Pope Benedict XVI Quotes

We need a race to the top so that we have policies and regulations that protect human rights, the environment and that reduce poverty.

We don't know yet how to build a society which is environmentally sustainable, which is shareable with everybody on the planet, which promotes stability and democracy and human rights, and which is achievable in the time-frame necessary to make it through the challenges we face.

The quest for freedom, dignity, and the rights of man will never end.

Establish democracy ... based on human rights as superior to property rights.

Generous souls always interest themselves in the fate of a people who strive to recover the rights to which the Creator and Nature have entitled them, and one must indeed be wedded to error and passion not to harbor this noble sentiment

One man’s right is every man’s right.

I recognize no rights but human rights—I know nothing of men's rights and women's rights.

All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.

Our nation cannot call for respect for human rights when it lacks the moral courage to save its own cities, its own poor, its own minorities whose rights are trampled upon.

The destiny of world civilization depends on providing a decent standard of living for all mankind …. The first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind.

Destroy poverty, that source of crime, by assuring to each the satisfaction of all needs! And how difficult is this to achieve?

[We] came to believe in the possibility of building a different country. One which is more just, a country where education and health are guaranteed, a country where workers have dignified working conditions, where young people are not exploited nor ill-treated in their work-place, where women are integrated with rights and equal opportunities, a country where the environment is protected, where natural resources are exploited to improve the living condition of its people, a country were culture develops freely, where there is access to literature, a country where children don't suffer discrimination because they don't have any money, a country where a walk down your street doesn't mean constant fear of being assaulted, a country where the most disadvantaged youth don't have to resort to drugs or delinquency to give sense to their lives, a country where grandparents are not made to feel as burdens, a country where the development of knowledge becomes a task of society as a whole, where advances in science are placed at the service of the people.

I know nothing of man’s rights, or woman’s rights; human rights are all that I recognize.

We have to prove to the disinherited majority of the world that ecology and conservation will not work against their interest but will bring an improvement in their lives.

I think the health of our water is tied to a lot: the health of our communities, hence our economy, the health of our basic human rights.

All men are created equal.

Foreign relations should involve human rights, workers' rights, and environmental protection.

Humanity has gained its suit; Liberty will nevermore be without an asylum.

People have no human rights, only the rights that they can gain on the labour market. Above all, wealth and power have to be protected.

I want to take human rights out of their box. I want to show the relevance of the universal principles of human rights to the basic needs of health, security, education and equality.

We speak here of the challenge of the dichotomies of war and peace, violence and non-violence, racism and human dignity, oppression and repression and liberty and human rights, poverty and freedom from want.

Peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting.

We need to realize that poverty doesn't only consist of being hungry for bread, but rather it is a tremendous hunger for human dignity. We need to love and to be someone for someone else

We will either defend the rights of people and the earth, and for that we have to dismantle the rights that corporations have assigned to themselves, or corporations will in the next three decades destroy this planet, in terms of human possibilities.

We need not concern ourselves much about rights of property if we faithfully observe the rights of persons.