Rights Of Man Quotes

Despite the madness of war, we lived for a world that would be different. For a better world to come when all this is over. And perhaps even our being here is a step towards that world. Do you really think that, without the hope that such a world is possible, that the rights of man will be restored again, we could stand the concentration camp even for one day? It is that very hope that makes people go without a murmur to the gas chambers, keeps them from risking a revolt, paralyses them into numb inactivity. It is hope that breaks down family ties, makes mothers renounce their children, or wives sell their bodies for bread, or husbands kill. It is hope that compels man to hold on to one more day of life, because that day may be the day of liberation. Ah, and not even the hope for a different, better world, but simply for life, a life of peace and rest. Never before in the history of mankind has hope been stronger than man, but never also has it done so much harm as it has in the war, in this concentration camp. We were never taught how to give up hope, and this is why today we perish in gas chambers. ~ Tadeusz Borowski

We hear in these days a great deal respecting rights
the rights of private judgment, the rights of labor, the rights of property, and the rights of man. Rights are grand things, divine things in this world of God's; but the way in which we expound these rights, alas! seems to me to be the very incarnation of selfishness. I can see nothing very noble in a man who is forever going about calling for his own rights. Alas! alas! for the man who feels nothing more grand in this wondrous, divine world than his own rights. ~ Frederick William Robertson

Cruelty to animals is cruelty and a vile thing; but cruelty to a man is not cruelty, it is treason. Tyranny over a man is not tyranny, it is rebellion, for man is royal. Now, the practical weakness of the vast mass of modern pity for the poor and the oppressed is precisely that it is merely pity; the pity is pitiful, but not respectful. Men feel that the cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is injustice to equals; nay, it is treachery to comrades. This dark scientific pity, this brutal pity, has an elemental sincerity of its own; but it is entirely useless for all ends of social reform. Democracy swept Europe with the sabre when it was founded upon the Rights of Man. It has done literally nothing at all since it has been founded only upon the wrongs of man. Or, more strictly speaking, its recent failure has been due to its not admitting the existence of any rights, or wrongs, or indeed of any humanity. Evolution (the sinister enemy of revolution) does not especially deny the existence of God; what it does deny is the existence of man. And all the despair about the poor, and the cold and repugnant pity for them, has been largely due to the vague sense that they have literally relapsed into the state of the lower animals. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Close by the Rights of Man, at the least set beside them, are the Rights of the Spirit. ~ Victor Hugo

There are only two parties in France: the people and its enemies. We must exterminate those miserable villains who are eternally conspiring against the rights of man ... We must exterminate all our enemies. ~ Maximilien De Robespierre

What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and power into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian senate. ~ Thomas Jefferson

I think now that this is the great division between people. There are people who find life hard and those who find it easy. There are those who have a natural, in-built, expectation of happiness, and there are those who feel that happiness is not to be expected: that it is not, in fact, one of the rights of man. Nor, God knows, one of the rights of women. ~ Hilary Mantel

We must insist that free oratory is only the beginning of free speech; it is not the end, but a means to an end. The end is to find the truth. The practical justification of civil liberties is not that self-expression is one of the rights of man. It is that the examination of opinion is one of the
necessities of man. For experience tells us that it is only when freedom of opinion becomes the compulsion to debate that the seed which our fathers planted has produced its fruit. When that is
understood, freedom will be cherished not because it is a vent for our opinions but because it is the surest method of correcting them. ~ Walter Lippmann

European revolutions followed textbooks - Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, Karl Marx' Communist Manifesto or Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf - while Mexicans wrote their texts after the fighting was over. ~ Richard Grabman

This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature. ~ Edmund Burke

May it [American independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately... These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

[Letter to Roger C. Weightman on the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, 24 June 1826. This was Jefferson's last letter] ~ Thomas Jefferson

At first Christ was a man – nothing more. Mary was his mother, Joseph his father. The genealogy of his father, Joseph, was given to show that he was of the blood of David.
Then the claim was made that he was the son of God, and that his mother was a virgin, and that she remained a virgin until her death.

