Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. @ -Frederick Douglas
We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now. @ -Martin Luther King Jr.
I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false and to incur my own abhorrence. @ -Frederick Douglas
You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas. @ -Shirley Chisholm
You're either part of the solution or part of the problem. @ -Eldridge Cleaver
We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. @ -Barack Obama
The connection between women's human rights, gender equality, socioeconomic development and peace is increasingly apparent. @ -Mahnaz Afkhami
It means a great deal to those who are oppressed to know that they are not alone. And never let anyone tell you that what you are doing is insignificant. @ -Bishop Desmond Tutu
Some values must be universal, like human rights and the equal worth of every human being. @ -Bjorn Ulvaeus
Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life... @ -Nelson Mandela
The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. @ -Thomas Jefferson
Racism is a grown-up disease and we must stop using our children to spread it. @ -Ruby Bridges
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. @ -Barack Obama
Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free. @ -14th Dalai Lama
Keep going. No matter what. @ -Reginald Lewis
Freedom does not mean being free of something, but to be free to do something. @ -Angela Merkel
To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity. @ -Nelson Mandela
Caged birds sing of freedom, free birds fly. @ -Thorolf Rafto
The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. @ -Patrick Henry
Healthcare for all is a human right. @ -Bernie Sanders
The world isn't always fair, but it's all that we got.
It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home. @ -Carl T. Rowan
Never limit yourself because of others' limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination. @ -Mae C. Jemison
We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own 'to do' list. @ -Michelle Obama
The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be either good or evil. @ -Hannah Arendt
A human being is not to be handled as a tool but is to be respected and revered. @ -Felix Adler
"Freedom from fear" could be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human rights. @ -Dag Hammarskjold
There is no contradiction between effective law enforcement and respect for civil and human rights. @ -Dorothy Height
I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear. @ -Rosa Parks
Poverty is the worst form of violence. @ -Mahatma Gandhi
Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. @ -Martin Luther King Jr.
The real radical is that person who has a vision of equality and is willing to do those things that will bring reality closer to that vision. @ -Bayard Rustin
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices. @ -Voltaire
America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way around. Human rights invented America. @ -Jimmy Carter
There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race — scientifically, anthropologically. @ -Toni Morrison
Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are. @ -Benjamin Franklin
Human rights education is much more than a lesson in schools or a theme for a day; it is a process to equip people with the tools they need to live lives of security and dignity. @ -Kofi Annan
Life is short, and it's up to you to make it sweet. @ -Sadie Delany
Healing begins where the wound was made. @ -Alice Walker
If you wake up deciding what you want to give versus what you're going to get, you become a more successful person. In other words, if you want to make money, you have to help someone else make money. @ -Russell Simmons
In giving rights to others which belong to them, we give rights to ourselves. @ -John F. Kennedy
The idea of cultural relativism is nothing but an excuse to violate human rights. @ -Shirin Ebadi
Hold on to your dreams of a better life and stay committed to striving to realize it. @ -Earl G. Graves, Sr.
Human beings, indeed all sentient beings, have the right to pursue happiness and live in peace and freedom. @ -14th Dalai Lama
The people of my country want the two freedoms that spell security: freedom from want and freedom from fear. @ -Aung San Suu Kyi
Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation. @ -Coretta Scott King
The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them. @ -Ida B. Wells
The honor of a nation is its life. Deliberately to abandon it is to commit an act of political suicide. @ -Alexander Hamilton
The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third. @ -Voltaire
Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country and a finer world to live in. @ -Martin Luther King Jr.
The time is always right to do what is right. @ -Martin Luther King Jr.
