#rights

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#faith #government #laws #religion #rights

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." (1962) ↗

— John F. Kennedy

#political-rights #protest #revolution #violence #violence

If the prisoner is beaten, it is an arrogant expression of fear. ↗

— Ghassan Kanafani

#prisoners #resistance #short-story

The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion in the only guarantee of morality. ↗

— Arthur Schopenhauer

#animals #barbarism #compassion #cruelty #morality

One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them. ↗

— Martin Luther King Jr.

#martin-luther-king-jr #slavery

It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of those privileges. ↗

— Booker T. Washington

#slavery #slavery

All sentient beings should have at least one right—the right not to be treated as property ↗

— Gary L. Francione

#abolitionist #ahimsa #ethical #francione #moral-imperative

We are beckoned to see the world through a one-way mirror, as if we are threatened and innocent and the rest of humanity is threatening, or wretched, or expendable. Our memory is struggling to rescue the truth that human rights were not handed down as privileges from a parliament, or a boardroom, or an institution, but that peace is only possible with justice and with information that gives us the power to act justly. ↗

— John Pilger

#journalism #justice #media #peace #media

Breasts are a scandal because they shatter the border between motherhood and sexuality. ↗

— Iris Marion Young

#breastfeeding #breasts #children #feminism #motherhood

To be a vegetarian is to disagree - to disagree with the course of things today... starvation, cruelty - we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one. ↗

— Isaac Bashevis Singer

#animals #vegetarian #cruelty