This conviction brought me, in the summer of 1978, to the Free Trade Unions - formed by a group of courageous and dedicated people who came out in the defense of the workers' rights and dignity. - Lech Walesa In 'The General Strike,' we celebrate those who bring a new vision for the world to the table. People who stand for workers rights, human rights, a just representative political system, and a new mode of doing business where sustainability is the norm not the exception. - Justin Sane

The law changes and flows like water, and the stream of women's rights law has become a sudden rushing torrent. - Shana Alexander In my opinion, the only good spider is a dead spider, and women's rights aren't worth dick if they mean I can't ask a man to do my bug squashing. - Janet Evanovich I have encountered riotous mobs and have been hung in effigy, but my motto is: Men's rights are nothing more. Women's rights are nothing less. - Susan B Anthony Women have a lot to say about how to advance women's rights, and governments need to learn from that, listen to the movement and respond. - Charlotte Bunch If a country doesn't recognize minority rights and human rights, including women's rights, you will not have the kind of stability and prosperity that is possible. - Hillary Clinton Human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights. - Hillary Clinton The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most sweeping civil rights legi...

The women's rights movement of the 1970s had not yet emerged; except for Bella Abzug, I had no women supporters. - Constance Baker Motley We would, however, perform an injustice to the bourgeois women's rights movement if we would regard it as solely motivated by economics. No, this movement also contains a more profound spiritual and moral aspect. - Clara Zetkin

It was the biggest suppression of voting rights in our country's history since Jim Crow. And the thread of race runs from the beginning to the end of my book. - Sidney Blumenthal The Democrats co-opted the credit for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But if you go back and look at the history, a larger percentage of Republicans voted for that than did Democrats. But a Democrat president signed it, so they co-opted credit for having passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. - Herman Cain Americans of our own time - minority and majority Americans alike - need the continued guidance that the Voting Rights Act provides. We have come a long way, but more needs to be done. - Elijah Cummings No one questions the validity, the urgency, the essentiality of the Voting Rights Act. - Anthony Kennedy Parts of the Voting Rights Act are due to expire next year if Congress doesn't extend them, including the section that guarantees that voting rights will be prote...

The Democrats co-opted the credit for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But if you go back and look at the history, a larger percentage of Republicans voted for that than did Democrats. But a Democrat president signed it, so they co-opted credit for having passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. - Herman Cain Americans of our own time - minority and majority Americans alike - need the continued guidance that the Voting Rights Act provides. We have come a long way, but more needs to be done. - Elijah Cummings No one questions the validity, the urgency, the essentiality of the Voting Rights Act. - Anthony Kennedy Parts of the Voting Rights Act are due to expire next year if Congress doesn't extend them, including the section that guarantees that voting rights will be protected by the federal government. - Marty Meehan The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was indeed a vital instrument of democracy, ensuring the integrity and reliability of a democratic process...

John Brown first swam into my vision in the 1960s when I was a political activist in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement at Chapel Hill, where I went to university. - Russell Banks Let me go over this again on the reclaiming the civil rights movement. People of faith that believe that you have an equal right to justice - that is the essence. And if it's not the essence, then we've been sold a pack of lies. The essence is everyone deserves a shot - the content of character, not the color of skin. - Glenn Beck Senator John Stennis: The civil rights movement did more to free the white man that the black man.... It freed my soul. - Joe Biden During the 60's, I was, in fact, very concerned about the civil rights movement. - Joe Biden I think the legacy of the civil rights movement is that now whites are more open to being represented by people of color or people who are women or, again, non-traditional candidates. - Carol Moseley Braun The really important ...

...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 Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn't even get out of committee. - F Lee Bailey 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 Some of the folks on both sides might be sincere, but it does seem as if it is only the opposition that cares about the Bill of Rights most of the time. - James Bovard Some politicians are aware of the Bill of Rights. It seems that the opposition party is far...

I've often argued that oil and gas exploration is a state's rights issue. It is abundantly clear that the State of Florida does not want drilling to negatively affect its beaches and shores. - Jeff Miller If a radical devolution of powers was possible, it would have been done before. The assumption of states' rights is gone. There's no support for it in the Supreme Court and there's no support for it in public opinion. - James Q Wilson

If we're going to change the laws, let's change them in ways which makes it easier to catch criminals, and yet at the same time protect the Second Amendment rights of our law-abiding citizens. - John Dingell First, the firearms industry has been around and has been respected for generations. They provide a valuable service and a highly desirable product to millions of sportsmen and supporters of those second amendment rights. - Cliff Stearns

It's only fair that stable gay relationships of long standing should have the same rights and responsibilities as married couples. I know the image of gay marriage is to some people horrific and ludicrous. - Ian Mckellen The only sound approach to collective bargaining is to work out an agreement that clarifies the rights and responsibilities of the parties, establishes principles and operates to the advantage of all concerned. - Charles E Wilson

