Human Rights and Freedom
Make injustice visible.
Mahatma Gandhi
Injustice anywhere is a threat
to justice everywhere.
Martin Luther King Jr.
All that is necessary
for the triumph of evil
is that good men do nothing.
Edmund Burke
What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
Confucius - Analects
In Germany they came first for the communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Martin Miemoeller - German Protestant Minister
He was a leader of the church's opposition to Hitler.
He was interned in Nazi concentration camps from 1937 to 1945.
No single human being can stand aside from the fray,
a spectator wondering who is going to win.
It is his OWN fate that is being decided:
will he in the future have a decent life
or will he be crushed down into the mud?
Will the decent impulses of the civilization triumph or,
in defeat at the hands of evil,
have to wait again for another chance, another time?
L. Ron Hubbard
Science may have found cures for most evils;
but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all-
the apathy of human beings.
Helen Keller
The first speech censored,
the first thought forbidden,
the first freedom denied -
chains us all irrevocably.
Captain Jon Luc Picard - The Drumhead : Stardate 44769.2
Each time a person stands up for an ideal,
or acts to improve the lot of others;
they send forth a tiny ripple of hope...
These ripples build a current which can sweep down
the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Robert F. Kennedy
We should never forget that everything
Adolf Hitler did in Germany was 'Legal'
and everything the Hungarian Freedom Fighters did
in Hungary was 'Illegal.'
Martin Luther King Jr.
'A letter from a Birmingham jail' 16 April 1963
Human rights must be made a fact,
not an idealistic dream.
L. Ron Hubbard
This must be a world of democracy
and respect for human rights,
a world freed from the horrors of poverty,
hunger, deprivation and ignorance,
relieved of the threat and the scourge
of civil wars and external aggression
and unburdened of the great tragedy
of millions forced to become refugees.
Nelson Mandela, in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens
can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
I swore never to be silent whenever and where ever human beings
endure suffering and humiliation.
We must always take sides.
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
Elie Wiesel
We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic.
Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings,
different hopes, different dreams.
Jimmy Carter
If things were a little better known and understood,
we would all lead happier lives.
And there is a way to know them and there is a way to freedom.
The old must give way to the new,
falsehood must become exposed by truth,
and truth, though faught, always in the end prevails.
L. Ron Hubbard
Be the change you want to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi
Human rights are your rights.
Seize them. Defend them. Promote them.
Understand them and insist on them. Nourish and enrich them.
Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Prize winner
Kind words can be short and easy to speak,
but their echoes are truly endless.
Mother Teresa
There is no national problem in the world today which cannot be resolved by reason alone.
L. Ron Hubbard - 1950 - Dianetics: The Modern Scienc of Mental Health
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It's not.
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss - 1971
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil,
but because of those who look on and do nothing.
Albert Einstein
Imagine all the people living life in peace.
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one.
John Lennon
All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world
is for enough good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke: Lawyer, Writer, Politician (1729-97)
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person,
and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Thomas Jefferson, 18th-century American Founding Father,
early 19th-century U.S. president (letter to George Hammond, 1792)
A man can do only what he can do.
But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.
Albert Schweitzer, 20th-century German Nobel Peace Prize-winning mission doctor and theologian
You are important to other people. You are listened to. You can influence others.
If you can get others to follow the road
you yourself will be free enough to give yourself a chance to discover what real happiness is.
from The Way to Happiness book