This nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

In giving rights to others which belong to them, we give rights to ourselves and to our country.

I am not so much concerned with the right of everyone to say anything he pleases as I am about our need as a self-governing people to hear everything relevant.

The greatest right in the world is the right to be wrong.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

The right to kill: supposing the life of X ... were linked with our own so that the two deaths had to be simultaneous, should we still wish him to die? If with our whole body and soul we desire life and if nevertheless without lying, we can reply 'yes'> then we have the right to kill.

To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.

The right to be let alone is the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued in civilized man.

Give to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.

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.

He was pursuing the dream of a free country, the dream of a country so vast that each man would have room to bury his dead on his own land.

Civil rights took us all by surprise. Every night we'd wait until the news to see what Dr. King and dem were doing. It was like watching the Olympics or the World Series when somebody colored was on.

Wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being, whatever may be the sex or complexion.

Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.

An accurate charting of American women's progress through history might look more like a corkscrew tilted slightly to one side, its loops inching closer to the line of freedom with the passage of time-but, like a mathematical curve approaching infinity, never touching its goal.

It is fair to judge peoples by the rights they will sacrifice most for.

If the government can set aside some spot for a elk to be a elk without being bothered, or a buffalo to be a buffalo without being shot down, there ought to be some place where a Negro can be a Negro without being Jim Crowed.

The right to bear arms is only slightly less idiotic than the right to arm bears.

What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.