Wise Quotes about Human Rights

I'm actually starting to like more and more people
who have convictions that are unpopular.
Now at what point does an unpopular conviction
interfere with your own human rights?
Forced female circumcision, for instance.
The Catholic Church's stance on contraception.
The list goes on. You know, God has some really weird kids,
and I find it hard to be in their company most of the time.
- Bono

This [the Holocaust] must never happen again. ...
Be vigilant about your rights.
Care about the rights and human dignity of others.
When the rights of any group, no matter how small,
no matter how marginal, are violated,
your liberty, your freedom is put at risk.
Let there never be a day when we cast about in horror
and have to ask the question, "How did it ever come to this?"
- Thomas Childers, Ph.D., Professor of History,
University of Pennsylvania, in the closing remarks
of his six-hour Teaching Company audio lecture series

There are only two or three human stories,
and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely
as if they had never happened before.
- Willa Cather

The problem with making assumptions
is that we believe they are the truth
- don Miguel Ruiz

The future has nothing in common with the past -
except natural laws and human nature.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The essence of being human is that one
does not seek perfection.
- George Orwell

No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool.
Writers, alas, have to be fools in public,
while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.
- Erica Jong

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake
is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
- Pema Chodron

Any human being who is becoming independent of conditionings,
of religions, scriptures, prophets and messiahs, has arrived home.
He has found the treasure which was hidden in his own being.
- Osho

We may have found a cure for most evils;
but we have found no remedy for the worst of them all,
the apathy of human beings.
- Helen Keller

Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing
a human being to a purpose.
- Albert Schweitzer

The first step in the evolution of ethics
is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.
- Albert Schweitzer

A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences,
in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures -
and that is the basis of all human morality.
- John F. Kennedy

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars,
or sailed to an uncharted land,
or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
- Helen Keller

The human voice can never reach the distance
that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

We should meet abuse by forbearance.
Human nature is so constituted that
if we take absolutely no notice of anger or abuse,
the person indulging in it will soon weary of it and stop.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Action is no less necessary than thought
to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The very essence of instinct is that
it's followed independently of reason.
- Charles Darwin

The greatest discovery of any generation
is that a human being
can alter his life by
altering his attitude
- William James

Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience,
independent will and creative imagination.
These give us the ultimate human freedom...
The power to choose, to respond, to change.
- Stephen Covey

It is against everything we stand for to take a human life.
Making an exception to that code is a bleak thing.
- Sam, from Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer

There are very few human beings who receive the truth,
complete and staggering, by instant illumination.
Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment,
on a small scale, by successive developments,
cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.
- Anais Nin

The more laws and order are made prominent,
the more thieves and robbers there will be.
- Lao Tzu

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure
in doing good to another.
- Thomas Jefferson

Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man.
And man can be as big as he wants.
No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
- John F. Kennedy

Each man is afraid of his neighbor's disapproval -
a thing which, to the general run of the human race,
is more dreaded than wolves and death.
- Mark Twain

In the arena of human life,
the honors and rewards fall to those
who show their good qualities in action.
- Aristotle

A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty,
the contemplation of mystery,
or the search of truth or perfection
is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession
of such days is fatal to human life.
- Lewis Mumford

Man must evolve for all human conflict,
a method which rejects
revenge, aggression and retaliation.
The foundation of such a method is love.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mostly, it is human to dislike surprises -
often with great intensity.
Be open to new ways;
sometimes newness just knocks on our door;
welcome it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious,
one should preserve it.
- Anais Nin

The human spirit ranges across a truly amazing
diversity of experiences and emotions -
the highest peaks and the lowest valleys.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If you fear making anyone mad,
then you ultimately probe for
the lowest common denominator of human achievement.
- Jimmy Carter

Whenever I look at a human face,
I say to myself: "That Is The Face Of God."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Every human life contains a potential,
if that potential is not fulfilled,
then that life was wasted...
- Carl Jung

The purpose of human life is to serve,
and to show compassion and the will to help others.
- Albert Schweitzer

Being angry is as close as a human being
can come to experiencing hell on earth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Sometimes our light goes out but
is blown into flame by another human being.
Each of us owes deepest thanks
to those who have rekindled this light.
- Albert Schweitzer

If you were a warrior,
you would know that the worst thing
one can do is confront human beings directly.
- Carlos Castaneda

The human mind treats a new idea the way the body
treats a strange protein; it rejects it.
- Peter Medawar

For as long as I can remember, I've been searching for something,
some reason why we're here. What are we doing here? Who are we?
If this is a chance to find out
even just a little part of that answer...
I don't know, I think it's worth a human life. Don't you?
- the Jodie Foster movie Contact (1997)

Human nature is potentially aggressive and destructive
and potentially orderly and constructive.
- Margaret Mead

NO ONE is really different;
each of us is actually a member of the human race.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

As human beings, our greatness lies
not so much in being able to remake the world -
as in being able to remake ourselves.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

We can live without religion and meditation,
but we cannot survive without human affection.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

We may have different religions, different
languages, different colored skin,
but we all belong to one human race.
- Kofi Annan

There comes a pause, for human strength will not endure
to dance without cessation;
and everyone must reach the point at length of absolute prostration.
- Lewis Carroll

All that is valuable in human society
depends upon the opportunity for development
accorded the individual.
- Albert Einstein

My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool;
it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.
- Ursula K. Le Guin

Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy
between the genius and his human qualities
that one has to ask oneself whether
a little less talent might not have been better.
- Carl Jung

A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend,
one human soul whom we can trust utterly,
who knows the best and worst of us,
and who loves us in spite of all our faults.
- Charles Kingsley

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable...
Every step toward the goal of justice
requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle;
the tireless exertions and
passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

I must admit that I personally measure success
in terms of the contributions
an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.
- Margaret Mead

As far as we can discern,
the sole purpose of human existence
is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
- Carl Jung

It's humbling to think that all animals,
including human beings,
are parasites of the plant world.
- Isaac Asimov

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary.
It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body.
It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
- Winston Churchill

In human intercourse the tragedy begins,
not when there is misunderstanding about words,
but when silence is not understood.
- Henry David Thoreau

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities...
because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
- Winston Churchill

The human race has one really effective weapon,
and that is laughter.
- Mark Twain

It's all right for a woman to be, above all, human.
I am a woman first of all.
- Anais Nin

Please sign up on the form below to receive
my Free Daily Inspiration - Daily Quotes email.

Wisdom Quotes