Fundamental Rights Quotes:

What are we having this liberty for? We are having this liberty in order to reform our social system, which is full of inequality, discrimination and other things, which conflict with our fundamental rights.

- B. R. Ambedkar

topic: Rights, Order, Liberty, Social Inequality, Social Reform

Each state, so that it does not abridge the great fundamental rights belonging, under the Constitution, to all citizens, may grant or withhold such civil rights as it pleases; all that is required is that, in this respect, its laws shall be impartial.

- Lyman Trumbull

topic: Rights, Law, Doe, Fundamental Rights

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

topic: Past, Rights, Decision, Court Decision, Affirming

What libertarians assert is simply that differences among normal adults do not imply different fundamental rights.

- Tom G. Palmer

source: Tom G. Palmer (2009). “Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice”, p.35, Cato Institute

topic: Rights, Differences, Different, Fundamental Rights

The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that marriage is one of the most fundamental rights that we have as Americans under our Constitution.

- Ted Olson

topic: Rights, Fundamentals, United States, Supreme Court, Fundamental Rights

In this context, the church supports and favors every effort today to seek the full development of the personality of all human beings, and to promote their fundamental rights, their dignity and liberty.

- Claudio Hummes

topic: Rights, Personality, Support, Fundamental Rights

The fundamental rights of [humanity] are, first: the right of habitation; second, the right to move freely; third, the right to the soil and subsoil, and to the use of it; fourth, the right of freedom of labor and of exchange; fifth, the right to justice; sixth, the right to live within a natural national organization; and seventh, the right to education.

- Albert Schweitzer

topic: Moving, Rights, Organization, Fundamental Rights

Fundamental rights belong to the human being just because you are a human being.

- Desmond Tutu

topic: Rights, Fundamentals, Humans, Fundamental Rights

Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.

- Susan B. Anthony

topic: Witty, Strong Women, Independent, Indian Patriotic, Women's Suffrage

Fundamental rights are for everyone and have to be respected by everyone. But we can't be naïve in dealing with those who are abusing the principles protecting fundamental rights.

- Vera Jourova

topic: Rights, Principles, Fundamentals, Fundamental Rights

The lessons of religious toleration - a toleration which recognizes complete liberty of human thought, liberty of conscience - is one which, by precept and example, must be inculcated in the hearts and minds of all Americans if the institutions of our democracy are to be maintained and perpetuated. 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

topic: Religious, Heart, Men, Fundamental Rights

We must now, in the 21st century, protect democracy, one which rests on fundamental rights for all, regardless of skin color, gender, race or religion. Nothing less than that is at stake.

- Martin Schulz

topic: Color, Rights, Race, Fundamental Rights

Law matters, because it keeps us safe, because it protects our most fundamental rights and freedoms, and because it is the foundation of our democracy.

- Elena Kagan

source: Speech on Being Nominated to Serve as U.S. Supreme Court Justice, delivered 10 May 2010

topic: Rights, Law, Democracy, Fundamental Rights

Human rights are fundamental rights, they are the minimum, the very least we demand. Too often, they become the goal itself. What should be the minimum becomes the maximum - all we are supposed to expect - but human rights aren't enough. The goal is, and must always be, justice.

- Arundhati Roy

source: Source: www.truth-out.org

topic: Rights, Justice, Goal, Fundamental Rights

My hope is that the Pope Francis visit to Cuba will remind all the Cuban citizens that they possess dignity and fundamental rights that come from God and that the Castro regime has no claim on changing what is 100% God-given.

- Marco Rubio

source: FaceBook post by Marco Rubio from Sep 21, 2015

topic: Rights, Cuba, Citizens, Castro, Fundamental Rights

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

source: Twitter post from Jan 21, 2016

topic: Justice, Fundamentals, Charity, Hunger And Poverty, Hunger Poverty

Fundamental rights are not a given today. We have to protect them.

- Vera Jourova

topic: Rights, Fundamentals, Today, Fundamental Rights

India's democracy where over 1 billion people have a voice in deciding their future is a world example of how governance can incorporate diversity into a movement for inclusive growth. New modes of democratic engagement, especially through using e-governance are allowing greater access to fundamental rights for all our people.

- Narendra Modi

topic: Rights, Voice, People, Fundamental Rights

With so many of our fundamental rights hanging in the balance, it is not good enough to simply roll the dice, hoping a nominee has changed his past views. It's not good enough to think, 'This is the best we can expect from this president'.