The claim was made that Christ rose from the dead and ascended bodily to heaven.
It required many years for these absurdities to take possession of the minds of men.
If he really ascended, why did he not do so in public, in the presence of his persecutors? Why should this, the greatest of miracles, be done in secret, in a corner?

Is Christ our example? He never said a word in favor of education. He never even hinted at the existence of any science. He never uttered a word in favor of industry, economy or of any effort to better our condition in this world. He was the enemy of the successful, of the wealthy. Dives was sent to hell, not because he was bad, but because he was rich.

Lazarus went to heaven, not because he was good, but because he was poor.
Christ cared nothing for painting, for sculpture, for music – nothing for any art. He said nothing about the duties of nation to nation, of king to subject; nothing about the rights of man; nothing about intellectual liberty or the freedom of speech. He said nothing about the sacredness of home; not one word for the fireside; not a word in favor of marriage, in honor of matern ~ Robert G. Ingersoll

Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this great struggle, every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government. ~ Thomas Jefferson

What, then, do they want a government for? Not to regulate commerce; not to educate the people; not to teach religion, not to administer charity; not to make roads and railways; but simply to defend the natural rights of man
to protect person and property
to prevent the aggressions of the powerful upon the weak
in a word, to administer justice. This is the natural, the original, office of a government. It was not intended to do less: it ought not to be allowed to do more. ~ Herbert Spencer

A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held, and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves. Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The concept that flourished during the most glorious periods of republican Rome and that appeared in the Twelve Tables of the Law as one of the first, though as yet imperfect, affirmations of the rights of man, inspired the struggle between patricians and plebeians. ~ Ernesto Teodoro Moneta

Our situation is truly delicate & critical. On the one hand we are in need of a strong federal government founded on principles that will support the prosperity & union of the colonies. On the other we have struggled for liberty & made costly sacrifices at her shrine and there are still many among us who revere her name to much to relinquish (beyond a certain medium) the rights of man for the dignity of government. ~ Mercy Otis Warren

In the first part of 'Rights of Man' I have endeavoured to show ... that there does not exist a right to establish hereditary government ... because hereditary government always means a government yet to come, and the case always is, that the people who are to live afterwards, have always the same right to choose a government for themselves, as the people had who have lived before them. ~ Thomas Paine

2. We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence. ~ Winston S. Churchill

Our Press and our schools cultivate Chauvinism, militarism, dogmatism, conformism and ignorance. The arbitrary power of the Government is unlimited, and unexampled in history; freedom of the Press, of opinion and of movement are as thoroughly exterminated as though the proclamation of the Rights of Man had never been. We have built up the most gigantic police apparatus, with informers made a national institution, and the most refined scientific system of political and mental torture. We whip the groaning masses of the country towards a theoretical future happiness, which only we can. ~ Arthur Koestler

The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and in-grafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. ~ Barack Obama

It is evident that the right of acquiring and possessing property, and having it protected, is one of the natural, inherent, and unalienable rights of man. Men have a sense of property: Property is necessary to their subsistence, and correspondent to their natural wants and desires; its security was one of the objects, that induced them to unite in society. No man would become a member of a community, in which he could not enjoy the fruits of his honest labour and industry. ~ William Paterson

It is not only more bloody and more murderous than any previous wars but also more cruel, more relentless, more pitiless ... It discards all the parameters to which we defer in times of peace and which we called the rights of man. It does not recognise the privileges of the wounded man or of the doctor and it does not distinguish between non-combatants and the fighting part of the population. ~ Max Hastings

For millennia, religions in general, and Jewish, Christian, and Islamic churches in particular, have had little problem with the forced enslavement of hundreds of millions of people. It was only after the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment that rational arguments were proffered for the abolition of the slave trade, influenced by and citing such secular documents as the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. After an unconscionably long lag time, religion finally got on board the abolition train and became instrumental in helping to propel it forward. ~ Michael Shermer

Do not make the mistake of the ignorant who think that an individualist is a man who says: "I'll do as I please at everybody else's expense." An individualist is a man who recognizes the inalienable individual rights of man - his own and those of others. ~ Ayn Rand

