Quotes about right (10000 quotes, page 53)

“She turned again, and this time she was closer. Her head nestled against my shoulder and she moved my hand up her body until I knew there was no marvel of engineering connected to the bra because there was no bra. And the studded belt she wore was the keystone to the whole ensemble, and when it was unsnapped the whole affair came apart in a whisper of black satin that folded back against the sand until all of her reflected the moonlight from above until I eclipsed the pale brilliance, and there was no sound except that of the waves and our breathing. Then soon even the waves were gone, and there was only the warmth of white skin and little muscles that played under my hand and the fragrance that was her mouth. The redhead had been right.”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

My Gun is Quick (1950)

Time

“Are you proud o' yourself, Jeff? I could have been seriously injured last week. And you got a lot of nerve faking an eye injury and leaving me to fend for myself, especially considering you're the one who injured my eye in the first place. As far as what you said earlier about me making the whole thing up, coming out here with your cute eye patch mocking me: I wanna show you something, Jeff." (takes out a little plastic jar of some sort of liquid eye medicine)
"This, is polymoxin bisulfate. I have to apply this to my eye three times a day. The only way you obtain this is with a prescription, from a doctor. Now, I know, you know a thing or two about prescription medication, but I don't think you realize is that you have to go to a doctor to legally obtain some. Unlike you, Jeff, this is the only foreign substance I will allow in my body. So if you wanna imitate me, why don't you try living a clean lifestyle? Why don't you try living, a straightedge lifestyle? "Jeff… you've got two strikes. You know how many I have? Zero. Jeff, you know how many times I've been suspended? Zero. You know how many times I've been to a rehab facility? That's right- zero. And do you know what your chances are of beating me at Night of Champions?”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

(long pause)
"Zero."
Addressing Jeff Hardy before his match with the Great Khali, both to prove that his eye injury is real (in storyline) and to drive home a point about the drug-related mistakes of Jeff's past as recently as 16 months ago. July 10, 2009.
Friday Night SmackDown

Way , Thinking , Chance , Time

“That all men are created equal does not mean that human beings are the same, or equal, in size, strength, beauty, virtue, or intelligence. There are obviously great differences in individual aptitudes and talents in sports, music, mathematics, speaking, and writing. They are also unequal in the virtues, among them courage, temperance, and justice. But as Jefferson once said, the fact that Sir Isaac Newton may be the most intelligent of living human beings does not give him any right whatever to my person or my property.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, God Bless America (2008), The American Proposition

Men , Justice , Beauty , Music

“All right, he thought, so the details were not perfect. But maybe, in a sense, that was part of the magic, too.”

Gregory Benford book Timescape

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 16 (p. 229)

Sense , Parting , Perfection

“It is easy to consider advice when it is brought forth with care, and consideration, and gentleness. Sometimes people are offended or feel manipulated if you are so blustering, you see. And it's an opportunity to be kind — you know — usually if you're giving advice, it's because you care about people and you love them. So you ought to act that way.
…
If you find yourself to be a — sort of an abrasive type of person, perhaps you might try to be gentle, because the truth is that gentleness and kindness are a lot more powerful than we are led to believe. And if you are like this, and people are telling you it doesn't work, don't listen to them — do what you know is right.”

Ysabella Brave (1979) American singer

"Being Gentle(& the haunted ice tray)" (28 October 2007) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT5fXvbVNFc

Love , People , Truth , Way

“I had seen … the mistreatment and abuse of these elephants … and I was brought to tears. When you look at something like the circus and everyone's laughing and there's color and there's music and everything seems so great, but when you go right behind that door and they're in these crates all day long and then they're getting shocked and beat just so they can get up and dance around on a ball — it was just so sickening. … Stop going to the circus, don’t buy real fur, don’t buy a dog, go rescue a dog. You can’t keep supporting people who are doing this to helpless animals, at all.”

Olivia Munn (1980) American actress, comedian, model, television personality and author

“Olivia Munn's Exclusive Interview for PETA,” video on PETA's YouTube channel (27 April 2010) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9Qcq2j2tKA.

People , Dogs , Music , Color

“Hello, my name is Zach Galifianakis, and I hope I'm pronouncing that right.”

Zach Galifianakis (1969) American actor and comedian

Live at the Purple Onion (2007)

Hope

“I’m in politics to speak up for a Canada that takes risks, that stands up for what’s right. A Canada that leads.”

Michael Ignatieff (1947) professor at Harvard Kennedy School and former Canadian politician

Canada in the World Speech, University of Ottawa (30 March 2006)

“A new fascism promises security from the terror of crime. All that is required is that we take away the criminals’ rights – which, of course, are our own. Out of our desperation and fear we begin to feel a sense of security from the new totalitarian state.”

Gerry Spence (1929) American lawyer

Source: Give Me Liberty! (1998), Ch. 26 : Free at Last, p.331

Fear , Feeling , Sense

“As a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil I know how agonizing racial feelings are. I know how difficult it is to reshape the attitudes and the structure of our society. But a century has passed, more than a hundred years, since the Negro was freed. And he is not fully free tonight. It was more than a hundred years ago that Abraham Lincoln, a great president of another party, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but emancipation is a proclamation and not a fact. A century has passed, more than a hundred years, since equality was promised. And yet the Negro is not equal. A century has passed since the day of promise. And the promise is unkept. The time of justice has now come. I tell you that I believe sincerely that no force can hold it back. It is right in the eyes of man and God that it should come. And when it does, I think that day will brighten the lives of every American.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, The American Promise (1965)

God , Justice , Feeling , Thinking

“But that has changed when a few months later during a lull in the battle of the attack on Verdun, he was telling his comrade a dirty anecdote. To his amazement, his buddy did not laugh: “Kutscher, didn’t you find that one funny?” The reaction of poor fellow to joke was no longer a laughing matter: a shrapnel of an enemy grenade struck him right into the heart - he collapsed dead to the ground. "I still see myself on the edge of the trench. A bright light, brighter than the atomic bomb struck me: he is now standing before holy God! And the next thought was: if we had sat in different arrangement, then the splinter grenade would have hit me instead, and then I would be standing face-to-face before God right now! My friend was laying dead in front of my eyes. For the first time in many years, I folded my hands and uttered a prayer, which consisted of only one sentence: "Dear God, I beg You, do not let me fall before I'll be sure not go to hell!"" A few days later, he then entered with a New Testament in the hand a broken French farmhouse, fell to his knees and prayed: Jesus! The Bible says that you have come from God in order to save sinners. I am a sinner. I cannot promise anything in the future, because I have a bad character. But I do not want to go to hell, if I get a shot. And so, Lord Jesus, I surrender myself to you from head to foot. Do with me whatever you want!"”

