Quotes4study

Injusta ab justis impetrare non decet; / Justa autem ab injustis petere, insipientia est=--To ask what is unreasonable from the reasonable is not right; to ask what is reasonable from the unreasonable is folly.

Plautus.

Justissimus unus / Et servantissimus ?qui=--Just and observant of what is right, as no other is.

Virgil.

What is true Christianity if it be not the belief in the true sonship of man, as the Greek philosophers had rightly surmised, but had never seen realised on earth? Here is the point where the two great intellectual currents of the Aryan and Semitic worlds flow together, in that the long-expected Messiah of the Jews was recognised as the _Logos_, the true Son of God, and that He opened or revealed to every man the possibility to become what he had always been, but had never before apprehended, the highest thought, the Word, the Logos, the Son of God.

Friedrich Max Müller     Thoughts on Life and Religion

Greatness can only be rightly estimated when minuteness is justly reverenced. Greatness is the aggregation of minuteness; nor can its sublimity be felt truthfully by any mind unaccustomed to the affectionate watching of what is least.

_Ruskin._

[I]t is a political axiom that power follows property. But it is now a historical fact that the means of production are fast becoming the monopolistic property of Big Business and Big Government. Therefore, if you believe in democracy, make arrangements to distribute property as widely as possible. Or take the right to vote. In principle, it is a great privilege. In practice, as recent history has repeatedly shown, the right to vote, by itself, is no guarantee of liberty. Therefore, if you want to avoid dictatorship by referendum, break up modern society’s merely functional collectives into self-governing, voluntarily co-operating groups, capable of functioning outside the bureaucratic systems of Big Business and Big Government.” [ Brave New World Revisited. On www.goodreads.com.]

Huxley, Aldous.

I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems. And I'm going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn't popular to talk about it in some circles today. I'm not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love, I'm talking about a strong, demanding love. And I have seen too much hate... I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is that we are moving against wrong when we do it, because John was right, God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who has love has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.

Martin Luther King, Jr

States are to be called happy and noble in so far as they settle rightly who is slave and who free.

_Carlyle._

The right ear, that is fill'd with dust, / Hears little of the false or just.

_Tennyson._

If my films don't show a profit, I know I'm doing something right. Woody Allen

About Movies

When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.

Victor Hugo

Pour soutenir les droits que le ciel autorise, / Abime tout plutot; c'est l'esprit de l'eglise=--To maintain your rights granted by Heaven, let everything perish rather than yield; this is the spirit of the Church.

_Boileau._

You may say, "I wish to send this ball so as to kill the lion crouching yonder ready to spring upon me. My wishes are all right, and I hope Providence will direct the ball." Providence won't. You must do it; and if you do not, you are a dead man.

_Ward Beecher._

>Right wrongs no man.

Proverb.

His nunc pr?mium est, qui recta prava faciunt=--Nowadays those are rewarded who make right appear wrong.

Terence.

To heck with him, I thought righteously. Him and the horse he rode in on.

Charlaine Harris

It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.

SYDNEY SMITH. 1769-1845.     _Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 53._

Judgment must sway the feelings and keep them in their right place, or harm will be done where good was intended.

_Spurgeon._

Ever take it for granted that man collectively wishes that which is right; but take care never to think so of one!

_Schiller._

Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice; With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress; In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountains start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.

W. H. Auden

The heart of the righteous studieth to answer; but the mouth of the wicked poureth out evil things.

_Bible._

Man is created to fight; he is perhaps best of all definable as a born soldier; his life "a battle and a march" under the right generals.

_Carlyle._

Men only rightly know themselves as far as they have experimented on things.

_Emerson._

"Right now I feel that I've got my feet on the ground as far as my head

is concerned."

There is no such thing as natural law, the expression is nothing more than a silly anachronism There is no such thing as right, except when there is a law to forbid a certain thing under pain of punishment. Before law existed, the only natural thing was the strength of the lion, or the need of a creature who was cold or hungry, to put it in one word, need.

Stendhal

There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.

Mr. Wednesday" in American Gods by Neil Gaiman

The female heart is just like a new india-rubber shoe; you may pull and pull at it till it stretches out a yard long; and then let go, and it will fly right back to its old shape.

_Judge Haliburton._

The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error.

William Jennings Bryan

No man has any data for estimating, far less right of judging, the results of a life of resolute self-denial, until he has had the courage to try it himself.

_Ruskin._

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of person and property, liberty of conscience, and of the press, it will be worth defending.

Andrew Jackson

By this point in history—after the 2008 collapse of Wall Street and in the midst of layers of ecological crises—free market fundamentalists should, by all rights, be exiled to a similarly irrelevant status, left to fondle their copies of Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged in obscurity.

