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I hope you like these quotes about Civil Rights from the collection at Life Quotes and Sayings.
A great democracy does not make it harder to vote than to buy an assault weapon.
- William J. Clinton
Related topics: Government Political Gun Guns Voting Gun-Control
Do feuds ever end?
Only when both sides shake hands,
and agree that there is no winner, no loser,
only people who have wearied of fighting
and desire to live in peace.
For many years, Northern Ireland was locked
in a murderous and seemingly unending feud.
The key to ending the feud was a shared commitment
that peace was more important than vengeance.
That is always the choice to be made.
The organizers of an April 10, 2009
joint Protestant-Catholic commemoration
of the Northern Ireland dead,
comprised of members of the once-outlawed Sinn Fein
as well as their once-avowed enemies,
referred to, "the terrible, random nature
of death in war and civil conflict."
Some lessons have been learned, many more remain.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Majority rule only works if you're also
considering individual rights,
because you can't have five wolves and one sheep
voting on what to have for dinner.
- Larry Flynt
If I am happy in spite of my deprivations,
if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith,
so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life.
If, in short, I am an optimist,
my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing.
- Helen Keller
...
Helen Keller (1880-1968) overcame being both deaf and blind
to become a famous author, lecturer, and activist
for women's suffrage, workers' rights, and ending war.
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Thank You,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Property is intended to serve life,
and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect,
it has no personal being.
It is part of the earth man walks on.
It is not man.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The highest result of education is tolerance.
Long ago men fought and died for their faith;
but it took ages to teach them the other kind of courage, -
the courage to recognize the faiths of their brethren
and their rights of conscience.
- Helen Keller
Rights that do not flow from duty
well performed are not worth having.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule,
where fifty-one percent of the people
may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
- attributed to Thomas Jefferson
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle,
that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail,
that will to be rightful must be reasonable;
that the minority possess their equal rights,
which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
- Thomas Jefferson
Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen
who would protect the rights and privileges of free people
and who would preserve what is
good and fruitful in our national heritage.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable rights;
that among these are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson
A Bill of Rights is what the people are
entitled to against every government,
and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
- Thomas Jefferson
There is no person in this room whose basic rights
are not involved in any successful defiance
to the carrying out of court orders.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy,
because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.
- Jimmy Carter
The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing
and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
For this generation, ours, life is nuclear survival,
liberty is human rights, the pursuit of happiness
is a planet whose resources are devoted
to the physical and spiritual nourishment of its inhabitants.
- Jimmy Carter
America did not invent human rights.
In a very real sense, it is the other way around.
Human rights invented America.
- Jimmy Carter
Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent
and unalienable rights of man.
- Thomas Jefferson
I am persuaded that the world has been tricked into adopting
some false and most pernicious notions about consistency -
and to such a degree that the average man has
turned the rights and wrongs of things entirely around
and is proud to be "consistent," unchanging, immovable, fossilized,
where it should be his humiliation.
- Mark Twain
The slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.
But such is the irresistible nature of truth,
that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.
- Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will
within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.
I do not add "within the limits of the law"
because law is often but the tyrant's will,
and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
- Thomas Jefferson
This [the Holocaust] must never happen again. ...
Be vigilant about your rights.
Care about the rights and human dignity of others.
When the rights of any group, no matter how small,
no matter how marginal, are violated,
your liberty, your freedom is put at risk.
Let there never be a day when we cast about in horror
and have to ask the question, "How did it ever come to this?"
- Thomas Childers, Ph.D., Professor of History,
University of Pennsylvania, in the closing remarks
of his six-hour Teaching Company audio lecture series
I'm actually starting to like more and more people
who have convictions that are unpopular.
Now at what point does an unpopular conviction
interfere with your own human rights?
Forced female circumcision, for instance.
The Catholic Church's stance on contraception.
The list goes on. You know, God has some really weird kids,
and I find it hard to be in their company most of the time.
- Bono
Instead of comparing our lot with that
of those who are more fortunate than we are,
we should compare it with the lot
of the great majority of our fellow men.
It then appears that we are among the privileged.
- Helen Keller
The majority of men meet with failure
because of their lack of persistence
in creating new plans to take
the place of those which fail.
- Napoleon Hill
One man with courage makes a majority.
- old saying probably repeated by Andrew Jackson
(falsely attributed to Jefferson)
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority,
it is time to pause and reflect.
- Mark Twain
In matters of conscience,
the law of the majority has no place.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
The minority is always stronger than the majority,
because the minority is generally formed by those
who really have an opinion.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Truth always rests with the minority,
and the minority is always stronger than the majority,
because the minority is generally formed by those
who really have an opinion,
while the strength of a majority is illusory,
formed by the gangs who have no opinion -
and who, therefore, in the next instant
(when it is evident that the minority is the stronger)
assume its opinion... while truth again reverts to a new minority.
- Soren Kierkegaard
We may consider each generation as a distinct nation,
with a right, by the will of its majority,
to bind themselves, but none to
bind the succeeding generation,
more than the inhabitants of another country.