Wilhelm Busch (pastor) (1897–1966) German pastor and writer

Since there was no bang, no big movement, I just went out. I had found the Lord, a gentleman to whom I belonged."
Jesus Our Destiny
Source: [ВИЛЬГЕЛЬМ (Wilhelm), БУШ (Busch), Приди домой (Come home), CLV, Christliche Literatur -Verbreitung, Bielefeld, 8, 158, 1995, http://www.manna.lv/nopirkt/Pridi-domoj/389397721X.html, Russian, 3-89397-721-X, 2011-11-19]

God , Hell , Light , Change

“You can't disobey the rules every time you disapprove. However, when you're considering something that constitutes an extreme abridgement of your rights, conscience is the court of last resort.”

Mario Savio (1942–1996) American activist

Quoted in interview with Jack Fincher, "The University Has Become a Factory," Life magazine (1965-02-26).

Time

“I'm always flattered when the Leprechauns are listed in these "Top Tens" of horror characters among Freddy Kruger and Jason, which were the characters I grew up "admiring," if that's the right word.”

Warwick Davis (1970) English actor and television presenter

“Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used, and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.”

Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978) Vice-President of the USA under Lyndon B. Johnson

Quoted in Guns magazine "Know Your Lawmaker" column, p. 4. (Feb. 1960)

Freedom , Appearance

“Jesus offers his disciples a simple rule of thumb which will enable even the least sophisticated of them to tell whether his intercourse with others is on the right lines or not. All he need do is to say “I” instead of “Thou,” and put himself in the other man’s place.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Discipleship (1937), The Disciple and Unbelievers, p. 188.

“I don't think that animal rights is a political issue, as far as I'm concerned it's a humanist issue, it's an anticruelty issue… In every way, the older I get, I try to conduct my life in a way that inflicts as little pain, as little cruelty and as much kindness on anyone, and when I say anyone that means humans and nonhumans as possible.”

John Norris (reporter) (1959) American reporter

“John Norris' PSA,” video for Peta2TV at Home Nightclub in NYC (20 May 2008) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qto9f5-pr7o.

Life , Pain , Way , Thinking

“Why, if (as Boaz maintains) the liberty of a human being to own another should be trumped by equal human rights, the liberty to own large amounts of property should not also be trumped by equal human rights?”

Jeffrey Friedman (political scientist) (1959) American political scientist

Source: “What’s wrong with Libertarianism”, p. 427

“Success treads on every right step. For the instinct is sure, that prompts him to tell his brother what he thinks. He then learns, that in going down into the secrets of his own mind, he has descended into the secrets of all minds. He learns that he who has mastered any law in his private thoughts, is master to that extent of all men whose language he speaks, and of all into whose language his own can be translated.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1830s, The American Scholar http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm (1837)

Men , Secret , Law , Thinking

“Civil rights, as we may remember, are reducible to three primary heads; the right of personal security; the right of personal liberty; and the right of private property. In a state of slavery, the two last are wholly abolished, the person of the slave being at the absolute disposal of his master; and property, what he is incapable, in that state, either of acquiring, or holding, in his own use. Hence, it will appear how perfectly irreconcilable a state of slavery is to the principles of a democracy, which form the basis and foundation of our government.”

St. George Tucker (1752–1827) Bermudan lawyer and judge

A Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it, in the State of Virginia (1796)

Democracy , Appearance , Personality

“In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the State has undertaken to provide it, is a right that must be made available to all on equal terms.”

Earl Warren (1891–1974) United States federal judge

Writing for the court, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)
1950s

Life , Education

“I do not attach too much importance to what astrologers say. In my case, they have never been right. Perhaps, my birth date is inaccurate. Nobody predicted I would be prime minister. Why prime minister? Nobody even predicted I would be chief minister.”

P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921–2004) Indian politician

On his purported deep interest in astrological predictions.
While nobody was opening their mouths in other parties, mouths were wide open in the Congress

Birth

“They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the Rights of Man.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

On the Army Estimates (9 February 1790)
1790s

“I have traveled many times outside Iran, and have discussed the issue [of the Iranian nuclear project]. I have been asked for my opinion and that of the Iranian Jewish community, and I have always emphasized that the Iranian people has the right to obtain nuclear technology and energy for peaceful purposes. The Iranian people must not give up this right under any circumstances - and indeed, it will not.”

Maurice Motamed (1945) Iranian politician

Channel 2 - Iranian TV http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1006 (January 22, 2006)

People , Peace , Travel , Communication

“Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life and society and prohibits individual, political and religious rights and freedoms. Islam is not compatible with our Western civilization or democracy, nor will it ever be, because Islam doesn't want to coexist, it wants to submit and set the entire agenda. Islam means submission from muslims over non-muslims – kafirs – like you and me, so there cannot be any mistake about its goal. Islam's end goal, for all time, is to dominate, to dominate and once again dominate and establish a world ruled by Islam.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Speech held by Geert Wilders in Los Angeles (April 2009)
2000s

Life , World , Democracy , Freedom

“There is but one thing you have to be concerned about, and that is that you keep foursquare with the principles of the international Socialist movement. It is only when you begin to compromise that trouble begins. So far as I am concerned, it does not matter what others may say, or think, or do, as long as I am sure that I am right with myself and the cause. There are so many who seek refuge in the popular side of a great question. As a Socialist, I have long since learned how to stand alone.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

The Canton, Ohio Speech, Anti-War Speech (1918)

Question , Thinking , Learning

“I've got to say the soldiers in Vietnam that I was associated with in my three tours, who were pretty much front-line troops, were the best I'd ever seen on any battlefield. The soldiers were up against some incredibly difficult rules of engagement. I'll tell you a story. It's a real good story. We had some villages to run civic action and medical help in. My engineer company built a school. We were in the village of Binh My, and we got some lumber to rebuild a schoolhouse. We were about two thirds of the way completed. We had a teacher hired who was a cripple. My engineer company was bringing in the supplies in an armored personnel carrier along the little road up to the schoolhouse and they hit a mine. Luckily nobody was seriously injured. Well, the engineers went out there and fixed the armored personnel carrier, and then continued right on building the school. I went up to them and said, "You all are pretty complacent about this." And they said, "Sir, that's our job."”

