The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen) is a fundamental document of the French Revolution and in the history of human rights, defining the individual and collective rights of all the estates of the realm as universal. Influenced by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of man are held to be universal: valid at all times and in every place, pertaining to human nature itself.
Read more about Declaration Of The Rights Of Man And Of The Citizen: History, Philosophic and Theoretical Context, Substance, Legacy, Other Early Declarations of Rights
Famous quotes containing the words declaration of the, declaration of, declaration, rights, man and/or citizen:
“Ignorance, forgetfulness, or contempt of the rights of man are the only causes of public misfortunes and of the corruption of governments.”
—French National Assembly. Declaration of the Rights of Man (drafted and discussed Aug. 1789, published Sept. 1791)
“It is an axiom in political science that unless a people are educated and enlightened it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty or the capacity for self-government.”
—Texas Declaration of Independence (March 2, 1836)
“Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books and institutions by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid the invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here within.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A hundred things are done today in the divine name of Youth, that if they showed their true colours would be seen by rights to belong rather to old age.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
“Well, Pa, a woman can change better than a man. A man lives, sort of, well, in jerks. A baby’s born or somebody dies and that’s a jerk. He gets a farm or loses it and that’s a jerk. With a woman, it’s all in one flow, like a stream. Little eddies and waterfalls, but the river, it goes right on. A woman looks at it that way.”
—Nunnally Johnson (1897–1977)
“It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.”
—Robert H. [Houghwout] Jackson (1892–1954)