Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
867
AUTHOR:
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
QUOTATION:
My position as regards the monied interests can be put in a few words. In every civilized society property rights must be carefully safeguarded; ordinarily and in the great majority of cases, human rights and property rights are fundamentally and in the long run, identical; but when it clearly appears that there is a real conflict between them, human rights must have the upper hand; for property belongs to man and not man to property.
ATTRIBUTION:
THEODORE ROOSEVELT, address at the Sorbonne, Paris, France, April 23, 1910.—“Citizenship in a Republic,” The Strenuous Life (vol. 13 of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, national ed.), chapter 21, pp. 515–16 (1926).
