Quotes about right
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“People work too hard to figure out the meaning of their lives. Why me, why now. The truth is, sometimes things don't happen to you for a reason. Sometimes it's just about being in the right place at the right time for someone else.”

Jodi Picoult book Second Glance

Source: Second Glance

People, Truth, Time

“Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

World, Sport, Fight

“I know what we do is right but right doesn't always mean easy.”

Christopher Paolini book Brisingr

Source: Brisingr

“Depression on my left, Loneliness on my right. They don't need to show me thier badges. I know these guys very well.”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

Guy, Loneliness

“Warning: Do not read this story right after eating. In fact, don't read it right before eating either. In fact, just to be safe, don't read this story if you're ever planning to eat again.”

Louis Sachar (1954) American writer of children's books

Source: Wayside School Is Falling Down

Reading

“Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.”

Laurens van der Post (1906–1996) South African writer

“People destined to meet will do so, apparently by chance, at precisely the right moment.”

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

People, Chance

“Bat, pigeon, ravens - I don't care about distinctions right now. Any fluttery, flappy thing is not cool with me.”

P. C. Cast book Hunted

Source: Hunted

“Faithfulness is not doing something right once but doing something right over and over and over and over.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Faith

“I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Peeta Mellark to Katniss, p. 245
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire (2009)

“One of the things forgotten about the human spirit is that while it is, in the right conditions, noble and brave and wonderful, it is also, when you get right down to it, only human.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

“The principle of democracy is a recognition of the sovereign, inalienable rights of man as a gift from God, the Source of law.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Whence Come Wars (1940), p. 60

God, Law, Democracy

“My father always said I would do something big one day. he’d tell me, after he’d had a few beers. And he was right, my old man.

I was in prison before my eighteenth birthday.”

Ozzy Osbourne book I Am Ozzy

Source: I Am Ozzy

Birthday, Beer

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1964)
Context: I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
Context: I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Love, Truth, Reality, Evil

“Beliefs are the roads we take to our dreams. Believe you can do something-or believe you can't-and you'll be right everytime.”

Jodi Picoult book Sing You Home

Source: Sing You Home

Dreams

“Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Music

“You speak from your heart, young Firepaw. This will make you a stronger warrior one day." said Lionheart
Tigerclaw growled. "Or it might make him give in to kittypet weakness right at the moment of attack”

Erin Hunter

Source: Into the Wild

Heart

“‎"Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Feeling

“Extremism is so easy. You've got your position, and that's it. It doesn't take much thought. And when you go far enough to the right you meet the same idiots coming around from the left.

(Interview,, February 20, 2005)”

Clint Eastwood (1930) actor and director from the United States

“Well, some people say I'm pessimistic because I recognize the eternal cycle of evil. All I say is, look at the history of mankind right up to this moment and what do you find?”

Wole Soyinka (1934) Nigerian writer

People, History, Evil

“For the coming of that day shall I fight, I and my sons and my chosen friends. For the freedom of Man. For his rights. For his life. For his honor.”

Ayn Rand book Anthem

Source: Anthem

Life, Freedom, Fight

“I feel shame, not for the wrong things I have done, but for the right things that I have failed to do.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

Feeling

“Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.”

Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly

God, Nature, Personality

“Oh, always all right. You remember that. We happen to other people.
-Nanny Ogg”

Terry Pratchett book Carpe Jugulum

Source: Carpe Jugulum

People

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't — you're right.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Thinking, Success, Inspirational, Life

“He only has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Original quote from William Penn (1693): They have a Right to censure, that have a Heart to help: The rest is Cruelty, not Justice.
Misattributed

Help, Heart

“It is a better world. A place where we ate responsible for our actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and becauseit is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment.”

Christopher Paolini book Eldest

Source: Eldest

World

“The next message you need is always right where you are.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

Peaceful

“If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it you almost don't have to manage them.”

Jack Welch (1935) American executive: General Electric CEO

People

“And as for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Variant: Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.
Source: Letters to a Young Poet

Life

“Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.”

Anthony Trollope book The Way We Live Now

Source: The Way We Live Now, ch. 84. (1875)

Love

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "The Land Ethic", p. 224-225.
Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There
Context: Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

Beauty, Communication

“Since 2001, the U. S. government has abandoned its role as a champion of human rights and has perpetrated terrible and illegal abuses in prisons in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, sent prisoners secretly to other nations to be tortured, denied the applicability of the Geneva Convention restraints, and severely restricted time-honored civil liberties within our own country. Certain political leaders of other nations, who are inclined to perpetrate human rights abuses to quiet dissenting voices and were previously restrained by positive influence from Washington, now feel free to emulate or exceed the abuses approved by American leaders.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope

Feeling, Time, Country

“Reading in bed can be heaven, assuming you can get just the right amount of light on the page and aren't prone to spilling your coffee or cognac on the sheets.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Coffee, Light, Reading

“Everything that ever happened to you, you experienced right within you. Light and darkness, pain and pleasure, agony and ecstasy—all of it happened within you. If someone touches your hand right now, you may think you are experiencing their hand, but the fact of the matter is you are only experiencing the sensations in your own hand. The whole experience is contained within. All human experience is one hundred percent self-created.”

Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Pain, Pleasure, Thinking, Light

“Fear is such a powerful emotion for humans that when we allow it to take us over, it drives compassion right out of our hearts.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Fear, Heart

“The one distinct feature of our Association has been the right of the individual opinion for every member.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

A defense http://www.thelizlibrary.org/undelete/library/library005.html of Elizabeth Cady Stanton against a motion to repudiate her Woman's Bible at a meeting of the National-American Woman Suffrage Association 1896 Convention, HWS, IV (1902), p. 263 <br class="br">Context: The one distinct feature of our Association has been the right of the individual opinion for every member. We have been beset at every step with the cry that somebody was injuring the cause by the expression of some sentiments that differed with those held by the majority of mankind. The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their own desires.

“It's hard to explain," said Brutha. "But I think it's got something to do with how people should behave… you should do things because they're right. Not because gods say so. They might say something different another time.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

God, People, Thinking, Time

“You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know from experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View (1908), Ch. 19
Context: It isn’t possible to love and to part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know from experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.

Love

“To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”

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

A Plea For Free Speech in Boston (10 December 1860), as contained in Words That Changed America https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1461748917, Alex Barnett, Rowman & Littlefield (reprint, 2006), p. 156 <br class="br">1860s

“There's nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

World, Happy

“Don't get it right, just get it written.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

"The Sheep in Wolf's Clothing", The New Yorker (29 April 1939); Fables for Our Time & Famous Poems Illustrated (1940). The moral is ironic with respect to the fable, in which sheep do insufficient research before writing about wolves, resulting in the sheep being easy prey.
From Fables for Our Time and Further Fables for Our Time
Variant: Don't get it right, just get it written.

“What we would like to do is change the world--make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute--the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words--we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

Love, God, People, World

“The Right Hon. was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say `When!”

P.G. Wodehouse book Very Good, Jeeves

Very Good, Jeeves (1930)

Clothes

“The trouble about jumping was that if you didn't pick the right number of storeys, you might still be alive when you hit bottom.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

“intuition is always right in at least two important ways;
It is always in response to something.
it always has your best interest at heart”

Gavin de Becker (1954) American engineer

Source: The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Way, Heart

“To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Art, Way

“I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Way, Animals

“He’d always felt he had a right to exist as a wizard in the same way that you couldn’t do proper maths without the number 0, which wasn’t a number at all but, if it went away, would leave a lot of larger numbers looking bloody stupid.”

Terry Pratchett book Interesting Times

Source: Interesting Times

Stupidity, Way

“Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

To the Young People's Society, Greenpoint Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn (February 16, 1901).
Variant: Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.

“And when you're alone there's a very good chance
you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Source: Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Chance

“You have everything you need for complete peace and total happiness right now.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Happiness, Peace

“It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.”

Louis Sachar (1954) American writer of children's books

“She wants to be polite and not hurt your feelings, so she's not going to laugh right now. But inside, inside she's laughing.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Last Stand of Dead Men

Feeling, Hurt

“The use of self control is like the use of brakes on train. It is useful when you find yourself in wrong direction but merely harmful when the direction is right”

Bertrand Russell book Marriage and Morals

Source: Marriage and Morals

Training

“Nature does not make mistakes. Right and wrong are human categories.”

Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer

Nature

“The world is right because I feel good.
p. 83, Awareness, copyright 1990”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

World, Feeling

“I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent life and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect.”

Temple Grandin (1947) USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist

Life, Death, Food, Thinking

“They done
Wrong
Like ink from a busted pen
Thrown away 'cause of someone else
Used up
But he come back
Dressed in night
Fine as a king
With his queen
The wrong
Made right
So right.”

Kristin Cast book Hunted

Source: Hunted

Night

“You cannot have the right to do what is wrong!”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

“A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

“I will simply express my strong belief, that that point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to resist its desires and inclinations, until they are proved to be right, is the most important of all, not only in things of natural philosophy, but in every department of daily life.”

Michael Faraday (1791–1867) English scientist

Life, Education, Nature, Strong

“There’s nothing quite as frightening as someone who knows they are right.”