Toleration in religion was one of the great rights of man, and a man ought never to be deprived of what was his natural right. ~ Charles James Fox

Ignorance is of a peculiar nature; once dispelled, it is impossible to reestablish it. It is not originally a thing of itself, but is only the absence of knowledge; and though man may be kept ignorant, he cannot be made ignorant. ~ Thomas Paine

Well, you have said that you were quite certain I was not a serious anarchist. Does this place strike you as being serious?"
"It does seem to have a moral under all its gaiety," assented Syme; "but may I ask you two questions? You need not fear to give me information, because, as you remember, you very wisely extorted from me a promise not to tell the police, a promise I shall certainly keep. So it is in mere curiosity that I make my queries. First of all, what is it really all about? What is it you object to? you want to abolish Government?"
"To abolish God!" said Gregory, opening the eyes of a fanatic. "We do not only want to upset a few despotisms and police regulations; that sort of anarchism does exist, but it is a mere branch of the Nonconformists. We dig deeper and we blow you higher. We wish to deny all those arbitrary distinctions of vice and virtue, honour and treachery, upon which mere rebels base themselves. The silly sentimentalists of the French Revolution talked of the Rights of Man! We hate Rights and we hate Wrongs. We have abolished Right and Wrong."
"And Right and Left," said Syme with a simple eagerness. "I hope you will abolish them too. They are much more troublesome to me. ~ G.K. Chesterton

All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollection of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The arbitrary power of the Government is unlimited, and unexampled in history; freedom of the Press, of opinion and of movement are as thoroughly exterminated as though the proclamation of the Rights of Man had never been. ~ Arthur Koestler

The problem with today's culture is that we have too many rights and not enough wrongs. ~ Ron Brackin

It is a crime to poison the minds of the meek and the humble, to stoke the passions of reactionism and intolerance, by appealing to that odious anti-Semitism that, unchecked, will destroy the freedom-loving France of the Rights of Man. It is a crime to exploit patriotism in the service of hatred, and it is, finally, a crime to ensconce the sword as the modern god, whereas all science is toiling to achieve the coming era of truth and justice. ~ Emile Zola

If one is attacked as a Jew, one must defend oneself as a Jew. Not as a German, not as a world-citizen, not as an upholder of the Rights of Man. ~ Hannah Arendt

If there is a country in the world where concord, according to common calculation, would be least expected, it is America. Made up as it is of people from different nations, accustomed to different forms and habits of government, speaking different languages, and more different in their modes of worship, it would appear that the union of such a people was impracticable; but by the simple operation of constructing government on the principles of society and the rights of man, every difficulty retires, and all the parts are brought into cordial unison. There the poor are not oppressed, the rich are not privileged. Industry is not mortified by the splendid extravagance of a court rioting at its expense. Their taxes are few, because their government is just: and as there is nothing to render them wretched, there is nothing to engender riots and tumults. ~ Thomas Paine

While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things,
The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention. ~ Robert Burns

We must recognize the fundamental rights of man. There can be no true national life in our democracy unless we give unqualified recognition to freedom of religious worship and freedom of education. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

We cordially believe in the rights of property. We think that normally and in the long run the rights of humanity, coincide with the rights of property ... But we feel that if in exceptional cases there is any conflict between the rights of property and the rights of man, then we must stand for the rights of man. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

We [Americans] have a great ardor for gain; but we have a deep passion for the rights of man. ~ Woodrow Wilson

When Bonaparte returned from Italy he called on Mr. Paine and invited him to dinner: in the course of his rapturous address to him he declared that a statue of gold ought to be erected to him in every city in the universe, assuring him that he always slept with his book 'Rights of Man' under his pillow and conjured him to honor him with his correspondence and advice. ~ Thomas Clio Rickman

