Quotes about Rights
There will never be a really free and enlightened state until the state comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived.
— Henry David Thoreau
Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely. No socialist system can be established without a political police.
— Winston Churchill
The principle of democracy is a recognition of the sovereign, inalienable rights of man as a gift from God, the Source of law.
— Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
I am interested in politics only in order to secure and protect freedom.
— Ayn Rand
That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798)
— Thomas Jefferson
The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.
— Thomas Jefferson
A Constitution is not the act of a Government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution is a power without right.
— Thomas Paine
The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice.
— John Adams
The power under the Constitution will always be in the people.
— George Washington
If they will play fair I will play fair, but if they won't then I reserve all my rights to do anything I find myself able to do.
— William Howard Taft
Thank God, under our Constitution there was no connection between church and state.
— James K. Polk
The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.
— John F. Kennedy