George S. Patton IV (1923–2004) U.S. Army general

There's no way of telling who laid that mine. But it was someone who didn't want us to build that school. They knew we used that little trail. But we just went right on.
As quoted in The Bad War: An Oral History of the Vietnam War (1987), p. 78

School , Way , Teachers , Help

“The migration of peoples destroys Europe, but it also ruins the Third World. The shovelling of money that has lasted for half a century into a bottomless well called Africa has led to nothing but increasing misery. Half a century of cultural enrichment in Europe has led to nothing but ghettos and the unprecedented popularity of extreme right-wing parties — perhaps surprisingly, exactly where the culture has been most enriched. I believe that removing this misery is really not the objective, which would for example force the Africans to survive on their own and to strike back at their dictators, who live on “development cooperation”. The Western intellectual zeitgeist is dependent on the misery in Africa. An intellectual needs someone to pamper, because that’s what makes the intellectual necessary. The thought of an independent but truly different African is, to him, intolerable, because only a miserable, helpless and dependent (but of course, similar enough to be understandable and lovable) African offers him a chance to be “good.””

Jussi Halla-aho (1971) Finnish Slavic linguist, blogger and a politician

He can be “good” only if there is a rising mass of “evil” that is tired of the apathy and begging of the Third World.
Jussi Halla-aho (2012), published in the blog Gates of Vienna Then the Darkness Will Begin http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.fr/2012/08/then-darkness-will-begin.html, August 16, 2012. (Note: J.H-A has never published anything in the G.o.V. Translations, publications and quotations have been made by other people)
2010 -

Money , People , World , Understanding

“Through the vote, you'll change nothing in this country. Nothing, absolutely nothing. We'll only get change, unfortunately, when we go into a civil war here someday and do a work the military regime didn't do, killing as much as thirty thousand people, starting with FHC. It's all right if some innocent people die. Innocent people die in many wars.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

Referring to the then-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC) at the program Câmera Aberta at Band on 23 May 1999. O dia que Bolsonaro quis matar FHC, sonegar impostos e declarar guerra civil http://www.gazetadopovo.com.br/politica/republica/o-dia-que-bolsonaro-quis-matar-fhc-sonegar-impostos-e-declarar-guerra-civil-8mtm0u0so6pk88kqnqo0n1l69. Gazeta do Povo (10 October 2017).

War , People , Change , Country

“And I want to be there when you're coming down / And I want to be there when you hit the ground
Don't go away / Say what you say / Say that you'll stay… because I need more time just to make things right
Damn my education / I can't find the words to say
Me and you, what's going on?/All we seem to know/Is how to show, the feelings that are wrong”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

Don't Go Away
Be Here Now (1997)

Education , Feeling , Time

“No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward a time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more "modern," but more ancient than those of our Revolutionary ancestors.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Foundations of the Republic; Speeches and Addresses (1926), p. 451.
1920s

People , Truth , Idea , Time

“Our primary concern has been U. S. global policy and propaganda, and the filtering and distorting effect of Western ideology, not the problems of reconstruction and modernization in societies that have been victimized by Western imperialism. Correspondingly, we have not developed or expressed our views here on the nature of the Indochinese regimes. To assess the contemporary situation in Indochina and the programs of the current ruling groups is a worthwhile endeavor, but it has not been our current objective. […] The success of the Free Press in reconstructing imperial ideology since the U. S. withdrawal has been spectacular. The shift of the United States from causal agent to bystander – and even to leader of the struggle for human rights – in the face of its empire of client fascism and long, vicious assault on the peasant societies of Indochina, is a remarkable achievement. The system of brainwashing under freedom, with mass media voluntary self-censorship in accord with the larger interests of the state, has worked brilliantly.”

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

Source: After the Cataclysm: Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology, with Noam Chomsky, 1979, p. 299.

Nature , Problem , Freedom , Success

“As there are a very great variety of religious sects in the world (and which are probably adapted to different constitutions under different circumstances, seeing there are many good and conscientious characters in each), it is particularly recommended, as a means of uniting the inhabitants of the village into one family, that while each faithfully adheres to the principles which he most approves, at the same time all shall think charitably of their neighbours respecting their religious opinions, and not presumptuously suppose that theirs alone are right.”

Robert Owen (1771–1858) Welsh social reformer

"Rules and Regulations for the Inhabitants of New Lanark" (1800).

World , Family , Thinking , Time

“I was heavily influenced by my first attempt at a novel. I started a fantasy novel back in high school, and…. well… it really sucked. It was a plotless, clichéd mess. When I sat down to write this book, I wanted to make something much, much better. I wanted to write something that was pretty much the opposite of that first novel.
Also, I read Cyrano De Bergerac, right before I started writing the book. Cyrano's character reminded me of some important things, namely, what it really means to be a tragic hero. You don't need a lot of the cliché fantasy trappings to have that cool character.
I also read Giacomo Casanova's memoirs soon after starting this project. That opened my eyes to how interesting an autobiography could be, provided the person telling it has a way with words and has lived a sufficiently adventurous life….”