But then in all his words if not deeds Jefferson was so beautifully human, so eminently vague, so entirely dishonest but not in any meretricious way. Rather it was a passionate form of self-delusion that rendered Jefferson as president and as man (not to mention as writer of tangled sentences and lunatic metaphors) confusing even to his admirers. Proclaiming the unalienable rights of man for everyone (excepting slaves, Indians, women and those entirely without property), Jefferson tried to seize the Floridas by force, dreamed of a conquest of Cuba, and after his illegal purchase of Louisiana sent a military governor to rule New Orleans against the will of its inhabitants. ~ Gore Vidal

The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression. ~ Thomas Paine

Ours is a representative republic with a Constitution in which is recognized the natural law and the natural rights of man. It is a republic with a spiritual foundation characterized by freedom - freedom for the individual and for his society. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The rights of man are poor things beside the eyes of hungry children. Their hurts are keener than the soreness of injustice. ~ Richard Llewellyn

It is regrettable that, among the Rights of Man, the right of contradicting oneself has been forgotten. ~ Charles Baudelaire

It was from America that the plain ideas that men ought to mind their business, and that the nation is responsible to Heaven for the acts of the State
ideas long locked in the breast of solitary thinkers, and hidden among Latin folios
burst forth like a conqueror upon the world they were destined to transform, under the title of the Rights of Man ... and the principle gained ground, that a nation can never abandon its fate to an authority it cannot control. ~ Lord Acton

If there be a people on earth whose more especial duty it is to be at all times prepared to defend the rights with which they are blessed, and to surpass all others in sustaining the necessary burthens, and in submitting to sacrifices to make such preparations, it is undoubtedly the people of these states. ~ James Monroe

If freedom, democracy, and the rights of man are to be preserved through the ages, free men and women must accept the responsibilities that go with their freedoms. ~ Ronald Reagan

Some women get erased a little at a time, some all at once. Some reappear. Every woman who appears wrestles with the forces that would have her disappear. She struggles with the forces that would tell her story for her, or write her out of the story, the genealogy, the rights of man, the rule of law. The ability to tell your own story, in words or images, is already a victory, already a revolt. ~ Rebecca Solnit

They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the rights of man. ~ Edmund Burke

I came from a family who believed in, in quotes, the Rights of Man, who believed that in order to justify the sort of luxurious life that the majority of us have, related to the whole world, that you had to do something. ~ Richard Attenborough

If your Doctor cannot prove they are the Creator, what right do they have to give you an expiration date? None fight for your right to live. Been on hospice almost 16 years now. No 'man' has any right to say you have less then 6 months to live, no matter what the pages on the wall say. Fight its your right. ~ Debee Sue

…they were intent on framing a 'Declaration of the Rights of Man'. Some were heard to mutter that the Assembly should write the constitution first, since rights exist in virtue of laws, but jurisprudence is such a dull subject, and liberty so exciting. ~ Hilary Mantel

During war we imprison the rights of man. ~ Jean Giraudoux

Paine suffered then, as now he suffers not so much because of what he wrote as from the misinterpretations of others...

He disbelieved the ancient myths and miracles taught by established creeds. But the attacks on those creeds - or on persons devoted to them - have served to darken his memory, casting a shadow across the closing years of his life.

When Theodore Roosevelt termed Tom Paine a 'dirty little atheist' he surely spoke from lack of understanding. It was a stricture, an inaccurate charge of the sort that has dimmed the greatness of this eminent American. But the true measure of his stature will yet be appreciated. The torch which he handed on will not be extinguished. If Paine had ceased his writings with 'The Rights of Man' he would have been hailed today as one of the two or three outstanding figures of the Revolution. But 'The Age of Reason' cost him glory at the hands of his countrymen - a greater loss to them than to Tom Paine.

I was always interested in Paine the inventor. He conceived and designed the iron bridge and the hollow candle; the principle of the modern central draught burner. The man had a sort of universal genius. He was interested in a diversity of things; but his special creed, his first thought, was liberty.

Traducers have said that he spent his last days drinking in pothouses. They have pictured him as a wicked old man coming to a sorry end. But I am persuaded that Paine must have looked with magnanim ~ Thomas A. Edison

. . . Kings, aristocrats, tyrants, whoever they be, are slaves rebelling against the sovereign of the earth, which is the human race, and against the legislator of the universe, which is nature.

