Minority Rights Quotes

The very purpose of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is to protect minority rights against majority voters. Every court decision that strikes down discriminatory legislation, including past Supreme Court decisions, affirming the fundamental rights to marry the person you love, overrules a majority decision. ~ David Boies

The state legislatures, as Madison and many another viewed them, had become a babel of narrow-minded parochial concerns, their members men of selfish interests and untutored understanding, oblivious of minority rights, passing unjust laws (such as legal tender acts whereby debts people owed each other could be paid in worthless currency), and all unchecked by any overriding vision of the public good or what it might consist of. ~ Stanley Elkins

If a country doesn't recognize minority rights and human rights, including women's rights, you will not have the kind of stability and prosperity that is possible. ~ Hillary Clinton

A government is free in proportion to the rights it guarantees to the minority. ~ Alf Landon

Rights mean you have a right to your life. You have a right to your liberty, and you should have a right to keep the fruits of your labor ... I, in a way, don't like to use those terms: gay rights, women's rights, minority rights, religious rights. There's only one type of right. It's the right to your liberty. ~ Ron Paul

Defeating fear of otherness means knowing who you are and what you're trying to accomplish and leveraging that otherness to our benefit. Knowing I'd never be invited into smoke-filled rooms or to the golf course, I instead requested individual meetings with political colleagues where I asked questions and learned about their interests, creating a similar sense of camaraderie. In business, I take full advantage of opportunities afforded to minorities but then always offer to share my learning with other groups that have similar needs - expanding the circle rather than closing myself off. Like most who are underestimated, I have learned to over-perform and find soft but key ways to take credit. Because, ultimately, leadership and power require the confidence to effectively wield both. ~ Stacey Abrams

THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION of 1787 was designed in part to solve the problems created by the presence in the state legislatures of these middling men. In addition to correcting the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution was intended to restrain the excesses of democracy and protect minority rights from overbearing majorities in the state legislatures. But ~ Gordon S. Wood

Secularism will not work in Egypt any more than theocracy. What will work is governance that is guided by the Islamic values of the majority with protection of the minority rights. ~ Ahmed Zewail

Of strong importance to me is the defense of minority rights, not just racial minorities, but ideological and religious minorities. ~ Rand Paul

At present, black children are more segregated in their public schools than at any time since 1968. In the inner-city schools I visit, minority children typically represent 95 percent to 99 percent of class enrollment. ~ Jonathan Kozol

It's up to any government to decide how to react to the denial of basic human rights anywhere in the world, including Egypt. ~ Mohamed ElBaradei

The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them. ~ Thomas Jefferson

I voted for the Defense of Marriage Act but I do not believe we should institutionalize a form of discrimination against any minority by amending the Constitution. ~ Ben Nighthorse Campbell

No man who is not willing to bear arms and to fight for his rights can give a good reason why he should be entitled to the privilege of living in a free community. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The dogma of woman's complete historical subjection to men must be rated as one of the most fantastic myths ever created by the human mind. ~ Mary Ritter Beard

The civil rights movement would experience many important victories, but Rosa Parks will always be remembered as its catalyst. ~ Jim Costa

Ladies, the only thing that gives a man the right to touch you is your permission. ~ Carlos Wallace

I boldly entered the arena of business and exercised the rights I already possessed. ~ Victoria Woodhull

Legally speaking, the term 'public rights' is as vague and indefinite as are the terms 'public health,' 'public good,' 'public welfare,' and the like. It has no legal meaning, except when used to describe the separate, private, individual rights of a greater or less number of individuals. ~ Lysander Spooner

It is maintained that a society is free only when dissenting minorities have room to throw their weight around. As a matter of fact, a dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority. 41 ~ Eric Hoffer

The Purpose of life is to thrive and save lives with passion! Save Yazidis today with love and compassion! ~ Widad Akreyi

We are close to a consensus that the Kyoto Protocol does huge economic, political, social and ecological damage to the Russian Federation. In addition, it certainly violates the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens, and well as the rights and freedoms of citizens in those countries which signed and ratified it. ~ Andrey Illarionov

I don't think there are any pure Africans of the African Americans, but the African part of our history was pretty much taken away from us during slavery, so the 60s gave us a chance, because of the civil rights movement, to kind of re-examine and make some sort of formal connection to our African-ness. ~ Herbie Hancock

I support gun control. But speaking honestly about the combustible mix of race and guns may be more important to stopping the slaughter in minority communities than any new gun-control laws. ~ Juan Williams