- Thomas Jefferson
Always be a first-rate version of yourself,
instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
- Judy Garland
Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
To know what you prefer
instead of humbly saying Amen
to what the world tells you you ought to prefer,
is to have kept your soul alive.
- Robert Louis Stevenson
Instead of dwelling on negative thoughts,
cause your mind to dwell on peace and joy.
- Ernest Holmes
The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have,
instead of what you don't have.
- Woody Allen
People hardly ever make use of the freedom which they have,
for example, freedom of thought;
instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Love is saying "I feel differently,"
instead of "You're wrong."
- Anonymous
Instead of worrying about what people say of you,
why not spend time trying to accomplish
something they will admire.
- Dale Carnegie
I offer gentle understanding to myself.
I position myself in love, not fear.
I look behind me with forgiveness.
I look forward with festive anticipation.
I embrace this holy moment and assert,
"Now. This moment is the moment to love,
the moment to serve, the moment to seize
the legacy instead of the small.
Now. Now I will live large, love boldly,
reach to the edges of my unfurled heart and fully enrolled hope.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
In a bad marriage, friends are the invisible glue.
If we have enough friends, we may go on for years,
intending to leave, talking about leaving -
instead of actually getting up and leaving.
- Erica Jong
Trust your own instinct.
Your mistakes might as well be your own,
instead of someone else's.
- Billy Wilder
But what a cruel thing is war
to separate and destroy families and friends,
and mar the purest joys and happiness
God has granted us in this world,
to fill our hearts with hatred
instead of love for our neighbors,
and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world!
- Robert E. Lee
Instead of needing lots of children,
we need high-quality children.
- Margaret Mead
Do not save your loving speeches
For your friends till they are dead;
Do not write them on their tombstones,
Speak them rather now instead.
- Anna Cummins
Instead of being presented with stereotypes
by age, sex, color, class, or religion,
children must have the opportunity
to learn that within each range,
some people are loathsome and some are delightful.
- Margaret Mead
If you have an emotional reaction in the presence of someone,
your heart is telling you that you have
not resolved your issues with them.
In other words, you have not truly forgiven that person.
All of this begs the question, how do we forgive?
First, cease lying to yourself and stop telling yourself stories
about why you behave the way you do.
Stop blaming your behavior on other people
and take responsibility for your emotional reactions.
If you could forgive all the people in your life
who have hurt or wounded you
it would be possible to be in control of your behavior
instead of being in reaction to other people all of the time.
Imagine living life without experiencing
a constant emotional roller-coaster of pain, anger, and jealousy!
That would be bliss!
- Sheri Rosenthal
Instead of noblemen,
let us have noble villages of men.
- Henry David Thoreau
This world of ours... must avoid becoming
a community of dreadful fear and hate,
and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
War is an instrument entirely inefficient
toward redressing wrong;
and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
- Thomas Jefferson
Too many people are thinking of security
instead of opportunity.
They seem more afraid of life than death.
- James F. Bymes
If everyone demanded peace
instead of another television set,
then there'd be peace.
- John Lennon
Faith is taking the first step,
even when you don't see the whole staircase.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
All things at first appear difficult.
- Chinese proverb
Tolerance is the first principle of community;
it is the spirit which conserves
the best that all men think.
- Helen Keller
When we step on the battlefield, I will be
The First Boots On and the Last Boots Off.
- LtG. Hal Moore
Seek first to understand,
then to be understood.
- Stephen Covey
Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
- Anonymous
To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first.
- William Shakespeare
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was:
"If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?"
But... the good Samaritan reversed the question:
"If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our "Rainbows and Butterflies" are the small miracles of our life -
the little things that are so easy to overlook,
yet so awe inspiring when we take a moment
to notice and to pay attention.
Give thanks for the rainbows, for the butterflies,
for all God's creatures - large and small,
for the bright blue sky and the soft fog and the gentle rain,
for the tree veiled in the season's first frost,
for the baby's laugh,
for the touch of a hand and the whispered "I love you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The first sigh of love is the last breath of wisdom.
- Anonymous
Do first things first, and second things not at all.
- Peter F. Drucker
In order to succeed, you must first be willing to fail.
- Anonymous
Give thanks for the rainbows, for the butterflies,
for all God's creatures - large and small,
for the bright blue sky and the soft fog and the gentle rain,
for the tree veiled in the season's first frost,
for the baby's laugh, for the touch of a hand
and the whispered "I love you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Take a deep breath and do the difficult thing first.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
Habits are cobwebs at first, cables at last.
- Chinese proverb
Today is the first and last day of forever.
- Edward, from Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer
Self-honor (self-respect) is in no way selfish.
Before I can give to others,
I must have something to give.
Only by first creating
my own self-esteem and happiness,
do I possess the resources to
contribute anything meaningful to others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
A little simplification would be
the first step toward rational living.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
You grow up the day you have
your first real laugh - at yourself.
- Ethel Barrymore
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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