Universal Human Rights Quotes

Human rights are universal and indivisible. Human freedom is also indivisible: if it is denied to anyone in the world, it is therefore denied, indirectly, to all people. This is why we cannot remain silent in the face of evil or violence; silence merely encourages them.

I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are not superior by reason of accidents of race or color. They are superior who have the best heart-the best brain.

We believe that human rights transcend boundaries and must prevail over state sovereignty.

Human rights are not the preserve of Western activists: The definition must extend to encompass the right to the dignified life; the right to send your kids to school, for that child to get health care, for access for greater prosperity for generations to come and to have a say in the destiny of your community and country. Under that definition, Rwanda has nothing to learn from advocacy groups who think they own the copyright on what constitutes human rights under all conditions in every corner of the world.

The UN declaration on human rights must always be first in line before religion or other cultural habits, in case of any conflict between them.

America didn't invent human rights. Those rights are common to all people: nations, cultures, and religions cannot choose to simply opt out of them.

One wonders whether the ethnic categorization effort at finding solutions to problems that cross ethnic boundaries. Poverty is poverty is poverty. It does not have peculiar ethnic characteristics.

For the first time in history all people on earth have a common present…. Every country has become the moat immediate neighbor of every other country, and every man feels the shock of events which take place at the other end of the globe.

China recognizes and also respects the universality of human rights. We will continue our efforts to promote democracy and the rule of law.

Democracy is a universal value

International Law, n. Law that is violated in multiple countries instead of just one.

Contrary to what certain governments say, human rights are universal. Arbitrary detention, torture and discrimination hurt the human dignity of anybody, whatever his or her country of origin, religion, descent, or any other ground.

The conviction that all men are equal by reason of their natural dignity has been generally accepted. Hence racial discrimination can no longer be justified.

To say that people around the world deserve the same, the same life that we have in the United States, the same freedoms that we have, that seems to me, humble. I think it's humble to say that the United States, which has been given so much, should give back.

If only women are talking about women's rights, then the issue has failed from the start. If you think about the Holocaust, that wasn't just a Jewish issue. Civil rights weren't just a black issue.

We believe that all men are created equal because they are created in the image of God

We stand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind. This declaration may well become the international Magna Carta for all men everywhere. We hope its proclamation by the General Assembly will be an event comparable to the proclamation in 1789 the adoption of the Bill of Rights by the people of the U.S., and the adoption of comparable declarations at different times in other countries...

The American people cannot close their eyes to abuses of human rights and injustice, whether they occur among friend or adversary or even on our own shores.

Freedom is independence of the compulsory will of another, and in so far as it tends to exist with the freedom of all according to a universal law, it is the one sole original inborn right belonging to every man in virtue of his humanity.

All beings want to live in peace and happiness, undisturbed. Therefore the concept of human rights is universal.

People say that human rights is a Western construct foisted on others. But that's not true. Equality, dignity, respect and justice are as much an integral part of the Islamic tradition.

We need a broad commitment to human rights across the board. We cannot attain that simply by protecting one oppressed group or the other.

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person...Withou t concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

Human rights only have meaning if they are universal.

A good motivation is what is needed: compassion without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy; just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their human rights and dignities. That we humans can help each other is one of our unique human capacities.