Naomi Klein

So now, having learned from machines, organizations are applying the same logic to people. Letting people in the organization use their best judgment turns out to be faster and cheaper—but only if you hire the right people and reward them for having the right attitude.

Seth Godin

I will make my meaning more clear when I say that I think right and wrong are both tools which are being wielded by those great hands which are shaping the destinies of the universe, that both are making for improvement; but that the action of the one is immediate, and that of the other more slow, but none the less certain. Our own distinction of right and wrong is founded too much upon the immediate convenience of the community, and does not inquire sufficiently deeply into the ultimate effect.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.

Eleanor Roosevelt

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For him who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Nullum tempus occurrit regi=--No lapse of time bars the rights of the crown.

Law.

Solitude can be well applied and sit right upon but very few persons. They must have knowledge of the world to see the follies of it, and virtue enough to despise all the vanity.

_Cowley._

Errare malo cum Platone, quam cum istis vera sentire=--I had rather be wrong with Plato than think right with those men.

Cicero.

Nehmt die Stimmung wahr, / Denn sie kommt so selten=--Take advantage of the right mood, for it comes so seldom.

_Goethe._

>Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at.

Simone Weil

Consider how many times you have gossiped about the person you love the most to gain the support of others for your point of view. How many times have you hooked other people’s attention, and spread poison about your loved one in order to make your opinion right? Your opinion is nothing but your point of view. It is not necessarily true. Your opinion comes from your beliefs, your own ego, and your own dream. We create all this poison and spread it to others just so we can feel right about our own point of view.

Miguel Ruiz

Doing is the great thing; for if people resolutely do what is right, they come in time to like doing it.

_Ruskin._

You're like one of those dogs, the unwanted ones that have been mistreated all their lives. You can kick them and kick them, but they'll still come back to you, cringing and wagging their tails. Begging, hoping that this time it'll be different, that this time they'll do something right and you'll love them. You're just like that, aren't you.

Paula Hawkins

Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.

_Bible._

The soul of music slumbers in the shell Till waked and kindled by the master's spell; And feeling hearts, touch them but rightly, pour A thousand melodies unheard before!

SAMUEL ROGERS. 1763-1855.     _Human Life._

To have the fear of God before our eyes, and, in our mutual dealings with each other, to govern our actions by the eternal measures of right and wrong; the first of these will comprehend the duties of religion; the second, those of morality.

_Sterne._

Today, I am flexible and evolutionary. I am a meadow with varied seasons and wealth in each one. I am blessed with abundance and I am abundant in the blessings that I offer to others. The right to change is a blessing that I offer to my friends. We are miners striking new ore at every depth.

Julia Cameron

They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever.

_Bible._

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Friedrich Nietzsche

If we must all agree, all work together, we're no better than a machine. If an individual can't work in solidarity with his fellows, it's his duty to work alone. His duty and his right. We have been denying people that right. We've been saying, more and more often, you must work with the others, you must accept the rule of the majority. But any rule is tyranny. The duty of the individual is to accept no rule, to be the initiator of his own acts, to be responsible. Only if he does so will the society live, and change, and adapt, and survive. We are not subjects of a State founded upon law, but members of a society founded upon revolution. Revolution is our obligation: our hope of evolution.

Ursula K. Le Guin, in The Dispossessed

Dem thatigen Menschen kommt es darauf an, dass er das Rechte thue; ob das Rechte geschehe, soll ihn nicht kummern=--With the man of action the chief concern is that he do the right thing; the success of that ought not to trouble him.

_Goethe._

The irony of history is nowhere more apparent than in science. Here we see the men, over whose minds the coming events of the world of biology cast their shadows, doing their best to spoil their case in stating it; while the man who represented sound scientific method is doing his best to stay the inevitable progress of thought and bolster up antiquated traditions. The progress of knowledge during the last seventy years enables us to see that neither Geoffroy, nor Cuvier, was altogether right nor altogether wrong; and that they were meant to hunt m couples instead of pulling against one another. Science has need of servants of very different qualifications; of artistic constructors no less than of men of business; of people to design her palaces and of others to see that the materials are sound and well-fitted together; of some to spur investigators, and of others to keep their heads cool. The only would-be servants, who are entirely unprofitable, are those who do not take the trouble to interrogate Nature, but imagine vain things about her; and spin, from their inner consciousness, webs, as exquisitely symmetrical as those of the most geometrical of spiders, but alas! as easily torn to pieces by some inconsidered bluebottle of a fact.

T. H. Huxley     Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of T. H. Huxley

He who knows right principles is not equal to him who loves them.

_Confucius._

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.

Mae West

Reality, if rightly interpreted, is grander than fiction; nay, it is in the right interpretation of reality and history that poetry consists.

_Carlyle._

When once our grace we have forgot, / Nothing goes right; we would, and we would not.