[trans. G. Rudé; A Proposed Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen]. ~ Maximilien Robespierre

... why do men continue to practice in themselves, the absurdities they despise in others?
Thomas Paine, The rights of man: being an answer to Mr Burke's attack on the French Revolution (2nd edn, Philadelphia, 1791), p. 41. ~ Thomas Paine

... in recent history the Democrat Party has created the illusion that their agenda and their policies are what's best for black people. Somehow it's been forgotten that the Republican Party was founded in 1854 as an abolitionist movement with one simple creed: that slavery is a violation of the rights of man. ~ Elbert Guillory

I detect the activist returning with a vengence. ~ E.A. Bucchianeri

Freedom of the press, the surest guaranty of the rights of man. ~ Sarah Vowell

Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? ~ Henry David Thoreau

The French revolution taught us the rights of man. ~ Thomas Sankara

There is nothing in which mankind have been more unanimous [founding nations upon superstition]; yet nothing can be inferred from it more than this, that the multitude have always been credulous, and the few artful. The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature: and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history... [T]he detail of the formation of the American governments... may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven... it will for ever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses... Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind.

[A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States of America, 1787] ~ John Adams

In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man - these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause. ~ Calvin Coolidge

The real or supposed rights of man are of two kinds, active and passive; the right in certain cases to do as we list; and the right we possess to the forbearance or assistance of other men. ~ William Godwin

Our political and constitutional rights, so called, are but the natural and inherent rights of man, asserted, carried out, and secured by modes of human contrivance. ~ Gerrit Smith

As Mazzini said ... it is around the standard of duty rather than around the standard of self-interest that men must rally to win the rights of man. And herein may we see the deep philosophy of Him who bade men love their neighbors as themselves. In that spirit, and in no other, is the power to solve social problems and carry civilization onward. ~ Henry George

Old age is never honored among us, but only indulged, as childhood is; and old men lose one of the most precious rights of man,
that of being judged by their peers. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy ... to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce, and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank; if these things be libellous ... let the name of libeller be engraved on my tomb."
[Letter Addressed To The Addressers On The Late Proclamation, 1792 (Paine's response to the charge of "seditious libel" brought against him after the publication of The Rights of Man)] ~ Thomas Paine

A circular letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to all German authorities abroad shortly after the November pogroms of 1918 stated: "The emigration movement of only about 100,000 Jews has already sufficed to awaken the interest of many countries to the Jewish danger.... Germany is very interested in maintaining the dispersal of Jewry... the influx of Jews in all parts of the world invokes the opposition of the native population and thereby forms the best propaganda for the German Jewish policy.... The poorer and therefore more burdensome the immigrating Jews is to the country absorbing him, the stronger the country will react. ~ Hannah Arendt

Upon the whole I doubt whether the Benefits of opposition to the Constitution opposition to the Constitution will not ultimately be productive of more good than evil; it has called forth, in its defence, abilities which would not perhaps have been otherwise exerted that have thrown a new light upon the science of government, It has given the rights of man a full and fair discussion, and explained them in so clear and forcible a manner, as cannot fail to make a lasting impression. ~ George Washington

For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe
the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. ~ John F. Kennedy

We look back, already, with astonishment, at the daring outrages committed by despotism, on the reason and rights of man; we look forward with joy, to the period, when it shall be despoiled of all its usurpations, and bound forever in the chains, with which it had loaded its miserable victims. ~ James Madison

The Bill of Rights does not come from the people and is not subject to change by majorities. It comes from the nature of things. It declares the inalienable rights of man not only against all government but also against the people collectively. ~ Walter Lippmann

Thomas Jefferson understood the greater purpose of the liberty that our Founding Fathers sought during the creation of our Nation. Although it was against the British that the colonists fought for political rights, the true source of the rights of man was clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote that all humans are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights ... It was self-evident to him that denying these rights was wrong and that he and others must struggle to win what was theirs. ~ William J. Clinton

It's extremely disturbing and unsettling that Sony has taken digital rights management to this level of deceit. ~ Mark Russinovich

