Human right

“ One great general subject of thought now is human rights,--universal human rights. The entire literature of the world is becoming tinctured with contradictions of the dogmas upon which society in this section is built. ”

“ What, then, is the rightful limit to the sovereignty of the individual over himself? Where does the authority of society begin? How much of human life should be assigned to individuality, and how much to society? ”

“ The sense of duty is the fountain of human rights. In other words, the same inward principle, which teaches the former, bears witness to the latter. Duties and Rights must stand or fall together. ”

“ And again, "Those rights which God and nature have established, and which are therefore called 'natural rights,' such as life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws, to be more effectually vested in every man, than they are. ”

“ In this welcome which you give to me, the humble and all too unworthy representative of a magnificent cause, the great principle of human freedom is at length recognised, that freedom inherited at birth, and only wrung from individuals by oppression and wrong. ”

“ There has been, upon the whole, a moral government of the human race. The moral law, the distinction of right and wrong, has been established in every nation; and penalties have been established for wrong-doing. ”

“ This simple and potent statement of basic human rights is therefore equal in ethical and legal force to the bulk of the Decalogue itself and to the Golden Rule of Humanity, Honesty and Justice in its three best versions from the world’s greatest moral teachers, Confucius, Plato and Christ; so that in this simple sentence from the essential paragraph of our first great national document we have a code of Democratic Government and of Human Ethics in one sentence, which, as before suggested, should be taught in all our schools as the basis of Americanism. ”

“ Why shall I act in accordance with the general welfare? is answered by these considerations; because such action is right and reasonable, enjoined by conscience and reason, by human nature itself in its higher development. He who does not recognize this fact, who does not find in it the highest and holiest of commandments, and who yet desires to act reasonably and well, recognizing duties to all men, does not see what he himself really will.
The conception of right-doing is the motive of the human being, in so far as he is good. ”

“ The rights of man, and the rights of human nature were phrases, which, although at that time, I was quite unconscious of their meaning, I heard so often repeated, that they made an indelible impression upon my memory, and in after years, frequently recurred to my recollection. ”

“ But I do wish to make this intimation, that in this time of world change, in this time when we are going to find out just how, in what particulars, and to what extent the real facts of human life and the real moral judgments of mankind prevail, it is worth while looking inside our municipal law and seeing whether the judgments of the law are made square with the moral judgments of mankind. ”

“ Viewed as an object not in man, justice is the constitution or fundamental law of the moral universe, the law of right, a rule of conduct for man in all his moral relations. Accordingly all human affairs must be subject to that as the law paramount; what is right agrees therewith and stands, what is wrong conflicts and falls. Private cohesions of self-love, of friendship, or of patriotism, must all be subordinate to this universal gravitation towards the eternal right. ”

“ From these distinctions, applied to each political society and its members, are derived the most certain and universal rules, by which we can judge whether a government is good or bad, and in general of the morality of all human actions. ”

“ It is therefore evidently the intention of that part of the moral government with which we are acquainted, to impress these principles deeply on the human mind, and to induce the human race to regulate their conduct accordingly. ”

“ But this fearless assertion of the rights of conscience necessarily involved the right to sit in judgment upon all human laws and the powers that ordained them, and to determine for themselves whether the law was lawful. ”

“ And it will be long before social discipline has so far modified human character that reverence for law, as rooted in the moral order of things, will serve in place of reverence for the power which enforces law. ”

“ Nay, more, that wisely directed and controlled by a sense of justice, and an observance of the rights common to all, they are calculated and designed largely to augment the sum of human felicity, and to advance man in his progress to the highest attainable condition in civilization and power. ”

“ And we see philosophical politicians with a turn for swimming with the stream, and philosophical divines with the same turn, seeking to give a sort of grand stamp of generality and solemnity to this antipathy of the Nonconformists, and to dress it out as a law of human progress in the future. ”

“ It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in themselves, but by cultivating it and calling it forth, within the limits imposed by the rights and interests of others, that human beings become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation; ”

“ He then develops what this idea consists of—the right of all men to education, proper housing, and sufficient food, in short, the right to live as human beings—and asserts that it has become the most important of the social truths. ”