In the last two years, the amount of legislation in the House of Representatives and state legislatures has been really unprecedented, that has focused on reproductive rights. - Sandra Fluke I'm asking you to talk with your friends, neighbors, and relatives - even the ones you've never talked to about reproductive rights. That's how you can throw your number in the bucket, and stand with a president who has stood with us. Conversation by conversation, vote by vote, we will re-elect President Barack Obama! - Nancy Keenan Marching with over a million women in support of our reproductive rights was one of the most empowering things I have done, both as a woman and as a Member of Congress. - Sheila Jackson Lee We believe the Senate language provides for federal subsidies for abortions. Plus there's a language in there where you have to pay one dollar per month, every enrollee, to pay for a fund for reproductive rights which include abortion. And that's totally again...

Ultimately property rights and personal rights are the same thing. - Calvin Coolidge The electronic spectrum is the only natural resource in which there's no such thing as private property rights. You can't own a piece of the spectrum. - Adrian Cronauer As for relegated/delegated responsibility to ensure organizational software licensing compliance, management is still accountable when intellectual property rights are violated. If the safeguarding responsibility is assigned to an ineffective and/or inefficient unit within an organization, IT audit should recommend an alternative arrangement after the risks are substantiated. - Robert E Davis We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. - Martin Luther King J...

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can. - Samuel Adams The rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right. - Thomas Jefferson Men speak of natural rights, but I challenge any one to show where in nature any rights existed or were recognized until there was established for their declaration and protection a duly promulgated body of corresponding laws. - Calvin Coolidge These our great natural rights we keep to ourselves; we will not have them tampered with; respecting them we give to you no commission whatsoever. - Caleb Cushing I am in everything that stands for justice and the natural rights of free men everywhere.I am American Amaranth - J R Ortiz Every man, when he comes t...

Marriage would change hardly anything between us, except that we would end our arguments in a much more satisfying way. And of course I would have extensive legal rights over your body, your property, and all your individual freedoms, but I don't see what's so alarming about that. - Lisa Kleypas I don't know of many evangelicals who want to deny gay couples their legal rights. However, most of us don't want to call it marriage, because we think that word has religious connotations, and we're not ready to see it used in ways that offend us. - Tony Campolo I contend the state ought to do its thing and provide legal rights for all couples who want to be joined together for life. The church should bless unions that it sees fit to bless, and they should be called marriages. - Tony Campolo Strictly speaking, my interest is not in legal rights for animals but in a change of heart towards animals. - J M Coetzee Upon the Constitution, upon the pre-existing legal rights ...

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 supper. - Larry Flynt My office has been one of the most scrupulous in the country with regard to the protection of individual rights. I've been on record for years in law journals and books as championing the rights of the individual against the oppressive power of the state. - Jim Garrison We talk a lot about individual rights, but in fact Americans are very willing to give up our individual rights if it means our property values will be protected, and so on. - Robert D Kaplan 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 Right action tends to be defined in terms of general individual rights and standards that have been critically examined and agreed upon by the whole society. - Lawrence Kohlberg The platform we had...

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 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 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 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; fou...

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 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 Anarchists are mouthpieces of a declining stratum of society; when they work themselves into a state of righteous indignation demanding 'rights', 'justice', 'equal rights', they are just acting under the pressure of their own lack of culture, which has no way of grasping why they really suffer, or what they lack in life. - Friedrich Nietzsche Another Christian concept, no le...

I believe the equal rights amendment is a necessity of life for all citizens. The cabinet sometimes felt that I shouldn't be so outspoken. - Betty Ford When I started law school I was shocked to learn that our legal system traditionally had the man as the head and master of the family. As late as the '70s and '80s when we were fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment, states like Louisiana still had a head and master law. - Patricia Ireland I liked the name of the amendment. I couldn't help feeling uneasy that the church was opposing something with a name as beautiful as the Equal Rights Amendment. - Sonia Johnson

The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure. - Albert Einstein You hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, 'That man is a Red, that man is a Communist!' You never hear a real American talk like that. - Frank Hague Judges who take the law into their own hands, who make up constitutional 'rights' in order to strike down laws they oppose, undermine the people's right to have their values shape public policy and define the culture. - Orrin Hatch I didn't say 'former president,' I said 'president,' and I have the constitutional rights according to the constitution, including immunity from prosecution. - Saddam Hussein History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitut...

I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary. - Ronald Reagan It was civil disobedience that won them their civil rights. - Tariq Ali Statehood for the District of Columbia is the most important civil rights and social justice issue in America today. - Jesse Jackson A lot of things happened in a lot of places. And to see how well it was handled in Atlanta. There are a lot of reasons for Atlanta being a special town in the Civil Rights era. - Ivan Allen They don't have special rights because we have civil rights laws that protect them. The laws work both ways. - Tom Allen We support President Truman's civil rights program. - Eugenie Anderson Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to ...