No man can be subject to any laws, excepting those which have received the assent of himself or his representatives and which are promulgated beforehand and applied legally.
Marquis De LafayetteRead
When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensible of duties.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the right and duty of people to revolt against governmental oppression.
Marquis De Lafayette's quote highlights the belief that when a government infringes upon the rights of its citizens, it becomes not only the right but also the essential duty of the people to rise in insurrection. This perspective underscores the importance of individual rights and the moral obligation to resist tyranny, suggesting that civic duty includes defending freedoms against oppressive forces.
Themes
InsurrectionGovernmentRightsDutyRebellion
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on civil rights, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of standing up against injustice.
More from Marquis De Lafayette
All quotes →May the States be so bound to each other as forever to defy European politics. Upon that union, their consequence, their happiness, will depend. This is the first wish of a heart more truly American than words can express.
Marquis De LafayetteRead
Insurrection is the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties.
Marquis De LafayetteRead
True republicanism is the sovereignty of the people. There are natural and imprescriptible rights which an entire nation has no right to violate.
Marquis De LafayetteRead
The affairs of America I shall ever look upon as my first business whilst I am in Europe. Any confidence from the king and ministers, any popularity I may have among my own countrymen, any means in my power, shall be, to the best of my skill, and till the end of my life, exerted in behalf of an interest I have so much at heart.
Marquis De LafayetteRead
The exercise of natural rights has no limits but such as will ensure their enjoyment to other members of society.
Marquis De LafayetteRead
Similar quotes
A region is an area safely larger than the last one to whose problems we found no solution.
Jane JacobsRead
And in that fraction of a second before anything actually happened, Santino Corleone knew he was a dead man.
Mario PuzoRead
Astronomy is a cold, desert science, with all its pompous figures,-depends a little too much on the glass-grinder, too little on the mind. 'T is of no use to show us more planets and systems. We know already what matter is, and more or less of it does not signify.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
Our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws, so far as we can read them.
James Anthony FroudeRead
Thought is essentially practical in the sense that but for thought no motion would be an action, no change a progress.
George SantayanaRead
Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief.
Jiddu KrishnamurtiRead