Michael Faraday (1791–1867) English scientist

“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Time

“A visiting pastor at our church in Plains once told a story about a priest from New Orleans. Father Flanagan’s parish lay in the central part of the city, close to many taverns. One night he was walking down the street and saw a drunk thrown out of a pub. The man landed in the gutter, and Father Flanagan quickly recognized him as one of his parishioners, a fellow named Mike. Father Flanagan shook the dazed man and said, “Mike!” Mike opened his eyes and Father Flanagan said, “You’re in trouble. If there is anything I can do for you, please tell me what it is.ℍ “Well, Father,” Mike replied, “I hope you’ll pray for me.” “Yes,” the priest answered, “I’ll pray for you right now.” He knelt down in the gutter and prayed, “Father, please have mercy on this drunken man.ℍ At this, a startled Mike woke up fully and said, “Father, please don’t tell God I’m drunk.ℍ Sometimes we don’t feel much of a personal relationship between God and ourselves, as though we have a secret life full of failures and sins that God knows nothing about. We want to involve God only when we plan to give thanks or when we’re in trouble and need help. But the rest of our lives, we’d rather keep to ourselves.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President

Life, God, Secret, Hope

“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.”

Arthur Miller The Ride Down Mt. Morgan

Act 1
The Ride Down Mount Morgan (1991)
Source: The Ride Down Mt. Morgan

Hope

“I'm trying to have a moment o' existential dreed here, right? Crivens, it's a puir lookout if a man canna feel the chilly winds o' fate lashing aroound his netheres wi'out folks telling him he's deid, eh?”

Terry Pratchett book A Hat Full of Sky

Source: A Hat Full of Sky

Fate, Feeling

“Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators… The land is one organism.”

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

"Conservation" (c. 1938); Published in Round River, Luna B. Leopold (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 145-146.
1930s
Context: Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. … Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators; you cannot conserve the waters and waste the ranges; you cannot build the forest and mine the farm. The land is one organism.

Love, Hate, Game

“Of course, no man is entirely in his right mind at any time.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Time

“Free speech is the right to shout "Theater!" in a crowded fire.”

Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989) American political and social activist

Source: Soon to be a Major Motion Picture (1980), p. 214.

“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual you have an obligation to be one.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Valentine's Day

“Anyone can become angry —that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way —this is not easy.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Source: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
Source: ARISTOTLE, The Nicomachean Ethics

Way, Time, Personality

“It is right to learn even from an enemy.”

Ovid Metamorphoses

Fas est et ab hoste doceri.
Book IV, 428
Variant translations:
It is right to learn, even from the enemy.
Right it is to be taught even by the enemy.
It is right to be taught even by an enemy.
We can learn even from our enemies.
Metamorphoses (Transformations)

Learning

“I'VE NEVER BEEN VERY SURE ABOUT WHAT IS RIGHT, said Bill Door. I AM NOT SURE THERE IS SUCH A THING AS RIGHT. OR WRONG. JUST PLACES TO STAND.”

Terry Pratchett book Reaper Man

Source: Reaper Man

“Sometimes success isn't about making the right decision, it's more about making some decision.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Life

Decision, Success

“To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, "Our Country, right or wrong," and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation?”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

War, Country

“The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Sense

“I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

“All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Personality

“At the same time, you have to find the right distance between people. Too close, and they overwhelm you, too far and they abandon you. How to hold them in the right relation?”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Intimacy: das Buch zum Film von Patrice Chéreau

People, Time

“no one talks more passionately about his rights than he who in the depths of his soul doubts whether he has any”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

I.597
Human, All Too Human (1878)
Context: No one talks more passionately about his rights than he who in the depths of his soul doubts whether he has any. By enlisting passion on his side he wants to stifle his reason and its doubts: thus he will acquire a good conscience and with it success among his fellow men.

Soul, Passion

“Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Nature, Freedom

“People wanted the world to be a story, because stories had to sound right and they had to make sense. People wanted the world to make sense.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

People, World, Sense

“Etiquette tip: If you're looking for the right time to leave a party, when the host yells, "No one leaves here alive," that's your cue.”

Rick Riordan book The Hammer of Thor

Source: The Hammer of Thor

Time

“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

God

“You can say any fool thing to a dog and the dog will just give you this look that says, 'My GOSH, you're RIGHT! I NEVER would've thought of that!”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Dogs, Fools

“That little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Jesus Christ wasn't a woman!”

Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist

Ain't I a Woman? Speech (1851)
Context: That little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Jesus Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

Women, Men, Christ

“At your absolute best, you still won't be good enough for the wrong person. At your worst, you'll still be worth it to the right person.”

Karen Salmansohn American writer

Personality