The Community Relations Service would be another pro-civil rights Federal agency attempting to make people do what the policy of the Federal Government demanded that they do. Moreover, in title II of the bill, this Service is made an agent of the court without due thought as to the effect on legal and judicial procedures. ~ John Sparkman

It puts limits on criminals' rights to destroy unborn children without the permission of the woman. ~ Lindsey Graham

[A]n unpleasant nest of nasty, materialistic and aggressive people, careless of the rights of others, imperfectly democratic at home though quick to see the minor slaveries of others, and greedy without end. ~ Isaac Asimov

I've become an animal rights activist. ~ Steve Wynn

IQ tests are routinely used as weapons against Black people in particular and minority groups and poor people generally. The tests are based on white middle-class standards, and when we score low on them, the results are used to justify the prejudice that we are inferior and unintelligent. Since we are taught to believe that the tests are infallible, they have become a self-fulfilling prophecy that cuts off our initiative and brainwashes us. ~ Huey Newton

Turkey, with its political intolerance, as I have described it, is prepared to march forward, to break with its taboo about the Armenians, and is making great strides with respect to human rights and freedom of speech so that it can join the European Union. This alone shows how powerful the European idea is. ~ Orhan Pamuk

Live with integrity, respect the rights of other people, and follow your own bliss. ~ Nathaniel Branden

Both [parents] knew how to fight for humanity's basic human rights: food, water, shelter, medical care. Figuring out how to provide emotional support for their raped daughter did not propel them into action the way the revolution did. On the contrary, it immobilized them, silenced them, left their lungs devoid of breath. 'Don't move, don't speak, don't breathe' had not only been my survival psalm during the rape itself, it became theirs in the aftermath. ~ Carmen Aguirre

The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Whenever women protest and ask for their rights, they are silenced with the argument that the laws are justified under Islam. It is an unfounded argument. It is not Islam at fault, but rather the patriarchal culture that uses its own interpretations to justify whatever it wants. ~ Shirin Ebadi

We Americans seem to derive a great deal of pleasure out of punishing those who fail to measure up to our standards of morality and conduct--regardless of whether or not their conduct has any affect on our personal rights to life, liberty, and property. ~ Neal Boortz

The student who invades an administration building, roughs up a dean, rifles the files and issues 'non-negotiable demands' may have some of his demands met by a permissive university administration. But the greater his 'victory' the more he will have undermined the security of his own rights. ~ Richard M. Nixon

Obama's endorsement of gay marriage is hardly as consequential as Johnson's legislative success on civil rights. ~ Robert Dallek

At a time when hundreds of men have been put to death without trial or any sort of evidence of guilt, and when the population literally trembles with fear, animals have rights guaranteed them which men and women cannot think of expecting. ~ Erik Larson

The right to private judgment is the crown jewel of humanity, and for any person or institution to dare to come between the soul and God is a blasphemous impertinence and a defamation of the crown rights of the Son of God. ~ George W Truett

If humans are kind to each other, if really humanity do exist, the world would have been a better place and we wouldn't need to fight so much for innocent lives. This would have made our struggles easier. As I get involved more and more in protecting innocent lives my faith in Humanity fades away. What a world we live in? Can we have faith in humanity? We humans are here to protect others, but we are the very reason that their lives are in danger. How long can we fight for the week, for the voiceless? The future is so dark!!! ~ Ama H. Vanniarachchy

The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. (John Galt) ~ Ayn Rand

It is not enough to overthrow governments, masters, tyrants: one must overthrow his own preconceived ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust. We must abandon the hard-fought trenches, we have dug ourselves into and come out into the open, surrender our arms, our possessions, our rights as individuals, classes, nations, peoples. A billion men seeking peace cannot be enslaved. We have enslaved ourselves, by our own petty, circumscribed view of life. It is glorious to offer one's life for a cause, but dead men accomplish nothing. Life demands that we offer something more - spirit, soul, intelligence, good-will. Nature is ever ready to repair the gaps caused by death, but nature cannot supply the intelligence, the will, the imagination to conquer the forces of death. Nature restores and repairs, that is all. It is man's task to eradicate the homicidal instinct which is infinite in its ramifications and manifestations. It is useless to call upon God, as it is futile to meet force with force. ~ Henry Miller

There have been some positive things that have happened for the tribes, but it's a constant, vigilant fight about protecting what resources we have in terms of land and rights. ~ John Trudell