_Meas. for Meas._, iv. 4.

Therefore the dignity of the human person normally demands the right to the use of earthly goods as the natural foundation for a livelihood; and to that right corresponds the fundamental obligation to grant private property, as far as possible, to all. The positive laws regulating private property may change and may grant a more or less restricted use of it; but if such legal provisions are to contribute to the peaceful state of the community, they must save the worker, who is or will be the father of a family, from being condemned to an economic dependence or slavery irreconcilable with his rights as a person. Whether this slavery arises from the tyranny of private capital or from the power of the State makes no difference to its effect; indeed under the oppression of a State which controls everything and regulates the whole of public and private life, which encroaches even upon the sphere of thought, conviction, and conscience, this lack of freedom may have consequences even more disastrous, as experience shows. [Christmas Broadcast, “The Rights of Man,” 1942.]

Pius XII.

In Medinah, the Prophet provided that, in the just society every man has a right to capital without interest.… This means that in the pursuit of justice, the power of capital as well as the power of land are available to every member of society freely. The limits of differences are the limits imposed by the man’s own capacity to work and to use factors of production. [“The Theory of the Economics of Islam: The Economics of Tauhid and Brotherhood,” an English condensation of his book The Islamic Economic Theory , 1960.]

Abdul-Hamid Ahmad Abu-Sulayman (Saudi leader of Islamic renewal [Tajdid] and professor, University of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia).

We owe it to our ancestors to preserve entire those rights which they have delivered to our care; we owe it to our posterity not to suffer their dearest inheritance to be destroyed.

_Junius._

Men like advising the women better than doing right themselves.

_Spurgeon._

If we rightly estimate what we call good and evil, we shall find it lies much in comparison.--_Locke._

Maturin M. Ballou     Pearls of Thought

O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint, / Agricolas, quibus ipsa, procul discordibus armis, / Fundit humo facilem victum justissima tellus=--Oh, how happy the tillers of the ground are, if they but knew their blessings; for whom, far from the clash of arms, the all-righteous earth pours forth from her soil an easy sustenance.

Virgil.

The dissolution of society bids fair to become the termination of a career of which property is the end and aim, because such a career contains the elements of self-destruction. Democracy in government, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and privileges, and universal education, foreshadow the next higher plane of society to which experience, intelligence and knowledge are steadily tending. [ Ancient Society .]

Morgan, Lewis Henry.

McReynolds emphatically shook his head. “No way. Legal’s all over that deal. It’s squeaky clean. Even the woman signed off. Trammel. I could make her a three-hundred-pound whore who likes black dick in the movie and she couldn’t do a thing about it. That deal is perfect.” “Yeah, well, what Legal’s missed is the part about neither one of them having the rights to the story to sell you in the first place. Those rights happen to reside here with me. Trammel signed them over to me before Dahl came along and took second position. He thought he could move up one by stealing the original contracts out of my files. Only that’s not going to work. I’ve got a witness to the theft and Dahl’s fingerprints. He’s going to go down on fraud and theft charges and your choice here is to decide whether you want to go down

Michael Connelly

Suppose a nation, rich and poor, high and low, ten millions in number, all assembled together; not more than one or two millions will have lands, houses, or any personal property; if we take into the account the women and children, or even if we leave them out of the question, a great majority of every nation is wholly destitute of property, except a small quantity of clothes, and a few trifles of other movables. Would Mr. Nedham be responsible that, if all were to be decided by a vote of the majority, the eight or nine millions who have no property, would not think of usurping over the rights of the one or two millions who have? Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty. Perhaps, at first, prejudice, habit, shame or fear, principle or religion, would restrain the poor from attacking the rich, and the idle from usurping on the industrious; but the time would not be long before courage and enterprise would come, and pretexts be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors. Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted. What would be the consequence of this? The idle, the vicious, the intemperate, would rush into the utmost extravagance of debauchery, sell and spend all their share, and then demand a new division of those who purchased from them. The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free. [ Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States , 1787; The Works of John Adams , edited by Charles Francis Adams. 10 vols. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1850-56.]

Adams, John.

When thy judgments are in the earth the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

_Bible._

Jus gladii=--The right of the sword.

Unknown

Think not that thy word and thine alone must be right.

SOPHOCLES. 496-406 B. C.     _Antigone, 706._

Those who would comfort us by bidding us forget our grief, and join their happy gatherings, do not know what comfort is. Hearts which have suffered have a right to what the world may call grief and sorrow, but what is really a quiet communion with those whom we love, and whom we can find no longer among the laughter of the happy.