“ The thesis I have endeavored to support in these lectures, so far as I have a thesis, is this: (1) that, after all, human justice consists in securing to each individual as much liberty of action in the exercise of his physical and mental powers and as much liberty to enjoy the fruits of such action as is consistent with like liberty for other individuals, and with such restrictions only as are necessary for the welfare of society as a whole without discrimination for or against any individual ”

“ Hence, human Reason must always receive its particular Cast and Colour from the pre-established Passions, Habits, and Principles; will ever form its ruling Ideas of Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Just and Unjust, from these great Fountains of human Action. ”

“ But we may err greatly in defining what that justice is. The temporary interests, and what to human view are the rights, of men, do often interfere and clash. The life-interests of the individual often conflict with the permanent interests and welfare of society ”

“ This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience, in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual which concerns other people; ”

“ Now, the circumstances of every associated group of human society, contending bravely for national honors and felicity of life, differ only from those thus supposed, in the greater, instead of less, necessity for the establishment of restraining law. ”

“ As we follow the upward trend of the lines of the moral evolution of the race we shall hear louder and louder protests against this notion of communal responsibility, especially when this form of human morality has been transferred to the heavens and made a fundamental principle of the divine government. ”

“ When I say only himself, I mean directly, and in the first instance: for whatever affects himself, may affect others through himself; and the objection which may be grounded on this contingency, will receive consideration in the sequel. This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. ”

“ A system based on the principle that ethics and religion are made to serve human ambition naturally accords with the wishes of selfish individuals; and such theories as those embodied in the modem formula of liberty and equality annihilate the established relations of society, and outrage decorum and propriety. ”

“ But civilisation needs more than the law to hold it together. You see all mankind are not equally willing to accept as divine justice what is called human law." ”

“ The freedom of the seemingly false opinion and our tolerance of it and our willingness to meet with it in the open help test the validity of truth while keeping alive the critical sense which is the main spring of all advancement of human thought and is the vital point, the very soul, of all human progress. ”

“ Human society: it is an attempt—so I teach—a long seeking: it seeketh however the ruler!—
—An attempt, my brethren! And NO “contract”! Destroy, I pray you, destroy that word of the soft-hearted and half-and-half! ”

“ Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion of human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors it entails. ”

“ the idea of equality — the equality of all men before human tribunals and human laws, as they all are equal before the divine tribunal and divine laws. ”

“ The greatest problem for the human race, to the solution of which Nature drives man, is the achievement of a universal civic society which administers law among men. ”

“ Wherefore for the public interest and benefit of human society it is requisite that the highest obligations possible should be laid upon the consciences of men. ”

“ Here then is a proposition, which, I think, may be regarded as certain, that 'tis only from the selfishness and confin'd generosity of men, along with the scanty provision nature has made for his wants, that justice derives its origin. ”

“ Yet command and obedience are but unfortunate necessities of human life: society in equality is its normal state. ”

“ It is not the citizen, or a taxpayer, or voter, or office-holder, but the cultivated, free individual who is the true aim of all social progress. ”

“ The great human law that in the end recognizes and rewards merit is everlasting and universal. ”

“ You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action. ”

“ With all these, the greatest possible latitude in regard to morals, and all the liberty we desire. Now, if society gives us all these, and you must admit that it does, has it not done its entire duty? ”

“ He claims everything that belongs properly to a man: the right to life, the right to work, the right to the complex development of his faculties, to the continuous exercise of his free will and of his reason. ”

“ Having solemnly resolved that all men are created equal and have certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we shut our eyes and waited for the formula to work. ”

“ Can men govern themselves? The affirmative is civilization—the negative is barbarism. The whole trend of modern life—the sweep of modern progress—is towards individual freedom and individual responsibility. ”

“ So, to reduce our moral judgments, confusion and all, to small compass, we are free, others are not; they are free, we are not; and our freedom is bound by duty, by duty to the moral law, while their freedom, unless a hopeless lawlessness, is bound by the environment and its law. Again, good and evil are each unmixed, and moral acts serve two masters—that is to say, spring from two sources. ”

“ Thus we have seen that men are social, reasonable, and moral beings. They have power to discern their own wants and the wants of their fellow men; to perceive what is right and what is wrong; and to know that they ought to do what is right and to forbear to do what is wrong. Their reason enables them to understand the meaning of laws, and to discover what laws are necessary to regulate the social actions of men. Hence we conclude that they are fitted and designed for society, and for government and law. ”