Rights of others

“ Each member of the community is under obligation, always to refrain from encroachment on the rights of others, and in many cases to aid in securing or defending those rights, he on like occasions and in similar ways having his own rights protected by others. ”

“ Beyond all these things, as we ascend in the scale of ethical development, there exists a demand for that recognition of the rights of others, that spirit of fellowship and true manhood which shall abridge and overcome the passion of grasping selfishness. ”

“ The speaker then indulged in a critique on the editorial, principally upon the ground which he had taken—that a man has a right to do with his own things what he pleases, provided, in so doing, he does not infringe upon the rights of others. ”

“ If we wish to practice justice, we must first learn the law of Right and Duty; that is, in striving to satisfy our own material wants, we must learn how to protect the rights of others. We must remember, that they too are toiling for the same purpose. ”

“ Morals and manners alike, while they justify us in asserting and maintaining our own rights, require us scrupulously to respect, in word and act, the rights of others. It is true that the former, in the common comprehension of the term, is satisfied with simple justice in all our relations, while the latter often requires something more than the strictest conscientiousness can demand—a yielding of more than half the road—an exercise of the sentiment of benevolence, as well as of equity ”

“ Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the natural rights of others. ”

“ On the contrary they will be strengthened in their right, to give their own individual stamp to their joys, their sufferings, and their works. They will be warned to do their best because it is their own; to seek their highest good, by drawing their own boundaries at the place where the rights of others begin. ”

“ Conversely, everyone capable of being determined by the conception of a common good as his own ideal good, as that which unconditionally should be (of being in that sense an end to himself) , in other words, every moral person, is capable of rights; i.e. of bearing his part in a society in which the free exercise of his powers is secured to each member through the recognition by each of the others as entitled to the same freedom with himself. ”

“ It can only be met by the discipline of a people who use their own government for worthy ends, who preserve individuality and mobility in society and respect the rights of others, who follow the dictates of humanity and fair play, the principles of give and take. ”

“ Thought Of Equality—as if it harm’d me, giving others the same chances and rights as myself—as if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same. ”

“ They consist in respecting in others the liberty of conscience, the liberty of labor, individual liberty, personal responsibility, all of which are the natural rights of man. However, private individuals may themselves also fail in this kind of duties. ”

“ Reason, truth, justice, respect for fellowmen, the sense of personal dignity which is inseparable from the dignity of others, love of personal freedom and the freedom of all others, the conviction that work is the base and condition for rights--these must be the fundamental principles of all public education. ”

“ That is what was meant when it was said in an early number of Liberty that "man's only duty is to respect others' rights." It might well have been added that man's only right over others is to enforce that duty. ”

“ Hence, I describe through my power of imagination a sphere of freedom, which these many separate beings divide amongst themselves. I do not ascribe to myself all the freedom which I have posited, because I must also posit other free beings, and must ascribe part of it to them. Thus, in appropriating freedom to myself, I at the same time restrict myself, by leaving freedom to others. The conception of Rights is, therefore, the conception of the necessary relation of free beings to each other. ”

“ Social rights and obligations are reciprocal.
The right to be protected in the possession of life, liberty, and property, imposes the duty of not infringing on those of others, and even of protecting them. ”

“ The rights limited, namely equality and dignity, are important rights going to the core of our constitutional democratic values of human dignity, equality and freedom. [79] The forming and sustaining of intimate personal relationships of the nature here in issue are for many individuals essential for their own self-understanding and for the full development and expression of their human personalities. ”

“ And from “duty in relation to the dignity of humanity in us,” he draws the maxim: “Let not your rights be trampled under foot by others unpunished.” This is the idea which I have developed further in this little work. It is engraven on the hearts of all vigorous individuals and nations, and has found expression in a thousand ways. The only merit I can claim is that I have more fully developed the idea. An interesting contribution to the subject of my essay has been furnished by Dr. ”

“ While on the one hand we are willing that others should worship him in what manner they please, we have a right to the same privileges, rights and immunities, and possessing ourselves of this idea we take the liberty to do so. ”

“ The degree to which the individual judges for himself of the relation between the common good and the laws which cross the path of his ordinary life, is the measure of his intelligent, as distinguished from a merely instinctive, recognition of rights in others and in the state ”

“ The great principle of the common law, which is equally the teaching of Christian morality, so to use one's property as not to injure others, forbids any other application or use of the rights and powers conferred. ”

“ 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; ”

“ Nevertheless, I build no system. I ask an end to privilege, the abolition of slavery, equality of rights, and the reign of law. Justice, nothing else; that is the alpha and omega of my argument: to others I leave the business of governing the world. ”