I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it! Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them. @ -Madam C.J. Walker
Racism is not an excuse to not do the best you can. @ -Arthur Ashe
When you know your name, you should hang on to it, for unless it is noted down and remembered, it will die when you do. @ -Toni Morrison
You can't just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream. You've got to get out there and make it happen for yourself. @ -Diana Ross
Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it. @ -Bayard Rustin
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men. @ -Abraham Lincoln
Equal rights for all, special privileges for none @ -Thomas Jefferson
Make injustice visible. @ -Mahatma Gandhi
If you don't want women to do whatever they need to do then you must provide them with food, you must provide them with shelter and their basic human rights. @ -Emma Thompson
Freedom is never given; it is won. @ -A. Philip Randolph
Be a rainbow in someone else's cloud. @ -Maya Angelou
Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. @ -James Baldwin
You can and should set your own limits and clearly articulate them. This takes courage, but it is also liberating and empowering, and often earns you new respect. @ -Rosalind Brewer
You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. @ -Maya Angelou
Open your newspaper - any day of the week - and you will find a report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government. @ -Peter Benenson
Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit. @ -Mahatma Gandhi
Together we can prevent genocide from happening again. Together we can make a better future for our children. @ -Dith Pran
The people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government and to reform, alter, or totally change the same when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it. @ -Alexander Hamilton
Human rights are the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood. @ -Jimmy Carter
Hatred is not essential for nationalism. Race hatred will kill the real national spirit. @ -Mahatma Gandhi
The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors. @ -Thomas Jefferson
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. @ -Thomas Jefferson
Everyone has a right to peaceful coexistence, the basic personal freedoms, the alleviation of suffering, and the opportunity to lead a productive life... @ -Jimmy Carter
Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong. @ -Ella Fitzgerald
If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow. @ -Beyoncé
Man, if you got to ask you'll never know. @ -Louis Armstrong
My message is really that racism has no place in the hearts and minds of our children. @ -Ruby Bridges
A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government. @ -Alexander Hamilton
It takes no compromise to give people their rights... It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no survey to remove repression. @ -Harvey Milk
I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying. @ -Michael Jordan
If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. @ -Noam Chomsky
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. @ -Stephen Biko
If access to health care is considered a human right, who is considered human enough to have that right? @ -Paul Farmer
Give all the power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all the power to the few, they will oppress the many. @ -Alexander Hamilton
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. @ -Thomas Jefferson
Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. @ -Toni Morrison
If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities. @ -Maya Angelou
Every nation ought to have a right to provide for its own happiness. @ -Alexander Hamilton
It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government. @ -Alexander Hamilton
Victims should come first. @ -Maria Julia Hernandez
Nobody's as powerful as we make them out to be. @ -Alice Walker
Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave. @ -Frederick Douglas
The world does not need a war against 'terrorism', it needs a culture of peace based on human rights for all. @ -Irene Khan
When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw. @ -Nelson Mandela
Many people don't focus enough on execution. If you make a commitment to get something done, you need to follow through on that commitment. @ -Kenneth Chenault
You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. @ -Clarence Darrow
The path to your success is not as fixed and inflexible as you think. @ -Misty Copeland
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. @ -Thomas Jefferson
The function of freedom is to free someone else. @ -Toni Morrison
The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with. @ -Eleanor Holmes Norton
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. @ -Frederick Douglas
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government. @ -Thomas Jefferson
I used to want the words 'she tried' on my tombstone. Now I want 'she did it'. @ -Katherine Dunham
It isn't where you come from; it's where you're going that counts. @ -Ella Fitzgerald
History has always been a series of pendulum swings, but the individual doesn't have to get caught in that. @ -Robert L. Johnson
There are two kinds of worries - those you can do something about and those you can't. Don't spend any time on the latter. @ -Duke Ellington
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. @ -Nelson Mandela
Character is power. @ -Booker T. Washington
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise, I rise, I rise. @ -Maya Angelou
No country can be called free which is governed by an absolute power; and it matters not whether it be an absolute royal power or an absolute legislative power, as the consequences will be the same to the people. @ -Thomas Paine
In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another. @ -Voltaire
Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master! @ -Thomas Jefferson
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too. @ -Voltaire
Nothing will work unless you do. @ -Maya Angelou
If someone has something bad to say about you, it's probably because they have nothing good to say about themselves.
