“I have no right to risk. No, that's not quite correct. I have no right to failure.”

Erik (p. 92)
Phantom (1990)

Remarks at the presentation of NASA's Distinguished Service Medal to Astronaut Alan B. Shepard (8 May 1961) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=8119 — Video of presentation at YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0OurosNBFo
1961
Context: Commander Shepard has pointed out from the time that this flight began and from the time this flight was a success, that this was a common effort in which a good many men were involved. I think it does credit to him that he is associated with such a distinguished group of Americans whom we are all glad to honor today, his companions in the flight into outer space, so I think we want to give them all a hand. … I also want to take cognizance of the fact that this flight was made out in the open with all the possibilities of failure, which would have been damaging to our country's prestige. Because great risks were taken in that regard, it seems to me that we have some right to claim that this open society of ours which risked much, gained much. … This is a civilian award for a great civilian accomplishment, and therefore I want to again express my congratulations to Alan Shepard. We are very proud of him, and I speak on behalf of the Vice President, who is Chairman of our Space Council and who bears great responsibilities in this field, and the Members of the House and Senate Space Committee who are with us today. [accidentally drops the medallion, and picks it up] This decoration which has gone from the ground up — here.

The Atheist's Guide to Reality (2011)
Context: Scientism starts with the idea that the physical facts fix all the facts, including the biological ones. These in turn have to fix the human facts—the facts about us, our psychology, and our morality. After all, we are biological creatures, the result of a biological process that Darwin discovered but that the physical facts ordained. As we have just seen, the biological facts can't guarantee that our core morality (or any other one, for that matter) is the right, true, or correct one. If the biological facts can't do it, then nothing can. No moral code is right, correct, true. That's nihilism. And we have to accept it.

Source: Twitter https://twitter.com/repjohnlewis/status/1207420638748725250, (30 December 2019)

Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999, The Common Good (1998)
Context: Property rights are not like other rights, contrary to what Madison and a lot of modern political theory says. If I have the right to free speech, it doesn't interfere with your right to free speech. But if I have property, that interferes with your right to have that property, you don't have it, I have it. So the right to property is very different from the right to freedom of speech. This is often put very misleadingly about rights of property; property has no right. But if we just make sense out of this, maybe there is a right to property, one could debate that, but it's very different from other rights.

Quoted in: N.M. Kelby (2009) The Constant Art of Being a Writer, p. 102
21st Century

Source: The BFG

Source: Dark Places