Thomas Myrup > Thomas's Quotes

“It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.”
― Voltaire, Zadig et autres contes

“Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.”
― thomas paine, Rights of Man

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”
― Thomas Paine

“He who dares not offend cannot be honest.”
― Thomas Paine

“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”
― Ayn Rand

“This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child

“The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.”
― Aristotle

“We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”
― Edward R. Murrow

“Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote.”
― Marvin Simkin

“‎"Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights.”
― John Wooden

“Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty?”
― Patrick Henry

“You don't have the right to hold somebody accountable for standards you refuse to apply to yourself.”
― Stephen A. Smith

“This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself. Keep your mind open to the influences of nature. Receive new thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.”
― Robert Green Ingersoll, The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
― Founding Fathers, The Declaration of Independence

“Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.”
― James Madison

“I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are superior who have the best heart — the best brain.”
― Robert Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“It does strange things to you to realize that the conservative establishment is forcing you to be a progressive liberal fighter for universal rights.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Perfect State

“I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The sprouting of the seeds of creativity, intuition and wisdom takes place in a relaxed mind. Only anger, greed and ego require a disturbed mind.”
― Shivanshu K. Srivastava

“In the wake of World War II, Truman said, “We have learned that nations are interdependent, and that recognition of our dependence upon one another is essential to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of all mankind.” Everything was linked. “So long as the basic rights of men are denied in any substantial portion of the earth, men everywhere must live in fear of their own rights and their own security,” Truman said. “No country has yet reached the absolute in protecting human rights. In all countries, certainly including our own, there is much to be accomplished.”
― Jon Meacham, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels

“When fundamental rights depend on someone's whim, you really have no rights, only privileges that may be withdrawn at any minute.”
― John Taylor Gatto, A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling

“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”
― John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867

“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“Even despotism does not produce its worst effects, so long as individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes--will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives...
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. Suppose any party, in addition to whatever share it may possess of the ability of the community, has nearly the whole of its stupidity, that party must, by the law of its constitution, be the stupidest party; and I do not see why honorable gentlemen should see that position as at all offensive to them, for it ensures their being always an extremely powerful party . . . There is so much dense, solid force in sheer stupidity, that any body of able men with that force pressing behind them may ensure victory in many a struggle, and many a victory the Conservative party has gained through that power."
John Stuart Mill ( British philosopher, economist, and liberal member of Parliament for Westminster from 1865 to 68 )”
― John Stuart Mill