I want to stop transforming and just start being. @ -Ursula Burns
The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression. @ -W.E.B. Du Bois
The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be loved. @ -Emma Goldman
The workings of the human heart are the profoundest mystery of the universe. One moment they make us despair of our kind, and the next we see in them the reflection of the divine image. @ -Charles W. Chesnutt
The writer cannot expect to be excused from the task of reeducation and regeneration that must be done. In fact, he should march right in front. @ -Chinua Achebe
A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives. @ -Jackie Robinson
There is nothing a woman can't do. Men might think they do things all by themselves but a woman is always there guiding them or helping them. @ -Marjorie Joyner
To know how much there is to know is the beginning of learning to live. @ -Dorothy West
So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. @ -Voltaire
Each and every one of us is born with a clean heart. Our babies know nothing about hate or racism. But soon they begin to learn – and only from us. We keep racism alive. We pass it on to our children. We owe it to our children to help them keep their clean start. @ -Ruby Bridges
Human Rights for everyone is the necessary foundation upon which all of us may build a world where everybody may live in peace and serenity and plenty. @ -Michael Douglas
Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you. @ -Oprah Winfrey
In the old times men carried out their rights for themselves as they lived, but nowadays every baby seems born with a social manifesto in its mouth much bigger than itself. @ -Oscar Wilde
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. @ -Thomas Paine
The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men. @ -Alexander Hamilton
Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. @ -James Baldwin
People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both. @ -Benjamin Franklin
Find the good. It's all around you. Find it, showcase it and you'll start believing it. @ -Jesse Owens
Democracy is just a filler for textbooks! Do you actually believe that public opinion influences the government? @ -Voltaire
Today's human rights violations are the causes of tomorrow's conflicts. @ -Mary Robinson
Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. @ -Benjamin Franklin
You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom. @ -Malcolm X
A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. @ -Ramsey Clark
Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny. @ -Bob Marley
The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened. @ -John F. Kennedy
I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me. @ -Muhammad Ali
No government should be without critics. If its intentions are good then it has nothing to fear from criticism. @ -Thomas Jefferson
Those who today still feel a sense of impotence can do something: they can support Amnesty International. They can help it to stand up for freedom and justice. @ -Peter Benenson
If it is right for men to fight for their freedom, then it is right for women to fight for their freedom and the freedom of the children they bear. @ -Emmeline Pankhurst
The evolution of the human rights movement clearly illustrates humanity's ongoing struggle toward creating a better world. @ -Robert Alan Silverstein
The candle burns not for us, but for all those whom we failed to rescue from prison, who were shot on the way to prison, who were tortured, who were kidnapped, who "disappeared". That's what the candle is for. @ -Peter Benenson
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. @ -Barack Obama
You are a human being. You have rights inherent in that reality. You have dignity and worth that exists prior to law. @ -Lyn Beth Neylon
Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government. @ -Thomas Jefferson
A people who chose security over liberty will receive neither nor deserve either. @ -Benjamin Franklin
As long as we are not ourselves, we will try to be what other people are. @ -Malidoma Patrice Somé
Security without liberty is called prison. @ -Benjamin Franklin
Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor liberty to purchase power. @ -Benjamin Franklin
A private central bank issuing the public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army. We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. @ -Thomas Jefferson
Women's empowerment is intertwined with respect for human rights. @ -Mahnaz Afkhami
Better to die fighting for freedom than be a prisoner all the days of your life. @ -Bob Marley
My Vocation is my Vacation. I love what I do. @ -Nick Cannon
We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color. @ -Maya Angelou
The giant industries that are polluting our planet as well as violating human rights worldwide are the ones nearest and dearest to the hearts of American politicians. @ -Woody Harrelson
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. @ -Booker T. Washington
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. @ -Maya Angelou
You can imprison a man, but not an idea. You can exile a man, but not an idea. You can kill a man, but not an idea. @ -Benazir Bhutto
Defending human rights requires vigilance, doggedness and a strong, global force for good. @ -Sting
I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights. @ -Bishop Desmond Tutu
Every time you state what you want or believe, you're the first to hear it. It's a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don't put a ceiling on yourself. @ -Oprah Winfrey
There is no justification for taking away individuals' freedom in the guise of public safety. @ -Thomas Jefferson
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. @ -Thomas Jefferson
Because to take away a man's freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person. @ -Madeleine L'Engle
To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. @ -Thomas Jefferson
No matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you. @ -Zora Neale Hurston