- Barbara Boxer

topic: Past, Thinking, Rights, Fundamental Rights

Of course we desire education and we think it is a good thing, but you don't have to have education in order to know that you want certain fundamental rights, you have got aspirations, you have got acclaims. It has nothing to do with education whatsoever.

- Nelson Mandela

source: Source: www.itv.com

topic: Thinking, Rights, Order, Fundamental Rights, Acclaim

May no one use religion as a pretext for actions against human dignity and against the fundamental rights of every man and woman.

- Pope Francis

topic: Men, Rights, Use, Human Dignity, Fundamental Rights

I think the government has a role in protecting the fundamental rights of its citizens.

- Al Franken

topic: Thinking, Rights, Government, Fundamental Rights

When the function of libraries is put in terms of their contributions to the community, people see their centrality. The challenge to us is to continue to help them see it in those terms to describe our larger purposes. We must assert that libraries are central to the quality of life in our society; that libraries have a direct role in preserving democratic freedoms. Free access to information and the opportunity of every individual to improve his or her mind, employment prospects, and lifestyle are fundamental rights in our society.

- Arthur Curley

topic: Opportunity, Rights, People, Access To Information, Fundamental Rights

The public is the tribunal before which all art is judged - not the critics or the academies. The public is the artist's only patron, and has certain fundamental rights. It will submit to education, and will respond to suggestion, but it will not be bullied.

- Walter J. Phillips

topic: Art, Rights, Suggestions, Patron, Fundamental Rights

The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to 'create' rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.

- William J. Brennan

topic: Freedom, Rights, Government, Framers, Fundamental Rights

The act of taking my own life is not something that I do without a lot of thought. I don't believe that people should take their own lives without deep and thoughtful reflection over a considerable period of time. I do believe strongly, however, that the right to do so is one of the most fundamental rights anyone in a free society should have. For me much of the world makes no sense, but my feelings about what I am doing ring loud and clear to an inner ear and to a place where there is no self, only calm. Love always, Wendy.

- Wendy O. Williams

topic: Believe, Suicidal, Reflection, Wendy, Fundamental Rights

The fight against drug trafficking is a wildfire that threatens to consume those fundamental rights of the individual deliberately enshrined in our Constitution.

- Juan Guerrero Burciaga

topic: War, Fighting, Rights, Trafficking, Drug Trafficking

Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe.

- Dianne Feinstein

topic: Gun, America, Fundamentals, Fundamental Rights, Gun Ban

This is a time when the protections of Americans' liberties are directly at risk, as are the checks and balances that have served to constrain abuses of power for more than 200 years. The Supreme Court is relied upon by all of to us protect our fundamental rights.

- Patrick Leahy

source: "U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Judge Samuel Alito's Nomination to the Supreme Court". www.washingtonpost.com. January 9, 2006.

topic: Rights, Years, Risk, Fundamental Rights

Sometimes I feel I have more faith in European ideals than some of my British or French friends. For them, it's a financial burden. For me, Europe is primarily about values, about fundamental rights, freedom, women's rights.

- Elif Safak

source: Source: www.spiegel.de

topic: Rights, Europe, Fundamentals, Financial Burden, Fundamental Rights

The decisions we make about the Internet don't affect just the Internet – they are answers to basic questions about the relationship each citizen has to the government and about the extent to which we trust one another with the full range of fundamental rights granted by the Constitution.

- Mike Godwin

source: Mike Godwin (1998). “Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age”, Crown Business

topic: Government, Rights, Decision, Fundamental Rights

Millions like me in Russia want a free press, the rule of law, social justice, and free and fair elections. My new job is to fight for those people and to fight for these fundamental rights.

- Garry Kasparov

source: "How Life Imitates Chess". Book by Garry Kasparov, 2007.

topic: Jobs, Fighting, Russia, Fundamental Rights

Short of preventing harm to the child, the standard of 'best interest of the child' is insufficient to serve as a compelling state interest overruling a parent's fundamental rights.... To suggest otherwise would be the logical equivalent to asserting that the state has the authority to break up stable families and redistribute its infant population to provide each child with the 'best family.' It is not within the province of the state to make significant decisions concerning the custody of children merely because it could make a 'better' decision.

- Barbara Madsen

topic: Children, Rights, Adoption, Insufficient, Fundamental Rights