Youth Rights Quotes

I got my first handgun license when I was 22.

Give young people a greater voice. They are the future and they are much wiser than we give them credit for.

When I was about 16, I got my ball taken off me by the police for playing in the street - which is pathetic really.

I had the good fortune to be able to right an injustice that I thought was being heaped on young people by lowering the voting age, where you had young people that were old enough to die in Vietnam but not old enough to vote for their members of Congress that sent them there.

I think it would be great if there were no age limit.

My son Bill, who came to me in 1960-he was 14 then, quoted the old parable to me: "It is not by their words, but by their deeds that ye shall know them" -pointing out that if I was a true atheist, I would not permit the public schools of America to force him to read the Bible and say prayers against his will. He was right.

Since I became Secretary-General, five years ago, I have seen youth participate at the United Nations as never before.

I'm going to lower the drinking age to eighteen. If you're old enough to die in Iraq, you're old enough to drink.

For the last 20 years, political parties have had a one-way relationship with youth - of exploiting them for political gains and denying them their dues.

I am not sure that we would always want 16-year-olds to do all the things they can do. I am afraid that I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman on the voting age. I think that it should remain as it is.

When I was 14, I used to have a calendar on my wall, crossing the days off until I was 15, because the school leaving age was 15. Then three months before I turned 15 they changed the leaving age to 16.

You can go to war at 18, so you should be able to make a living at 18, especially if college isn't what you see for yourself.

Taking away a person's control of her own life - meaning her bank account - is one of the greatest infringements a democracy can impose, especially when it applies to young people. It is an infringement even if the intent may be perceived as benign and socially valid.

Children are entitled to life. We conceive them and so we owe them our care and our protection. This may not be a dictate of law anymore, but it is a dictate of love.

I put a lot of emphasis on childrens issues. Children are many times ignored because they dont vote, and they dont have lobby groups.

A commonplace of political rhetoric has it that the quality of a civilization may be measured by how it cares for its elderly. Just as surely, the future of a society may be forecast by how it cares for its young.

It is hard to imagine, but in a Maryland school, a 13- year old girl was arrested for refusing to say the pledge of allegiance. There is more at work than stupidity and a flight from responsibility on the part of educators, parents and politicians who maintain these laws, there is also the growing sentiment that young people constitute a threat to adults and that the only way to deal with them is to subject them to mind-crushing punishment.

America is a nation fundamentally ambivalent about its children, often afraid of its children, and frequently punitive toward its children.

You should have access to ideas and information regardless of your age. If anyone is going to limit or guide a young person, it should be the parent or guardian — and only the parent or guardian.

How can we speak of Democracy or Freedom when from the very beginning of life we mould the child to undergo tyranny, to obey a dictator? How can we expect democracy when we have reared slaves? Real freedom begins at the beginning of life, not at the adult stage. These people who have been diminished in their powers, made short-sighted, devitalized by mental fatigue, whose bodies have become distorted, whose wills have been broken by elders who say: "your will must disappear and mine prevail!"-how can we expect them, when school-life is finished, to accept and use the rights of freedom?

I think 'The Giver' is such a moral book, so filled with important truths, that I couldn't believe anyone would want to suppress it, to keep it from kids.

If we're going to ask our kids at age 18 to go off to war and die for their country, I don't see any problem with asking them at age 16 to think about what that might mean.

It is easy to overlook the importance of the young in underdeveloped countries. It is the natural course for nations, and diplomats, and those who publish newspapers, to speak to the established order. Seeking out the young requires a conscious effort.

There has always been a tendency to classify children almost as a distinct species.

I invite you, from my sentiments, my convictions and my responsibilities, to work together in the construction of a Uruguay where being young is not suspicious, where aging is not a problem.