Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Human Personality (1943), p. 61
Context: The notion of rights is linked with the notion of sharing out, of exchange, of measured quantity. It has a commercial flavor, essentially evocative of legal claims and arguments. Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at.
“Human beings can always be relied upon to assert, with vigor, their God-given right to be stupid.”
Seize the Night (1999)
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Dean Koontz 157
American author 1945Related quotes
Vol. III, p. 390
William Lloyd Garrison 1805-1879 (1885)
The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)
Context: When you expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of human rights, you can then take the case of the black man in this country before the nations in the UN. You can take it before the General Assembly. You can take Uncle Sam before a world court. But the only level you can do it on is the level of human rights. Civil rights keeps you under his restrictions, under his jurisdiction. Civil rights keeps you in his pocket. Civil rights means you’re asking Uncle Sam to treat you right. Human rights are something you were born with. Human rights are your God-given rights. Human rights are the rights that are recognized by all nations of this earth. And any time any one violates your human rights, you can take them to the world court.
"In Exile, Free Speech at Last in The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1997/11/22/in-exile-free-speech-at-last/4591c34b-12c4-4a86-be28-261f6a260b8d/ (22 November 1997)
On the United States Declaration of Independence in her "Is It a Crime for a Citizen of the United States to Vote?" speech before her trial for voting (1873)
Source: On Nietzsche (1945), p. 3