rights Quotes

All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.

The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.

The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.

Government has no other end, but the preservation of property.

Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.

Where there is no property there is no injustice.

Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.

Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.

Rights are not a matter of numbers - and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob.

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).