Patrick Rothfuss (1973) American fantasy writer

Interview with Fantasy Book Critic (25 May 2007) http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2007/03/interview-with-patrick-rothfuss.html

Life , Books , School , Way

“As we look back, it seems like willful blindness. The abandonment of the radical economic foundation of the women's and civil-rights movements by the conflation of causes that came to be called political correctness successfully retrained generation of activists in the politics of image, not action.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

Source: No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies 1999, Chapter Five: "The Patriarchy Gets Funky"

Women

“Bright is the ring of words
When the right man rings them.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Songs of Travel and Other Verses

No. XIV
Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896)

“My left hand is my thinking hand. The right is only a motor hand. This holds the hammer. The left hand, the thinking hand, must be relaxed, sensitive. The rhythms of thought pass through the fingers and grip of this hand into the stone. It is also a listening hand. It listens for basic weaknesses or flaws in the stone; for the possibility or imminence of fractures.”

Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) English sculptor

"Barbara Hepworth: A Pictorial Autobiography, Bath, 1971, (extended edition published 1978 and subsequently reprinted in 1985 and 1993) p. 79
1961 - 1975

Thinking

“His bow to me must have been calculated on a slide rule; it suggested that I was about to be Supreme Minister but was not quite there yet, that I was his senior but nevertheless a civilian — then subtract five degrees for the fact that he wore the Emperor’s aiguillette on his right shoulder.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Double Star

Double Star (1956)

“Brother, the Great Spirit has made us all, but He has made a great difference between His white and His red children. He has given us different complexions and different customs. To you He has given the arts. To these He has not opened our eyes. We know these things to be true. Since He has made so great a difference between us in other things, why may we not conclude that He has given us a different religion according to our understanding? The Great Spirit does right. He knows what is best for His children; we are satisfied. Brother, we do not wish to destroy your religion or take it from you. We only want to enjoy our own. … Brother, we are told that you have been preaching to the white people in this place. These people are our neighbors. We are acquainted with them. We will wait a little while and see what effect your preaching has upon them. If we find it does them good, makes them honest, and less disposed to cheat Indians, we will then consider again of what you have said.
Brother, you have now heard our answer to your talk, and this is all we have to say at present. As we are going to part, we will come and take you by the hand, and hope the Great Spirit will protect you on your journey and return you safe to your friends.”

Red Jacket

Quoted from The World’s Famous Orations, Vol. VIII., Red Jacket on the Religion of the White Man and the Red https://www.bartleby.com/268/8/3.html, Speech delivered at a council of chiefs of the Six Nations in the summer of 1805 after Mr. Cram, a missionary, had spoken of the work he proposed to do among them.

Children , People , Religion , Hope

“Do what is right, though the world may perish.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

This is quoted as Kant in Building Academic Language: Essential Practices for Content Classrooms, Grades 5-12 (2007) by Jeff Zwiers, p. 202, but apparently derives from Kant's arguments in support of the far older Latin proverb Fiat iustitia, pereat mundus — "Do what is right though the world should perish." which was the subject of an essay: "Kant on the Maxim 'Do What Is Right Though the World Should Perish'" by Sissela Bok, in Argumentation 2 (February 1988). There was also a similar latin proverb Fiat iustitia ruat caelum — Let justice be done though the heavens fall.
Misattributed

World

“The worldly-minded … were unable to see why God should not give men their due if men, on their part, fulfilled their obligations. … A new man had emerged. He was demanding his rights; he was conscious of his importance. As he was before men, so would he be before God. What he had acquired materially or morally was his own, his very own, and neither king nor God might dispute his possession with him. He loved his God as he loved his king, but on condition that both respected his rights.”

Bernard Groethuysen (1880–1946) French literary historian, translator and writer

Source: The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927), p. 89

Love , Men , God , Parting

“I was so sentimental about you I'd break any one's heart for you. My, I was a damned fool. I broke my own heart, too. It's broken and gone. Everything I believe in and everything I cared about I left for you because you were so wonderful and you loved me so much that love was all that mattered. Love was the greatest thing, wasn't it? Love was what we had that no one else had or could ever have? And you were a genius and I was your whole life. I was your partner and your little black flower. Slop. Love is just another dirty lie. Love is ergoapiol pills to make me come around because you were afraid to have a baby. Love is that quinine and quinine and quinine until I'm deaf with it. Love is that dirty aborting horror that you took me to. Love is my insides all messed up. Its half atheters and half whirling douches. I know about love. Love always hangs up behind the bathroom door. It smells like Lysol. To hell with love. Love is you making me happy and then going off to sleep with your mouth open while I lie awake all night afraid to say my prayers even because I know I have no right to any more. Love is all the dirty little tricks you taught me that you probably got out of some book. All right. I'm through with you and I'm through with love. Your kind of picknose love.”

Ernest Hemingway book To Have and Have Not

Helen Gordon to her husband Richard Gordon in Ch. 21
To Have and Have Not (1937)

Love , Life , Lie , Books

“We conclude that about nineteen out of every twenty individuals have ‘a natural and inalienable right’ to be taken care of and protected; to have guardians, trustees, husbands, or masters; in other words, they have the natural and inalienable right to be slaves.”

George Fitzhugh (1806–1881) American activist

Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), pp. 102-103

Nature

“The grand design of nature perceived broadly in four dimensions, including the forces that move the universe and created man, with special focus on evolution in our own biosphere, is something intrinsically good that it is right to preserve and enhance, and wrong to destroy and degrade.”

Roger Wolcott Sperry (1913–1994) American neuroscientist

Source: Science and the Problem of Values (1972), p. 127

Nature , Universe

“When did an old white guy yelling at me, telling me what to think become news? What gives him the right to tell me what to think? When was the last time he was in Iraq or Afghanistan or Sri Lanka… or anywhere that didn't have a beach?”

Lisa Ling (1973) American journalist, television presenter, and author

Syracuse University speech, April 19, 2006. http://blogs.mediavillage.com/tv_maven/archives/2006/04/lisa_ling_on_th.html

Guy , Thinking , Time

“If you annoy the Hog-nosed Snake enough, he will roll over on his back and play dead. If you turn him right-side up, he will roll over to prove that he is dead. [Footnote:] While he is playing dead, you can go straight up to him and step on his head or smash him with a big club.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Hog-Nosed Snake
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Dead

“Honest and sincere people contribute in guaranteeing conviviality, freedom and stability. Religious teachings help in promoting and reinforcing ethics, respect, nobility, generosity, modesty, love and rightness.”

