William Jennings Bryan Quotes

As president, I will stand up to the great human rights tests of our time - in China, Russia, and the Middle East. We must send a signal to our allies and adversaries that America is back in the leadership business.

We can't build a safer world with honorable intentions and good will alone. Achieving the fundamental goals our nation seeks in world affairs - peace, human rights, economics progress national independence and international stability - means supporting our friends and defending our interests.

It has long been recognized that an essential element in protecting human rights was a widespread knowledge among the population of what their rights are and how they can be defended.

I have a long history in fighting for civil rights. I understand that many people in the African-American community may not understand that.

I don't need no peace. I need equal rights and justice.

North Americans do not understand that you do not throw down human rights like bombs on the Iraqis.

The [next] priority for change the first element of a new politics for the United States is in our policy toward the world. Too much and for too long, we have acted as if our great military might and wealth could bring about an American solution to every world problem.

My life is about being a civil rights activist. That's my life. Whoever you are, everyone, we either have civil rights or we don't. It's for everyone.

Look at what I've done my entire life. I have been working on behalf of civil rights, women's rights, human rights for years and I know how challenging it is to change our political system and I have the highest regard for those who have put themselves on the line.

Human rights are not things that are put on the table for people to enjoy. These are things you fight for and then you protect.

I have no doubt that there will continue to be bumps, some serious crises indeed in our relationship with China.... Neither membership in the WTO nor normalized trade relations with the United States will magically impose the rule of law on China or institute deep-seeded respect for human rights. But it certainly has potential to advance those purposes.

I'm not politically vocal. I just want what's best for our country. I want our rights respected and those of my son's.

The Iraqis are committed to their rights as much as they are committed to the rights of others. Without peace they will be faced with many obstacles that would stop them from fulfilling their human role.

I absolutely believe that America has a responsibility, and the privilege of helping defend freedom and promote the principles that make the world more peaceful. And those principles include human rights, human dignity, free enterprise, freedom of expression, elections.

I have friends and supporters in the Human Rights Fund and Planned Parenthood. Hillary Clinton has been around there for a very, very long time. Some of these groups are, in fact, part of the establishment.

It is not the Soviet Union or indeed any other big Powers who need the United Nations for their protection. It is all the others. In this sense, the Organization is first of all their Organization and I deeply believe in the wisdom with which they will be able to use it and guide it. I shall remain in my post during the term of my office as a servant of the Organization in the interests of all those other nations, as long as they wish me to do so.

I don't understand the United Nations. They have selected Iran to sit on the U.N.'s women's rights panel. Iran! Also on the panel - Ben Roethlisberger, Chris Brown, Phil Spector, Robert Blake and committee chairman O.J. Simpson.

When you're fighting for civil rights, it's sometimes two steps forward and one step back. Civil rights are an evolution; and you have to bring people along.

Foreign policy that is obviously guided by interests, but that is very much also committed to shared values, so we have a platform, democracy, freedom, respect of human rights that we would like to see respected all over the world and also, a peaceful world order.

Human rights are inscribed in the hearts of people; they were there long before lawmakers drafted their first proclamation.

Today, it is imperative to end this hysteria, to refute the rhetoric of the Cold War and to accept the obvious fact: Russia is an independent, active participant in international affairs. Like other countries, it has its own national interests that need to be taken into account and respected.

I feel like we are in a community of people who sign up for these values who try to maintain them and wherever they are not yet respected, to stand up for people's rights to enjoy them, as well. And this is worth every effort.

The values that we talked about, the values democracy and free speech and international norms and rule of law, respecting the ability of other countries to determine their own destiny and preserve their sovereignty and territorial integrity. Things are not something that we can set aside.

Wherever people defend the rights of the individual, I stand with them above all, over and beyond any wishes relating to how an economy should be managed or how people should govern themselves. This is a very strong commitment on my part.