Quotes about Rights Conflict

Zechariah Chafee Jr.

Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins.

This quotation is sometimes misattributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Chaffee was a leading scholar of Freedom of Speech. As such he was described by the demagogue Senator Joseph McCarthy as "dangerous" to the United States.

Ayn Rand

One method of destroying a concept is by diluting its meaning. Observe that by ascribing rights to the unborn, i.e., the nonliving, the anti-abortionists obliterate the rights of the living.

Walter E. Williams

If we buy into the notion that somehow property rights are less important, or are in conflict with, human or civil rights, we give the socialists a freer hand to attack our property.

Abraham Lincoln

Whenever there is a conflict between human rights and property rights, human rights must prevail.

For similar views see Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Potter Stewart and the National Union for Social Justice.

Rich Turner

When the government acts to preserve and defend certain rights, it may take actions that some people see as just the opposite – as the violation of their rights.

The Grammar Curmudgeon. Almost every government action to protect rights impinges on the rights of some. For example, laws to protect minorities from discrimination in the workplace impinge on the right of employers to hire whomever they want. The Voting Rights Act eliminating the Poll Tax instituted to prevent Negroes from voting, impinged on the Southern States’ rights to determine the election rules and standards for their states. Laws requiring all pharmaceuticals to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration to protect the public from dangerous drugs interfere with the doctor’s and patient’s rights to determine the best treatment and the drug company’s right to sell whatever products they want.

Oriana Fallaci

What is this life by which you, who exist still incomplete, count for more than I, who exist complete already? What is this respect for you that removes respect for me? What is this right of yours to exist that takes no account of my right to exist?

Piers Morgan

What is it about this ideological dream of the right to bear arms that overrides any other rights, I mean the rights to not have your children killed at school?

Dick Gregory

Whenever the dollar is held supreme and capitalistic interests dominate, a higher value will always be placed upon property rights than upon human rights.

Rights Conflict Quotes