Youssef Bey Karam (1823–1889) Lebanese rebel

Youssef Bey Karam Foundation

Love , People , Freedom , Help

“When it comes right down to physical war and bloodshed, governments don’t protect people; people protect governments.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 180

War , People

“That spirit I have faith will prevail. America is not going to abandon its principles or desert its ideals. The foundation on which they are built will remain firm. I believe that the principle which your organization represents is their main support. It seems to me perfectly plain that the authority of law, the right to equality, liberty and property, under American institutions, have for their foundation reverence for God. If we could imagine that to be swept away, these institutions of our American government could not long survive. But that reverence will not fail. It will abide. Unnumbered organizations of which your own is one exist for its promotion. In the inevitable longing of the human soul to do right is the secure guarantee of our American institutions. By maintaining a society to promote reverence for the Holy Name you are performing both a pious and a patriotic service.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)

God , Faith , Law , Soul

“In the progress of mankind, the few have been the nearest right. There have been centuries in which the light seemed to emanate only from a handful of men, while the rest of the world was enveloped in darkness. Some great man leads the way—he becomes the morning star, the prophet of a coming day. Afterward, many millions accept his views. But there are still heights above and beyond; there are other pioneers, and the old day, in comparison with the new, becomes a night. So, we cannot say that success demonstrates either divine origin or supernatural aid.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Rome, or Reason? A Reply to Cardinal Manning. Part I. The North American Review (1888)

Men , World , Way , Star

“Hey mama, don't you treat me wrong,
Come and love your daddy all night long.
All right now, hey hey, all right.
See the girl with the diamond ring;
She knows how to shake that thing.
All right now now now, hey hey, hey hey.
Tell your mama, tell your pa,
I'm gonna send you back to Arkansas.
Oh yes, ma'm, you don't do right, don't do right.”

Ray Charles (1930–2004) American musician

"What'd I Say", from the album What'd I Say (1957)

Love , Girl , Night

“I've looked right through the Bible, start to finish, looking for the bit saying 'Jesus was the mind behind Ikea', then there's no evidence to suggest this at all.”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

6 Music Show

“He grunted with satisfaction. The feel of the hilt cheered him and gave him a glow of confidence. Whatever webs of conspiracy were drawn about him, whatever trickery and treachery ensnared him, this knife was real. The great muscles of his right arm swelled in anticipation of murderous blows.”

Robert E. Howard book The Hour of the Dragon

The Hour of the Dragon (1935-1936)

Feeling , Confidence

“In a world where nobody understood the viewpoint of the victim, we would all be right to side with the victim. But we live in a world where almost nobody 'comes out' as a Pharisee or a hypocrite, and it seems to me that the way to moral learning proceeds in that direction.”

James Alison (1959) Christian theologian, priest

Source: Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (2001), " The man blind from birth and the Creator's subversion of sin http://girardianlectionary.net/res/fbr_ch-1_john9.htm", p. 19.

World , Way , Learning

“I finished by saying that it struck me that all the ethical systems I was discussing were after the fact. That is, that people act as they are disposed to, but they like to feel afterwards that they were right and so they invent systems that approve of their dispositions.”

Alexei Panshin book Rite of Passage

Source: Rite of Passage (1968), Chapter 12 (p. 166).

People , Feeling

“A democratic government that respects no limits on its power is a ticking time bomb, waiting to destroy the rights it was created to protect.”

James Bovard (1956) American journalist

JimBovard.com http://www.jimbovard.com/

Time , Waiting

“The American is marked, in fact, by precisely the habits of mind and act that one would look for in a man insatiably ambitious and yet incurably fearful, to wit, the habits, on the one hand, of unpleasant assertiveness, of somewhat boisterous braggardism, of incessant pushing, and, on the other hand, of conformity, caution and subservience. He is forever talking of his rights as if he stood ready to defend them with his last drop of blood, and forever yielding them up at the first demand.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

The American Credo: A Contribution toward the Interpretation of the National Mind (1920)
1920s

Fear

“No right was deemed by the fathers of the Government more sacred than the right of speech. It was in their eyes, as in the eyes of all thoughtful men, the great moral renovator of society and government. Daniel Webster called it a homebred right, a fireside privilege. Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason of righteousness, temperance, and of a judgment to come in their presence. Slavery cannot tolerate free speech. Five years of its exercise would banish the auction block and break every chain in the South. They will have none of it there, for they have the power. But shall it be so here?”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1880s, Plea for Free Speech in Boston (1880)

Men , Exercises

“Element had an existence from the time he [God] had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning, and can have no end.... [T]he mind of man — the immortal spirit. Where did it come from? All learned men and doctors of divinity say that God created it in the beginning; but it is not so: the very idea lessens man in my estimation. I do not believe the doctrine; I know better. Hear it, all ye ends of the world; for God has told me so... We say that God himself is a self-existent being. Who told you so? It is correct enough; but how did it get into your heads? Who told you that man did not exist in like manner upon the same principles? Man does exist upon the same principles. God made a tabernacle and put a spirit into it, and it became a living soul.... The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is [co-eternal] with God himself. I know that my testimony is true... Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it had a beginning? The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither will it have an end. That is good logic. That which has a beginning may have an end. There never was a time when there were not spirits; for they are [co-eternal] with our Father in heaven.... I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man—the immortal part, because it has no beginning. Suppose you cut it in two; then it has a beginning and an end; but join it again, and it continues one eternal round. So with the spirit of man. As the Lord liveth, if it had a beginning, it will have an end. All the fools and learned and wise men from the beginning of creation, who say that the spirit of man had a beginning, prove that it must have an end; and if that doctrine is true, then the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But if I am right, I might with boldness proclaim from the house-tops that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself.”

Joseph Smith, Jr. book History of the Church

History of the Church, 6:308-309 (7 April 1844)
1840s, King Follett discourse (1844)

Men , God , World , Fools

“If you don't have the right things, you improvise. the wrong things become necessary. Then the necessary things turn out to be the only right things, simply because they're what you have.”

