
“It is a Reasonable presumption that a man who sleeps upon his rights has not got much right.”
Ex parte Hall; In re Wood (1883), L. R. 23 C. D. 653.
Source: Present Status of the Philosophy of Law and of Rights (1926), Ch. VII, Natural Right, § 32, p. 73.
“It is a Reasonable presumption that a man who sleeps upon his rights has not got much right.”
Ex parte Hall; In re Wood (1883), L. R. 23 C. D. 653.
Chapter VIII http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abeslmca5t.html
1830s, An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833)
The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Context: The question to be tried by you is whether a man has the right to express his honest thought; and for that reason there can be no case of greater importance submitted to a jury. And it may be well enough for me, at the outset, to admit that there could be no case in which I could take a greater — a deeper interest. For my part, I would not wish to live in a world where I could not express my honest opinions. Men who deny to others the right of speech are not fit to live with honest men.
I deny the right of any man, of any number of men, of any church, of any State, to put a padlock on the lips — to make the tongue a convict. I passionately deny the right of the Herod of authority to kill the children of the brain.
A man has a right to work with his hands, to plow the earth, to sow the seed, and that man has a right to reap the harvest. If we have not that right, then all are slaves except those who take these rights from their fellow-men.
“Principle I : Legal rights are presumptive rights.”
Source: Present Status of the Philosophy of Law and of Rights (1926), Ch. VI : Presumptive Rights, p. 58.
Draft of a preface in “Notebook 16”; Quoted in The Collected Works of J.M. Synge, vol. 1, Introduction (1962).
“Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.”
Deming Headlight (New Mexico), 6 January 1950, as cited in the Yale Book of Modern Proverbs and at There Are Opinions, And Then There Are Facts; Freakonomics blog post by Fred R. Shapiro http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/08/18/there-are-opinions-and-then-there-are-facts/ (18 August 2011)
Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Pantagruel (1532), Chapter 29.
Context: Loupgarou was come with all his giants, who, seeing Pantagruel in a manner alone, was carried away with temerity and presumption, for hopes that he had to kill the good man. Whereupon he said to his companions the giants, You wenchers of the low country, by Mahoom, if any of you undertake to fight against these men here, I will put you cruelly to death. It is my will, that you let me fight single. In the meantime you shall have good sport to look upon us.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 553.