“ In the last analysis civil rights depend for their maintenance and enforcement upon a realization of their value by the whole people and the willingness of every citizen to grant to others the rights which he claims for himself. ”

“ Consideration for the rights and feelings of others is not merely a rule for behavior in public but the very foundation upon which social life is built. ”

“ If, again, we admit that there are many things which, though not absolutely necessary, may rightly be used, if they can be used without injuring others, we see that we must also take into account the varying social conditions. ”

“ These laws 71prescribe the relations of husband and wife, of parent and child, of landlord and tenant, of employer and employee, of office-holder and citizen—they define and regulate every person’s rights and duties towards others. In order that we may exercise our rights and perform our duties we must first know what they are. The state, through its laws, tells us. Through its courts, moreover, it applies such pressure upon reluctant individuals as may be necessary to make these rights and duties real. In a word, government exists to enforce rights and to secure liberty. ”

“ They are too silent, too clean, too handsome, too fond of fresh air, too schooled in the laws of justice which compel them to acknowledge—however reluctantly—the rights of other men. They are certainly uncivil, but that is a matter of no great moment. ”

“ We demand freedom to establish our affairs in our way, and accord you that right. Take the hand of restraint from us. Give us our natural right to manage our own affairs, and we will respect your equal rights. ”

“ In this case, as in the case of governments, we may, perhaps, say that men acted from motives which must be called selfish, in this sense at least, that they thought of little but their own interests; but that, at the same time, their own interests compelled them to work in a direction which promoted, more or less, the interests of others. ”

“ They now act in that way because they are conscious that it is beneficial to others. The whole history of moral evolution seems to imply this. We may go back to a period at which the moral law is identified with the general customs of the race; at which there is no perception of any clear distinction between that which is moral and that which is simply customary ”

“ In the eye of the law they have rights of appropriation, but in fact they have not the chance of providing means for a free moral life, of developing and giving reality or expression to a good will, an interest in social well-being. ”

“ As a member of society he has forfeited to society, to a certain extent, the freedom of expressing his privileges and rights as an individual, by the infringement upon the privileges and rights of another individual, also a member of the same society ”

“ Resolved, That our most sincere and cordial thanks be given to the patrons and friends of liberty in Great Britain, for their spirited and patriotick conduct in support of our constitutional rights and privileges, and their generous efforts to prevent the present distress and calamity of America.
Resolved, That every little jarring interest and dispute which hath ever happened between these Colonies, should be buried in eternal oblivion; that all manner of luxury and extravagance ought immediately to be laid aside, as totally inconsistent with the threatening and gloomy prospect before us ”

“ In saying that only among 'persons' can there come to be rights, and that every 'person' should have rights, I have been careful to explain that I use 'person' in the moral, not merely in the legal, sense. ”

“ Both grow out of the necessities of our existence and relations. We have individual rights based on the fact of our individual being; and we have social duties resulting from our connection, in the bonds of society, with other individuals who have similar rights. ”

“ The best that it can do for all, and the only honest thing it can do for any, is simply to secure to each and every one his own rights,—the rights that nature gave him,—his rights of person, and his rights of property; leaving him, then, to pursue his own interests, and secure his own welfare, by the free and full exercise of his own powers of body and mind ”

“ They have not yet grasped the elementary fact that the rights of the individual are the rights of all individuals, and that Individualism itself calls for a limitation of the freedom of the individual. ”

“ This great law and this great legitimacy are the enjoyment of the natural rights of man, ruled by his duties; for it is the duty that creates the right, and not the right that creates the duty; the passions and the vices relegate us to the class of slaves. ”

“ We hold these rights by virtue, of our manhood, it is said; they are inherent in it, and constitute it. But my rights bind you, and yours bind me, and yet you and I are equal; our manhoods are equal. How, then, can the manhood of either bind or morally oblige the other? ”

“ In other words, it is the presumption that a man in his general course of conduct will of his own motion have respect to the common good, which entitles him to rights at the hands of the community. The question of the moral value of the motive which may induce this respect—whether an unselfish interest in common good or the wish for personal pleasure and fear of personal pain—does not come into the account at all. ”

“ On the other hand, the constitutions of all civilized governments, whether written or unwritten, the principles of the civil as well as those of the common law, and the teachings of wise men of ancient and of modern times, recognize as a duty the protection of individual or selfish interests. They recognize as just and necessary the restraint and punishment of wrong-doers, and the protection of the rights and interests of the individual in person and property. ”

“ In dealing, then, with such phrases as 'jura personarum' and 'personal rights,' we must keep in view the difference between the legal and ethical sense of the proposition that all rights are personal, or subsist as between persons. ”

“ 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? ”