Herta Müller book The Hunger Angel

Source: The Hunger Angel (2012), p. 6

“Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax.…You need to have fear. You needed to have the fear of starvation. You needed to have the fear of the whole place going to hell in a handbasket. Which — do we have that fear now with global warming?…Then you have to discredit the scientists that say "That's not right." And you must silence all dissenting voices. That's what Hitler did. That's what Al Gore, the U. N., and everybody on the global warming bandwagon”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

are doing
Beck said Gore using "same tactic" in fight against global warming as Hitler did against Jews
Media Matters for America
2007-05-01
http://mediamatters.org/items/200705010003
The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2007-04-30
on the film An Inconvenient Truth, which documents a keynote presentation by Al Gore about climate change
2000s

Fear , Hell , Silence

“You don't know what these beans are, said the man [that Jack meets]. If you plant them overnight, by morning they grew right up to the sky.”

Joseph Jacobs book English Fairy Tales

English Fairy Tales (1890), Preface to English Fairy Tales, Jack and the Beanstalk

“There is no doubt that (homosexuality) challenges, if you like, orthodox notions of the right order of things”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

2010

“I don't care what's right or wrong,
I don't try to understand,
Let the devil take tomorrow,
Lord tonight I need a friend.”

Kris Kristofferson (1936) American country music singer, songwriter, musician, and film actor

Help Me Make It Through the Night
Song lyrics, Kristofferson (1970)

Understanding

“So raise your glass if you are wrong in all the right ways,
All my underdogs.
We will never be, never be anything but loud
And "Nitty-Gritty",
Dirty little freaks.
Won't you come and come and
Raise your glass!
Just come on and come on and
Raise your glass.”

Pink (singer) (1979) American singer-songwriter

Raise Your Glass, written by Pink, Max Martin, and Shellback
Song lyrics, Greatest Hits... So Far!!! (2010)

Way

“The Stalinism that followed the totalitarian intimations of Lenin's Russia, was not only totalitarian, it was infused by an ‘almost fascist-like chauvinism,’ together with a ‘bureaucratization, absence of democracy, censorship, police repression,’ and, as has been suggested, by an irrepressible and increasingly intrusive anti-Semitism. By the mid-1990s, it was increasingly acknowledged that left-wing totalitarianism more and more began to resemble right-wing totalitarianism.”

A. James Gregor (1929–2019) American political scientist

Source: The Faces of Janus: Marxism and Fascism in the Twentieth Century, (2000), p. 7

Democracy

“Human dignity is the source of all human rights, which, since 1945, have expanded into an international human rights treaty regime, many aspects of which have become customary international law.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

2018, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council

Law

“If Might made Right, life were a wild-beasts' cage;
If Right made Might, this were the golden age;
But now, until we win the long campaign,
Right must gain Might to conquer and to reign.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

Might and Right (July 1, 1915).

Life , Age

“Jack: [out of shot] Darn right I am.”

Jack Benny (1894–1974) comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor

The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)

“We humans who art on Earth, humanity is special, our kingdom has come. Do what we innately know to be right, on Earth because that's all there is. Share the bread we have, try not to screw up. When others screw up, understand. We can't have everything that tempts us (Unless we work in international finance). Deliver ourselves from evil because this is it. The Earth, the power to do right, and the glory that will come if we do is ours, now and forever. Hu-man.”

Marcus Brigstocke (1973) comedian

The Now Show

Art , Understanding , Evil

“I notice from the papers and on television today that the Tories have now brought in a new person to get people to vote Tory, and I could not help noticing that the person is named, as I saw on the website, "Mr. Tosser". I do not know which person on the Front Bench this man is modelled on, but let me tell the right hon. Gentleman that I always thought that his party was full of them, and that is why they have lost three elections.”

John Prescott (1938) Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1997–2007)

Statement in the House of Commons (29 November 2006)

People , Help , Personality

“We used to have a view that to really be a good Australian, to love Australia, you almost had to cut your links with the country of origin. But I don’t think that was right and it never was right.”

Malcolm Fraser (1930–2015) Australian politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Australia

Malcolm Fraser, at the opening of the Special Broadcasting Service in Oct. 1980. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/deakin/stories/s295948.htm

Love , Thinking , Country

“This war, let it be long or let it be short, let it cost much or let it cost little… shall not cease until every freedman at the South has the right to vote.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, What the Black Man Wants (1865)

War

“I'm doin' radio and there's a bag in front of me on the console that says 'Butt Stink' on it. Somethin' ain't right.”

April Winchell (1960) American voice actor and writer

KFI-Los Angeles radio broadcast, January 28, 2001, 10:00 p.m. hour.

“Dialogue: In dialogue, it does not matter whether you are a winner or loser, neither the opponent is right or wrong; the important thing is how you could realise and live the truth peacefully.”

Thich Nhat Tu (1969) Vietnamese philosopher

Buddhist Socteriological Ethics: A Study of the Buddha’s Central Teachings (1999)

Truth

“Ressentiment must therefore be strongest in a society like ours, where approximately equal rights (political and otherwise) or formal social equality, publicly recognized, go hand in hand with wide factual differences in power, property, and education.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1973), p. 50

Education

“A Bedouin came and said, "O Allah's Apostle! Judge between us according to Allah's Laws." His opponent got up and said, "He is right. Judge between us according to Allah's Laws." The Bedouin said, "My son was a laborer working for this man, and he committed illegal sexual intercourse with his wife. The people told me that my son should be stoned to death; so, in lieu of that, I paid a ransom of one hundred sheep and a slave girl to save my son. Then I asked the learned scholars who said, "Your son has to be lashed one-hundred lashes and has to be exiled for one year." The Prophet said, "No doubt I will judge between you according to Allah's Laws. The slave-girl and the sheep are to go back to you, and your son will get a hundred lashes and one year exile."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

He then addressed somebody, "O Unais! go to the wife of this (man) and stone her to death" So, Unais went and stoned her to death.
Narrated Abu Huraira and Zaid bin Khalid Al-Juhani [3, 49, 860]
Sunni Hadith

Death , People , Law , Girl

“I first read his book Orthodoxy at a time when I was living on a sailboat in a quiet creek off the Potomac River right after college graduation. He seemed to view faith as a romantic adventure and the universe as a wild fairy tale. Chesterton looks at the world in the most beautiful way. He was also a journalist and philosopher who wrote an essay on “The Tyranny of Bad Journalism.” He died long before online video, but I think he would advocate new, creative methods to revolutionize the practice of journalism.”

