towards a certain pompous ideology – let’s slogan for humanity’s interest, and not the interest of a certain ideology, institution, religion or political party – let’s give ourselves to the tireless service of our kind, trumping all toil, agonies and desperation.

For far too long, the female gender has been plagued with stereotypes, typecasting, as well as, subtle and blatant discrimination.