So she goes to see the Old Man of the Mountains–looks just like you, Bear. Same face, same hair. A big old bear, sitting up there on the top of the mountain, looking out at everything below. Doesn't smile so much, but understands how everybody's got a secret dark place sits way deep down there inside, hidden but wanting to get out. Understands how you can be happy but not happy at the same time. Understands that sometimes you feel you got to go all the way out to get back in, but if you do, you can't. There's no way back in. ~ Charles De Lint

What I remain opposed to is the idea that David Cameron could go around and give up workers' rights, give up environmental protection, give up a whole load of things that are very important. ~ Jeremy Corbyn

When obedience to the Divine precepts keeps pace with knowledge, in the mind of any man, that man is a Christian; and when the fruits of Christianity are produced, that man is a disciple of our blessed Lord, let his profession of religion be what it may. ~ Joseph Lancaster

Nothing makes a man, or a body of men, as mad as the truth. If there is no truth in it, they laugh it off. ~ Will Rogers

As a man sow, shall he reap. and I know that talk is cheap. But the heat of the battle is as sweet as the victory. ~ Bob Marley

She's got some sort of notion in her head concerning the eternal rights of women. ~ Kate Chopin

O Lord, bless the blood and the flesh of this the creature that You gave me," Jamie said softly. He scooped a pinch of the herbs himself, and rubbed them between thumb and forefinger, in a rain of fragrant dust. "Created by Your hand as You created man, Life given for life. That me and mine may eat with thanks for the gift, That me and mine may give thanks for Your own sacrifice of blood and flesh, Life given for life. ~ Diana Gabaldon

Carezza, like Tantra, considers the sex act to be a true feast of love, and ejaculation is seen as a clumsy, crude incident-something quite banal which kills sexual desire. The man who, a few minutes before was seized by a frantic sexual desire, changes as soon as he has ejaculated and turns away from his wife, damaging her in her self-respect and her love as well. ~ Andre Van Lysebeth

I didn't realize you were a man of faith." "My people have a rich spiritual heritage," Chakotay said. "I spent many years refusing to appreciate it, but, like most truths, it found me eventually and held me. ~ Kirsten Beyer

The right solemnly proclaimed at the birth of the States, and which has been affirmed and reaffirmed in the bills of rights of the States subsequently admitted into the Union of 1789, undeniably recognizes in the people the power to resume the authority delegated for the purposes of Government. ~ Jefferson Davis

Does anyone in this room have it?"
"No, Chris, no one here has it."
"How do you know?"
"Because the mark was dark skin. Negroes are the descendants of Cain."
I didn't have my civil-rights sensibilities yet, but I was starting to get a bad feeling about God ... ~ Chris Crutcher

We have had our failures." Yes, Karellen, that was true: and were you the one who failed, before the dawn of human history? It must have been a failure indeed, thought Stormgren, for its echoes to roll down all the ages, to haunt the childhood of every race of man. Even in fifty years, could you overcome the power of all the myths and legends of the world? ~ Arthur C. Clarke

Although I was fine, that night didn't sit well with me for the rest of our trip. Something had, in the end, been taken from me, something very small. A strange kind of dignity, maybe. In its place remained an alien resentment. I know it seems daft, really, but how does one get justice for not having been mugged? It's a real question, although not a high priority. For what it's worth, I learned this much - even commonplace violence and social dangers can't give me a fair shake. Discrimination feels like discrimination, even when it's for the best. My generation has been so socialized into our rights and so schooled away from discriminations of any kind, I didn't know how to be thankful. Thank you for stereotyping me. Thanks for excluding me from your violence, although I'm a relatively affluent tourist. Gratitude for being spared is something of a double bind. I wanted to lose. I wanted to lose like everybody else in order to keep that bit of dignity. ~ Ryan Knighton

We belong to the community. It is not the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? and what object does it finally serve? No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The Church is Christ's witness to the world of a loving savior and His redemptive plan for man. ~ John Paul Warren