James O'Keefe (1984) American conservative filmmaker

Changing the World by the Time He’s 30 http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/changing_the_world_by_the_time_hes_30 (March 31, 2010)

Books , World , Faith , Beauty

“.. I also got to meet w:George Maciunas, the father of Fluxus. I wanted to know what this Fluxus was, so I asked him, 'If I put salt in a tea bag and then into hot water, then the salt will dissolve, and when you pull the bag up, there is nothing in it. Is that Fluxus?' 'Let’s make that one right away,' Maciunas replied. And it became a Fluxus object. I told him that I was a painter and that I would keep painting. 'Well,' he said, 'that doesn’t matter, as long as you do it the right way.”

Per Kirkeby (1938–2018) Danish artist

Getting to know him, I understood that the right way was with a certain sense of justice.
1995 and later, interview in Kirkeby’s home studio, Copenhagen (2012)

Justice , Way , Sense , Water

“Jake jerked a thumb at the door. "Al right. Get the hell out of here, and take all your pictures of naked women with you." "Yes, sir." Chuckling, Potter scooped up the folder of reconnaissance photos and started out. He paused with his hand on the doorknob. "Good luck," he said. "You've done everything you could to get us ready, but we'll still need it." "I'll put in a fresh requisition with the Quartermaster Corps," Jake said. Potter nodded and left. Jake shook his head in bemusement. He might have made stupid jokes like that with Ferd Koenig and a couple of other old-time Party buddies, but not with anybody else. So why make them with Potter? But he didn't need long to find the answer. He'd known Potter longer than he'd known Koenig or any of the other Party men. They'd both hung tough when the Army of Northern Virginia was falling to pieces all around them. If the president of the greatest country in North America- no, in the world!”

Harry Turtledove book American Empire: The Victorious Opposition

couldn't joke around with the one man who'd known him when he was just a sergeant, with whom could he joke? Nobody. Nobody at all.
Source: American Empire: The Victorious Opposition (2003), p. 533

Women , Men , Stupidity , World

“And he looks down where the soil has been dug and there's a sparkle, and there's a glint in the morning light, and he reaches down and he picks it up with his stubby dirty fingers, and the last thing in the world he might have expected, and here is this, this speck of the future, this tiny little shock that's going to reverberate right to today -- literally till now! He picks it up, and he says, you know, he says, 'My God!”

J. S. Holliday (1924–2006) American historian

And he yells out, he said, 'My God, I think I've found gold!'
About James W. Marshall discovering gold in 1848
The West (1996)

God , World , Thinking , Light

“I think, fundamentally music is something inherently people love and need and relate to, and a lot of what's out right now feels like McDonalds. It's quick-fix. You kind of have a stomachache afterwards. It's not wholly satisfying. And it's fake. I would hope that the music that inspired me, that got me going, that talked to me, felt like it was coming from some place that had some true emotion and true integrity behind it. I think that can reemerge.”

Trent Reznor (1965) American musician

Tribune Interview https://web.archive.org/web/20131216215825/http://www.sltrib.com/themix/ci_3069586 (29 September 2005).

Love , People , Hope , Music

“It seemed to me that I had no right to burn a book I hadn't even read.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934), A Cold Day

Books , Reading

“And then, for an old man like me, it's not exactly right,
This kind o' playing soldier with no enemy in sight.”

Bret Harte (1836–1902) American author and poet

East and West Poems, Part I, The Old Major Explains.

“What mathematics, therefore are expected to do for the advanced student at the university, Arithmetic, if taught demonstratively, is capable of doing for the children even of the humblest school. It furnishes training in reasoning, and particularly in deductive reasoning. It is a discipline in closeness and continuity of thought. It reveals the nature of fallacies, and refuses to avail itself of unverified assumptions. It is the one department of school-study in which the sceptical and inquisitive spirit has the most legitimate scope; in which authority goes for nothing. In other departments of instruction you have a right to ask for the scholar’s confidence, and to expect many things to be received on your testimony with the understanding that they will be explained and verified afterwards. But here you are justified in saying to your pupil “Believe nothing which you cannot understand. Take nothing for granted.” In short, the proper office of arithmetic is to serve as elementary 268 training in logic. All through your work as teachers you will bear in mind the fundamental difference between knowing and thinking; and will feel how much more important relatively to the health of the intellectual life the habit of thinking is than the power of knowing, or even facility of achieving visible results. But here this principle has special significance. It is by Arithmetic more than by any other subject in the school course that the art of thinking—consecutively, closely, logically—can be effectually taught.”

Joshua Girling Fitch (1824–1903) British educationalist

Source: Lectures on Teaching, (1906), pp. 292-293.

Life , Children , Health , School

“Never penalize those who work for us for mistakes or reward them for being right about markets. It will go to their heads, is counterproductive and, in any event, material compensation will not correlate with their ability to predict the future next time.”

Eugene Rotberg (1930)

“'The only perfect hedge is a Japanese garden': Speech to the National Association of Corporate Treasurers." http://www.generotberg.com/speeches/1990s/The%20Only%20Perfect%20Hedge%20is%20a%20Japanese%20Garden.pdf. (1990)

Time , Future

“When the government grants preferences on the basis of race, it teaches the people that discrimination is acceptable. Our laws must reflect the principle that the government discrimination on the basis of race or sex is not to be tolerated. Americans look to our government to exemplify what is right and just. So long as the federal government recognizes people as unequal under the law, we cannot achieve the fundamental truth the American people already know: we are all entitled to equal protection of the law. This legislation will ensure that the federal government leads the way in respecting this basic American principle.”

