Best 453 quotes in «human rights quotes» category

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

What we need most is to realize that human beings are fantastic resources for change.” -Shenita Etwaroo

When civilians kill, it is called murder. When governments kill, it is called pragmatism.

When civilians kill, it is called murder. When governments kill, it is called patriotism.

Whenever one comes to the the table for interreligous dialogue, there is what I would call an _ecumenical taboo_ that one has to comply with. The ecumenical taboo_ does not exist in a written document, but people tend to practice it around the dialogue table. One should not raise, for instance, such questions as gender justice, sexual orientation issues, religious constructions of the other, multiple forms of violence in a religious community, or religious cooperation with neo/imperialism. each religion has its own _history of sin_ that has justified and perpetuated oppression and exclusion of certain groups of people through its own religious teaching, doctrine, and practice. In order to be _nice_ and _tolerant_ to one another, interreligious dialogue has not challenged the fundamental issues of injustice that a particular religion has practiced, justified, and perpetuated in various ways. I do not disregard that most ecumenists have based interreligious dialogue on a politics of tolerance, and this has played a significant role in easing the antagonism between religions, at least among the leaders of established religions. However, we should ground an authentic ecumenism and theology of religion in a _politics of affirmation and transformation, rather than a politics of tolerance_.

When someone harms our daughter or sister or wife, our rage and courage practically turn infinite and we do not even imagine of stopping until the perpetrators are brought to justice, yet when mindless barbarians keep raping the very fabric of humanity in the name of race, religion and nation, we somehow manage to accept it as the norm. What a hypocrisy! What a bunch of losers we are! Okay, be a loser - live as a loser - crawl through the several decades of your life as a loser - but don't you dare to boast about being human. Because if you don't have the guts and conscience to act against discrimination, segregation and bigotry, then you don't deserve the title of human. Losers don't make humans, just like bigots and barbarians ain't no human. If we are to look at the mirror and say out loud – yes, that’s me, a human – then we must, not should, but must, be accountable for not just our individual reality, but for our societal reality as well.

When the world is partying, I'm working - when the world is on dates and getting laid, I'm working - when the world is on holidays, I'm working - when the world is celebrating the festivals, I'm working - for humankind to have a healthy and prosperous life, someone's gotta work.

When we hide discrimination under the guise of 'religious freedom,' we make a mockery of human rights.

When you're silent, your silence condones it. Thus, whatever you believe in goes down the drain.

When Westerners remain silent out of 'respect' for foreign cultures, they show support only for the most conservative elements of those cultures. Cultural relativism is as much my enemy as the oppression I fight within my culture and faith.

WHILE THE WORLD'S ASLEEP, ANGELS REFUSE TO SLEEP!

Where money talks, the poor have no voice.

Whoever coined the phrase '"I can work well under pressure" should be put on trial for crimes against Humanity.

With "gay marriage," the last shreds of meaning will be stripped away from marriage, with homosexuals finishing what faithless, selfish heterosexuals have begun.

With deregulation, privatisation, free trade, what we're seeing is yet another enclosure and, if you like, private taking of the commons. One of the things I find very interesting in our current debates is this concept of who creates wealth. That wealth is only created when it's owned privately. What would you call clean water, fresh air, a safe environment? Are they not a form of wealth? And why does it only become wealth when some entity puts a fence around it and declares it private property? Well, you know, that's not wealth creation. That's wealth usurpation.

With heightened focus on the construction of woman as a "victim" of gender equality deserving reparations (whether through changes in discriminatory laws or affirmative action policies) the idea that owmen need to first confront their internalized sexism as part of becoming feminist lost currency. Females of all ages acted as though concern for or rage at male domination or gneder equality was all that was needed to make one a "feminist." Without confronting internalized sexism women who picked up the feminist banner often betrayed the cause in their interactions with other women.

Wir sind das Volk!" Dieser Satz hat uns gelehrt, dass wir, wenn wir unserer Sehnsucht glauben und ihr vertrauen, die Angst verlieren können. Eine Angst, die willfährige Dienerin jeder Art von nicht legitimierter Herrschaft ist, die uns ohnmächtig macht, die uns bindet. In dem Augenblick aber, in dem wir unsere Angst als Angst benennen und Anpassung und Angst als Geschwisterkinder erkennen, sind wir möglicherweise bereit zu erproben: Können wir auch ohne sie leben? In genau diesem Augenblick wachsen uns jene Kräfte zu, die eine ganze Gesellschaft verändern können.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.

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

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

Caged birds sing of freedom, free birds fly.

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

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.

Happy is the house that shelters a friend.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Please use your freedom to promote ours.

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