“What a man does in his closet ought not to affect the rights of third persons.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron
Outram v. Morewood (1793), 5 T. R. 123.
Speech in the House of Commons (19 April 1791), quoted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume IV (1815), p. 192.
1790s
“What a man does in his closet ought not to affect the rights of third persons.”
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron
Outram v. Morewood (1793), 5 T. R. 123.
Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part Two: Soul and Body, p. 50
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist
Letter to Susan B. Anthony (1860-06-14).
Context: Women's degradation is in man's idea of his sexual rights. Our religion, laws, customs, are all founded on the belief that woman was made for man. Come what will, my whole soul rejoices in the truth that I have uttered.
Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist
Chapter VIII http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abeslmca5t.html <br class="br">1830s, An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833)
“Of the exercise of a right power may deprive me; of the right itself, never.”
Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist
The Economic Tendency of Freethought (1890)
Context: Note the difference between a right and a privilege. A right, in the abstract, is a fact; it is not a thing to be given, established, or conferred; it is. Of the exercise of a right power may deprive me; of the right itself, never. Privilege, in the abstract, does not exist; there is no such thing. Rights recognized, privilege is destroyed.
But, in the practical, the moment you admit a supreme authority, you have denied rights. Practically the supremacy has all the rights, and no matter what the human race possesses, it does so merely at the caprice of that authority.