Charles T. Canady (1954) American politician and judge

The Civil Rights Act of 1997 http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/the-civil-rights-act-of-1997 (December 1, 1997)

People , Truth , Law , Sex

“Rush Limbaugh, who has made a career preaching that anybody who does drugs has got to go right to jail -- do not pass go, no questions asked, right to jail -- gets caught doing thirty oxycontin a day. Thirty oxycontin?! Do you have any idea how high that is?! I don't, and I've been pretty high!”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

I'm Swiss (2005)

Idea , Question

“Jewish morality fatally, has two morals from the same fundamental dogmas of the Jewish religion, considering themselves a "chosen people" - and all other people as "goyim" (Gentiles), unbelievers, inferior beings with no rights and related to animals. It results from this, the neighbor, for Jews, is only a Jew, which is the only one to which he has moral duties. But when compared to those of other faiths - no one. This concept is found clearly expressed in the Bible…”

A.C. Cuza (1857–1947) Romanian politician

From Naţionalitatea în artă ("Nationality in Art"), Bucureşti: Cartea Romaneasca, 1905.

People , Faith , Religion , Animals

“Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you.”

Bill Bryson book A Short History of Nearly Everything

Page 3
A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003)

Life , Fate , Mountain , Time

“In fundamental theory socialism and democracy are almost if not quite one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members. Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

“Socialism and Democracy,” essay published in The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Arthur S. Link, ed., Vol. 5, Princeton University Press, 1968, pp. 559-62, (first published, August 22, 1887)
1880s

Men , Democracy , Communication

“Once in a while, you get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if you look at it right.”

Robert Hunter (1941–2019) American musician

"Scarlet Begonias"
Song lyrics, (1974)

Light

“Let me tell you what is coming. After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives, you may win Southern independence if God be not against you, but I doubt it. I tell you that, while I believe with you in the doctrine of states rights, the North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche; and what I fear is, they will overwhelm the South.”

Sam Houston (1793–1863) nineteenth-century American statesman, politician, and soldier, namesake of Houston, Texas

As quoted in Sam Houston (2004), by James Haley, University of Oklahoma Press, p. 397
1860s

God , People , Fear , Perseverance

“Of course I want that gold belt. Don’t tell me that gold belt sitting up here right now on this table would not look great along side this ivory, elephant-trunk suit that I have got on me right now. It would look perfect.”

Conor McGregor (1988) Irish mixed martial artist and boxer

UFC 178 post-event press conference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAAC34JzxS0 (September 2014), Ultimate Fighting Championship, Zuffa, LLC
2010s, 2014

Perfection

“It is no longer true in the sense in which it was true when these dicta were uttered, that " Christianity is part of the law of the land." Nonconformists and Jews were then under penal laws, and were hardly allowed civil rights. But now, so far as I know the law, a Jew might be Lord Chancellor. Certainly he might be Master of the Rolls, and the great Judge whose loss we have all had to deplore2 might have had to try such a case, and if the view of the law supposed be correct, he would have had to tell the jury, perhaps partly composed of Jews, that it was blasphemy to deny that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, which he himself did deny, and which Parliament has allowed him to deny, and which it was part of " the law of the land " that he might, deny.”

John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge (1820–1894) British lawyer, judge and Liberal politician

Reg. v. Ramsay and Foote (1883), 15 Cox, C. C. 235.

Law , Sense , Loss , Christ

“Could it be that people accept evolution because […. ] They know that evolution is the only philosophy that can be used to justify their political agenda of: i. Communism, ii. Racism, iii. Abortion, iv. Nazism, v. Socialism, vi. Gay rights, vii. Women's liberation, viii. Extreme environmentalism, ix. Euthanasia, x. Pornography, xi. Humanism, xii. New Age Movement.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution (1996)

Women , People , Age , Communication

“There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), History

Men , Feeling , Understanding , Thinking

“I remember we adjourned for lunch and a friendly Afrikaner warder asked me the question, "Mandela, what do you think is going to happen to you in this case?" I said to him, "Agh, they are going to hang us." Now, I was really expecting some word of encouragement from him. And I thought he was going to say, "Agh man, that can never happen." But he became serious and then he said, "I think you are right, they are going to hang you."”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

Interview segment http://www.radiodiaries.org/mandela/t_movement.html on All Things Considered (NPR) broadcast (27 April 2004)
2000s

Question , Thinking

“This conduct is right in the strike zone of the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Russ Feingold (1953) Wisconsin politician; three-term U.S. Senator

On the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance under President George W. Bush, in [O'Keefe, Ed, Feingold Calls for Bush's Censure, https://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/Politics/story?id=1715495&page=1, 20 August 2018, ABC News, March 12, 2006]
2006

“[T]he assumption describes our actions, not our thoughts. If you had to understand something intellectually in order to do it, none of us would be able to walk.
Economics is based on the assumption that people have reasonably simple objectives and choose means to achieve them. Both assumptions are false-but useful.
Suppose someone is rational only half the time. Since there is generally one right way of doing things and many wrong ways, the rational behavior can be predicted but the irrational cannot. If we assume he is rational, we predict his behavior correctly about half of the tie - far from perfect, but a lot better then nothing. If I could do well at the racetrack I would be a very rich man.
[R]ationality is an assumption I make about other people. I know myself.
[R]ationality is an assumption I make about other people. I know myself well enough to allow for the consequences of my own irrationality. But for the vast mass of my fellow humans, about whom I know very little, rationality is the best predictive assumption available.”

David D. Friedman (1945) American economist, physicist, legal scholar, and libertarian theorist

As cited in Ronald J. Baker (2010) Implementing Value Pricing: A Revolutionary Business Model for Professional Firms. p. 122
Source: Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life, 1996, pp.3-5

People , Way , Behavior , Understanding

“Abraham teaches us the right way of conversing with God: "And Abraham fell on his face, and God talked with him." When we plead with Him, our faces should be in the dust.”

Richard Cecil (clergyman) (1748–1810) British Evangelical Anglican priest and social reformer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 332.

God , Way

Quotes about right page 53

Quotes about right
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