Michelle Alexander's brave and bold new book paints a haunting picture in which dreary felon garb, post-prison joblessness, and loss of voting rights now do the stigmatizing work once done by colored-only water fountains and legally segregated schools. With dazzling candor, Alexander argues that we all pay the cost of the new Jim Crow. ~ Lani Guinier

All men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others. ~ L. Ron Hubbard

The theory of animal rights simply is not consistent with the theory of animal welfare ... Animal rights means dramatic social changes for humans and non-humans alike; if our bourgeois values prevent us from accepting those changes, then we have no right to call ourselves advocates of animal rights. ~ Gary L. Francione

One of the things about being a minority actor is that you don't have that opportunity as some of your counterparts to keep that flow, to constantly be going from one thing to the other, so when you see really great performances out there by some black folks, you know it's coming from somewhere deep, because they just don't work as much. ~ Georg Stanford Brown

Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater,
Had a wife and couldn't keep her.
Of course you cannot keep a wife-
Everyone's got to live their life! ~ Kristen McKee

When it comes to politics its not about who is corrupt its about who is been caught, because they all have skeletons in the closet. ~ De Philosopher DJ Kyos

There is no question that a belief system can have positive, transformative effects on people's lives. Many current and former Scientologists have attested to the value of their training and the insight they derived from their study of the religion. They have the right to believe whatever they choose. But it is a different matter to use the protections afforded a religion by the First Amendment to falsify history, to propagate forgeries, and to cover up human-rights abuses. ~ Lawrence Wright

As though there were a tie And obligation to posterity. We get them, bear them, breed, and nurse: What has posterity done for us. That we, lest they their rights should lose, Should trust our necks to gripe of noose? ~ John Trumbull

If this were a courageous country,
it would ask Gloria to lead it
since she is sane and funny and beautiful and smart
and the National Leaders we've always had
are not.
When I listen to her talk about women's rights
children's rights
men's rights
I think of the long line of Americans
who should have been president, but weren't.
Imagine Crazy Horse as president. Sojourner Truth.
John Brown. Harriet Tubman. Black Elk or Geronimo.
Imagine President Martin Luther King confronting
the youthful "Oppie" Oppenheimer. Imagine President
Malcolm X going after the Klan. Imagine President Stevie
Wonder dealing with the "Truly Needy."
Imagine President Shirley Chisholm, Ron Dellums, or
Sweet Honey in the Rock
dealing with Anything.
It is imagining to make us weep with frustration,
as we languish under real estate dealers, killers,
and bad actors. ~ Alice Walker

as "a general endorsement of the exploitative colonization tactics of the Spanish. Though Junipero Serra was known to have argued on behalf of the property rights and economic entitlement of converted Native Americans, he consistently advocated against their right to self-governance, and was a staunch supporter of corporal punishment, appealing to the Spanish government for the right to flog Indians." When Doc had finished this particular lecture, I just looked at him and went, "Photographic memory much?" He looked embarrassed. "Well," he said. "It's good to know the history of the place where you're living." I filed this away for future reference. Doc might be just the person I needed if Jesse showed up again. Now, standing in the cool office of the ancient building Junipero Serra had constructed for the betterment of the natives in the area, I wondered ~ Meg Cabot

Six men control almost all the media in the United States--book publishing, magazines, television, movie studios, newspapers, and radio. They are not friendly toward feminism, which has almost disappeared from the surface of our society. You will almost never see a feminist column on an op-ed page, a feminist article in a magazine, or newspaper, actual (not satirized) feminist ideas on television or in the movies. Only magazines & radio controlled by feminists--and these are few and not well-funded--offer information on the feminist perspective.

This might be understandable if feminism were a wild-eyed manic philosophy. But it is a belief, a politics, based on one simple fact: women are human beings who matter as much as men. That is all that feminism claims. As human beings, women have the right to control their own bodies, to walk freely in the world, to train their minds and bodies, and to love and hate at will. Only those who wish to continue to coerce women into a servant/slave class for men cannot accept this principle. ~ Marilyn French

Yooralla, like most disability service organisations, is full of good people who are passionate about the rights of people with disabilities. ~ Stella Young

I believe that feminism has become a political movement that seeks to obtain unlimited rights for woman without corresponding responsibilities via the suppression of feminism.Under my definition, helping oppressed women in other countries falls outside the scope of the movement's interests. ~ Mike Adams