Doyle: "What is it now, then?"
Cordelia: "Isn't java supposed to be a coffee?"
Doyle: "Ready to abandon the the Web project?"
Cordelia: "No way. We have a chance here to make contact with the millions of people out there who are glued to their computers."
Doyle: "All those millions, shunning human contact. I'll never understand it. Call me old-fashioned, if you like, but I want to interface with a face, not a hunk of plastic and glass."
Cordelia: "Climb out of the Dark Ages, Munchkin man."
Doyle: "It's leprechaun, and either way, I don't appreciate the insult. ~ John Passarella

Okay," Max said. "Now I'm terrified that I, um, said it too late?"
His uncertainty turned his words into a question. "Am I too late?" he asked again, as if he actually thought . . .
As much as Gina enjoyed watching him squirm, she forced her lungs and vocal cords to start working again. "Are you . . ." She had to clear her throat, but then it really didn't matter what she said, because the tears in her eyes surely told him everything he wanted to hear.
She saw his relief, and yes, he was still scared, she saw that, too, but mixed in with that was hope. And something that looked a heck of a lot like happiness.
Happiness - in Max's eyes.
"Are you really asking me for a second chance?" she managed to get it all out in a breathless exhale.
He kissed her then, as if he couldn't bear to stand so close and not kiss her. "Please," he breathed, as he kissed her again, as he licked his way into her mouth and . . . God . . .
She could've stood there, kissing Max forever, but the man on the megaphone just shouldn't shut up.
Besides, she wanted to be sure that this was about more than just sex.
"Do you want me in your life?" Gina asked him. "I mean, need is nice, but . . ." It implied a certain lack of free will. Want on the other hand . . .
"Want," he said. "Yes. I want you. Very much. In my life. Gina, I was lost without you." He caught himself. "More lost, or . . ." He shook his head. "Fuck it, I'm a mess, but if for some reason you sti ~ Suzanne Brockmann

Until our own time, history focussed on man the achiever; the higher the achiever the more likely it was that the woman who slept in his bed would be judged unworthy of his company. Her husband's fans recoiled from the notion that she might have made a significant contribution towards his achievement of greatness. The possibility that a wife might have been closer to their idol than they could ever be, understood him better than they ever could, could not be entertained. ~ Germaine Greer

It seemed to him that no matter what evils a man had committed, making him suffer purely for the sake of suffering was pointless. It didn't undo the harm he had wrought; it didn't please anyone or improve anyone's life. ~ Kim Fielding

Try not to be a man of success, but a man of value." - Albert Einstein ~ Kate Larkinson

I can let go of the twenty-three-year-old idiot who didn't realize just how much he could love you. I can. He's gone. I can let go of the man who was so tied up in his own guilt that he didn't really see you for years. But I will never let go of the eighty-year-old man who will hold your hand until the day he dies. I will fight for that old man. I will never let go of him. ~ Lexi Blake

And at the center of the room, a girl. A woman. She sits at the klavier with eyes closed, playing their song. Their story.
Elisabeth.
Her image flickers, wavers, a reflection seen on the edges of a candle flame. The shadows wriggle and writhe with curiosity, and with tremendous effort, the monster holds them back.
Please, he whispers. Please, let me have this one thing.
As he plays, the darkness recedes. From his skin, from his hair, the weight of the rams' horns on his head lightening. Color returns to the world and to his eyes, a mismatched blue and green as the monster remembers what it is to be a man.
Elisabeth.
He sits down on the bench beside her, begging her- beseeching her- to open her eyes and see him. Be with him. But she keeps her eyes closed, hands trembling on the keyboard.
Elisabeth.
She stirs. He sucks in a sharp breath and lifts his hand to stroke her cheek with fingers that are still mangled, broken, strange. His touch passes through her like a knife through smoke, yet she shivers as if she can feel the brush of his fingers in the dark places of her soul, her body, her heart. She is as insubstantial as mist, but he cannot resist the urge, the itch, to kiss. He closes his eyes and leans in close, imagining the silk of her skin against his lips.
They are met.
A gasp. His eyes fly open but hers are still closed. Her hand lifts to her mouth, as though the tingle of their unexpected caress still lingered there.
S. Jae-Jones