Friedrich Max Müller     Thoughts on Life and Religion

The check upon this free play of self-assertion, or natural liberty, which is the necessary condition for the origin of human society, is the product of organic necessities of a different land from those upon which the constitution of the hive depends. One of these is the mutual affection of parent and offspring, intensified by the long infancy of the human species. But the most important is the tendency, so strongly developed in man, to reproduce in himself actions and feelings similar to, or correlated with, those of other men. Man is the most consummate of all mimics in the animal world; none but himself can draw or model; none comes near him in the scope, variety, and exactness of vocal imitation; none is such a master of gesture; while he seems to be impelled thus to imitate for the pure pleasure of it. And there is no such another emotional chameleon. By a purely reflex operation of the mind, we take the hue of passion of those who are about us, or, it may be, the complementary colour. It is not by any conscious "putting one's self in the place" of a joyful or a suffering person that the state of mind we call sympathy usually arises; indeed, it is often contrary to one's sense of right, and in spite of one's will, that "fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind," or the reverse. However complete may be the indifference to public opinion, in a cool, intellectual view, of the traditional sage, it has not yet been my fortune to meet with any actual sage who took its hostile manifestations with entire equanimity. Indeed, I doubt if the philosopher lives, or ever has lived, who could know himself to be heartily despised by a street boy without some irritation. And, though one cannot justify Haman for wishing to hang Mordecai on such a very high gibbet, yet, really, the consciousness of the Vizier of Ahasuerus, as he went in and out of the gate, that this obscure Jew had no respect for him, must have been very annoying.

T. H. Huxley     Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of T. H. Huxley

When incentive to acquire and obtain property is gone, people no longer make efforts to acquire any.…Those who infringe upon property rights commit an injustice.… If this occurs repeatedly, all incentives to cultural enterprise are destroyed and they cease utterly to make an effort. This leads to destruction and ruin of civilization. [ Mukaddimah , 40 volumes written from A.D. 1375-1378, translated by Franz Rosenthal, Vol. 2, pp. 103-109, 1967.]

Khaldun, Muhammad Ibn (14th Century Arab jurist, historian, philosopher, diplomat, cabinet officer and general).

Virtue supposes liberty, as the carrying of a burden supposes active force. Under coercion there is no virtue, and without virtue there is no religion. Make a slave of me, and I shall be no better for it. Even the sovereign has no right to use coercion to lead men to religion, which by its nature supposes choice and liberty. My thought is no more subject to authority than is sickness or health.

Voltaire

Your prime one need is to do right, under whatever compulsion, till you can do it without compulsion. And then you are a Man.

_Ruskin._

Whatever is, is right.

_Pope._

It took a long time to march around the city, and the nation of Israel remained solemnly silent on each circuit. Finally, on the seventh time around, Joshua shouted to the priests, “Now sound the trumpets and let all the people shout!” The trumpets blared out with their brazen voices, and at the same time every soul in Israel shouted at the top of their lungs. It made an awesome din, and even as the voices were on the air, Othniel was shocked to see a crack develop right in front of his eyes. It ran from the ground all the way up to the top of the wall. Other cracks began springing up, and the shouting increased. “The wall, it’s falling!” one of the soldiers shouted.

Gilbert Morris

The hated system of land tenure, so contributory to general unrest in Asia, has been abolished. Every farmer is now accorded the right and dignity of ownership of the land he long has tilled. He thus reaps the full fruits which result from his toil and labors with the incentive of free enterprise to maximize his effort to achieve increasing production. Representing over a half of Japan’s total population, the agriculture workers have become an invincible barrier against the advance of socialistic ideas which would relegate all to the indignity of state servitude. [Address at Cleveland, Ohio, September 6, 1951.]

MacArthur, General Douglas.

Love or hate will change the aspect of justice, and an advocate retained with a large fee has an increased confidence in the right of the cause he pleads, while the assurance of his demeanour commends it to the judges, duped in their turn by appearances. How ridiculous is reason, swayed by a breath in every direction!

Blaise Pascal     The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal

The intelligent have a right over the ignorant; namely, the right of instructing them.

_Emerson._

Action is the right outlet of emotion.

_Ward Beecher._

Is it right to despair, and shall truth make us sad?

_Renan._

When are you people going to learn? It's not about who's right or wrong. No denomination's nailed it yet, and they never will because they're all too self-righteous to realize that it doesn't matter what you have faith in, just that you have faith. Your hearts are in the right place, but your brains need to wake up. I have issues with anyone who treats faith as a burden instead of a blessing. You people don't celebrate your faith; you mourn it.

Serendipity" in Dogma, by Kevin Smith

The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have receiv'd them as a fair Inheritance from our worthy Ancestors: They purchas'd them for us with toil and danger and expence of treasure and blood; and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle; or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. Of the latter we are in most danger at present: Let us therefore be aware of it. Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity; and resolve to maintain the rights bequeath'd to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. — Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance

Samuel Adams

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