Boutros Boutros-Ghali Quotes

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

It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all.

Any delay in action protecting constitutional rights is justice denied.

The Bill of Rights never gets off the page and into the lives of most Americans.

As long as there are human rights to be defended; as long as there are great interests to be guarded; as long as the welfare of nations is a matter for discussion, so long will public speaking have its place.

I had been pushed as far as I could stand to be pushed. I had decided that I would have to know once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen.

Whoever defends his own rights defends the rights of all.

The belief in potential human virtue underlies the whole idea of the Bill of Rights; the document is a very tough guardian of that belief.

I will always work for human rights for all people.

You spend so much time barking up the civil-rights tree, you don't even know there's a human-rights tree on the same floor.

There can be no compromise on the right of personal security; there can be no compromise on securing of human rights.

As soon as I hear of a right, I want it.

The basis of peace and stability, in any society, has to be the fullest respect for the human rights of all its people.

Tolerance and human rights require each other.

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

You don't need to justify your rights as a citizen - that inverts the model of responsibility. The government must justify its intrusion into your rights. If you stop defending your rights by saying, "I don't need them in this context" or "I can't understand this," they are no longer rights.

We cannot speak of human rights in other countries unless we are going to do our utmost to protect the rights of our own people here at home.

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.

I'm concerned about the role the court will play in protecting individual rights in this and the next century.

Let us take care of our rights and we therein take care of our prosperity. Slavery is ever preceded by sleep

Respect for human rights is not social work; it is not merely an act of compassion. It is the first obligation of government and the source of its legitimacy.

We know that if one man's rights are denied, the rights of all are endangered.

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.

The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period.

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home.