No man is above the law and no man below it. @ -Theodore Roosevelt
There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism. @ -Alexander Hamilton
If women want any rights more than they's got, why don't they just take them, and not be talking about it. @ -Sojourner Truth
When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world. @ -George Washington Carver
When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. @ -Thomas Jefferson
There will always be men struggling to change, and there will always be those who are controlled by the past. @ -Ernest J. Gaines
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. @ -Thomas Paine
If you want to fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down. @ -Toni Morrison
Fear is not the natural state of civilized man. @ -Aung San Suu Kyi
I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery. @ -Thomas Jefferson
Belief in oneself and knowing who you are, I mean, that's the foundation for everything great. @ -Jay Z
For while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness. @ -James Baldwin
People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead. @ -James Baldwin
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered. @ -James Weldon Johnson
In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute. @ -Thurgood Marshall
The government you elect is the government you deserve. @ -Thomas Jefferson
I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. @ -Thomas Jefferson
I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample underfoot. @ -Horace Greeley
It's the publicity function of Amnesty that I think has made its name so widely known, not only to readers in the world, but to governments - and that's what matters. @ -Peter Benenson
And we who have toiled for freedom's law, have we sought for freedom's soul? Have we learned at last that human right is not a part but the whole? @ -John Boyle O'Reilly
Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational being are trenched on, die on the first inch of your territory. @ -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men simply copied the realities of their hearts when they built prison. They simply extended into objective reality what was already a subjective reality. Only jailers really believe in jails. @ -Richard Wright
Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have either one. @ -Benjamin Franklin
It is time that we all see gender as a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals. @ -Emma Watson
You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man. @ -Frederick Douglas
Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature. @ -Benjamin Franklin
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. @ -Thomas Paine
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. @ -Abraham Lincoln
The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations. @ -Thomas Jefferson
Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having. @ -Mahatma Gandhi
We are not fighting for integration, nor are we fighting for separation. We are fighting for recognition as human beings... @ -Malcolm X
You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings. @ -Pearl S. Buck
The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite. @ -Thomas Jefferson
All men are by nature born equally free and independent. @ -George Mason
I never thought of losing, but now that it's happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life. @ -Muhammad Ali
The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice. @ -Benjamin Franklin
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
When a government betrays the people by amassing too much power and becoming tyrannical, the people have no choice but to exercise their original right of self-defense — to fight the government. @ -Alexander Hamilton
Our nation is a rainbow -- red, yellow, brown, black, and white -- and we're all precious in God's sight. @ -Jesse Jackson
Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself. @ -Robert Ingersoll
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. @ -Martin Luther King Jr.
We are not myths of the past, ruins in the jungle, or zoos. We are people and we want to be respected, not to be victims of intolerance and racism. @ -Rigoberta Menchu
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
There can be no compromise on the right of personal security; there can be no compromise on securing of human rights. @ -Hubert Humphrey
The Earth is the mother of all people and all people should have equal rights upon it. @ -Chief Joseph
In the future, human rights will be increasingly a universal criterion for designing ethical systems. @ -Mahnaz Afkhami
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. @ -Martin Luther King Jr.
Truth is powerful and it prevails. @ -Sojourner Truth
Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that creates huge inequalities. @ -Pope Francis
History has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own. @ -Michelle Obama
A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men. @ -Gloria Steinem
All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions. @ -John Locke
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. @ -James Baldwin
There is no excuse for human rights abuse, whether in the name of security or in the name of liberation. @ -Irene Khan
When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him. @ -Bayard Rustin
Silence in the face of injustice is complicity with the opressor. @ -Ginetta Sagan
Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated. @ -Coretta Scott King
Self-love has very little to do with how you feel about your outer self. It's about accepting all of yourself. @ -Tyra Banks
My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. @ -Desmond Tutu
So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy. @ -Roger Nash Baldwin
Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. @ -Franklin D. Roosevelt
Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must at that moment become the center of the universe. @ -Elie Wiesel
Without peace, there is little hope for human rights. @ -Martin Ennals
