John Jay Chapman Quotes

To affirm my own rights I must define and affirm the rights of others.

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

I am a believer in liberty. That is my religion — to give to every other human being every right that I claim for myself, and I grant to every other human being, not the right — because it is his right — but instead of granting I declare that it is his right, to attack every doctrine that I maintain, to answer every argument that I may urge — in other words, he must have absolute freedom of speech.

Our collective freedom... depends on our ability to defend the rights of others.

The end does not justify the means. No one's rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others.

Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.

Freedoms, like privileges, prevail or are imperiled together You cannot harm or strive to achieve one without harming or furthering all.

I have a right to nothing, which another has a right to take away; and Congress will have a right to take away trials by jury in civil cases. Let me add, that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth.

Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, 16th President of the United States (Republican, IL)One man's rights should not be sacrificed for another's prejudices. ...

The rights of all of us are diminished when the rights of any one of us are threatened.

People have rights and government must be kept from trampling on them.

No man can rely upon any permanent security for his own rights unless he respects the rights of his neighbors.

I never knew I had so many rights.

No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another.

If you have respect for people's rights, you will have peace.

Human rights are mutual and reciprocal, and if you take my liberty and life, you forfeit your own liberty and life.

I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take away

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

The human's being right to do as he pleases without interfering with someone else's rights is a formula defining rights prior to social legislation.

Why is freedom such a hard sell? That's the question. In this country, why has the idea of individual liberty and responsibility become such a hard sell? That's something I never thought would happen here.

Freedom of expression is very important.

You either respect people's liberties, or you don't.

I have a personal belief that you never have to give up liberty for security. You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill of Rights.

Humanity has gained its suit; Liberty will nevermore be without an asylum.

Churchmen are quick to defend religious freedom; lawyers were never so universally aroused as by President Roosevelt's Court bill; newspapers are most alert to civil liberties when there is a hint of press censorship in the air. And educators become perturbed at every effort to curb academic freedom. But too seldom do all of these become militant when ostensibly the rights of only one group are threatened. They do not always react to the truism that when the rights of any individual or group are chipped away, the freedom of all erodes.