Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having. -- Mohandas Gandhi If we all discharge our duties, rights will not be far to seek. If leaving duties unperformed we run after rights, they will escape us like a will-o'-the-wisp." -- Mohandas Gandhi * Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth. -- Mohandas Gandhi

Begin with duties of a man and rights will follow as spring follows winter"
-- Mohandas Gandhi

I learned from my illiterate but wise mother that all rights to be deserved and preserved came from duty well done. Thus the very right to live accrues to us only when we do the duty of citizenship of the world. From this one fundamental statement, perhaps it is easy enough to define the duties of Man and Woman and correlate every right to some corresponding duty to be first performed. Every other right can be shown to be a usurpation hardly worth fighting for.
-- Mohandas Gandhi

* The modern infrastructures that exists in the world all contribute to the advancement of human rights and democracy. ~ Akbar Ganji

* "Women's rights are an essential part of the overall human rights agenda, trained on the equal dignity and ability to live in freedom all people should enjoy." -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 

It is never easy to define what is moral, particularly in foreign policy. But at the risk of being simplistic, it appears to me that a foreign policy that is morally right protects human rights everywhere.
-- Arthur Joseph Goldberg

I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample underfoot. 
-- Horace Greeley

* 'Freedom from fear' could be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human rights. -- Dag Hammarskjöld The Universal Declaration... as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations...it not only crystallizes the political thought of our times on these matters, but it has also influenced the thinking of legislators all over the world.  -- Dag Hammarskjöld, Second UN Secretary-General, 1953-1961

* "There is no contradiction between effective law enforcement and respect for civil and human rights." -- Dorothy Height

* "After a war, the silencing of arms is not enough. Peace means respecting all rights. You can’t respect one of them and violate the others. When a society doesn’t respect the rights of its citizens, it undermines peace and leads it back to war.” -- Maria Julia Hernandez Victims should come first.” -- Maria Julia Hernandez

“The situation of the Salvadorian people is terrible; all their rights are violated. There is a direct violation against the human person, a violation of rights that is endemic in society.”
-- Maria Julia Hernandez

The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadows of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights -- Hubert Humphrey, 1948 And it is to these rights -- the right of law and order, the right of life, the right of liberty, the right of a job, the right of a home in a decent neighborhood, and the right to an education -- it is to these rights that I pledge my life and whatever capacity and ability I have. -- Hubert Humphrey * there can be no compromise on the right of personal security; there can be no compromise on securing of human rights. -- Hubert Humphrey

* Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.  ~ Robert G. Ingersoll

* There is so much each one of us can do to make a difference. We are at a dangerous juncture in the history of mankind. … We need to defend our principles and values, human rights, civil liberties and the rule of international law. If we don’t our world will further descend into a state of chaos. -- Bianca Jagger

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government. -- Thomas Jefferson * We hold these truths to be self-evident,--that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. -- Thomas Jefferson

In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (December 1948) in most solemn form, the dignity of a person is acknowledged to all human beings; and as a consequence there is proclaimed, as a fundamental right, the right of free movement in search for truth and in the attainment of moral good and of justice, and also the right to a dignified life. 
-- Pope John XXIII, 1881-1963 Pacem in Terris, 1963

If the equality of individuals and the dignity of man be myths, they are myths to which the republic is committed. 
-- Howard Mumford Jones

* "The Earth is the mother of all people and all people should have equal rights upon it." -- Chief Joseph (1732-1794)

* In giving rights to others which belong to them, we give rights to ourselves. -- John F. Kennedy

* Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. -- Robert F. Kennedy

"America now stands as the world's foremost power. We should be proud: Not since the age of the Romans have one people achieved such preeminence. But we are not Romans; we do not seek an empire. We are Americans, trustees of a vision and a heritage that commit us to the values of democracy and the universal cause of human rights."
-- Senator John Kerry (American Senator, b.1943)

* No cause can justify the abuse of human rights. -- Irene Khan Human security comes only with human rights and the rule of law. Human rights are the basis for creating strong and accountable states without which there can be no political stability or social progress. -- Irene Khan * The world does not need a war against ‘terrorism’, it needs a culture of peace based on human rights for all. -- Irene Khan

There can be no peace without justice and respect for human rights. I passionately believe in the power of human rights as a set of global values to bring our fractured and divided world together. Around the world human rights activists are giving hope to millions of people - women, indigenous people, the poor and the marginalised - in their struggle for equality and dignity.
-- Irene Khan

There is no excuse for human rights abuse, whether in the name of security or in the name of liberation.”
-- Irene Khan

* "I won't give up until the exploitation of all children has ended and all children have their rights." -- Craig Kielburger

* "Democracy is the absolute value that makes for human dignity, as well as the only road to sustained economic development and social justice." -- Kim Dae-jung

 

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Human Rights Quotes

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