Quotes about right
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“The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are in the right.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow.”

Ovid (-43–17 BC) Roman poet

Death, Idea

“What have I always believed?
That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), edited with Jason A. Shulman, p. 281
General sources

Life, Wisdom, Knowledge, Science

“I don't want unnecessary violence, sergeant," said Blouse.
"Right you are, sir!" said the sergeant. "Carborundum! First man comes through that door runnin', I want him nailed to the wall!" He caught the lieutenant's eye, and added: "But not too hard!”

Terry Pratchett book Monstrous Regiment

Source: Monstrous Regiment

“Santa Claus has the right idea: visit people once a year”

Victor Borge (1909–2000) Danish and US-American comedian and musician

People, Idea, Christmas

“Herodotus says, "Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects."”

Mark Twain book A Horse's Tale

Acknowledgements
Twain does not quote Herodotus here, he only sums up what he believes to have been Herodotus' approach to the writing of history. Nevertheless, this apocryphal statement is now often quoted as being the very words of Herodotus.
A Horse's Tale (1907)

Time

“Don't." Clary raised a warning hand. "I'm not really in the mood right now."
"That's got to be the first time a girl's ever said that to me," Jace mused.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Girl, Mood, Time

“The most extraordinary thing about writing is that when you've struck the right vein, tiredness goes. It must be an effort, thinking wrong.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Thinking, Effort

“I cannot disobey something which I do not know and the reality of which I have the right to deny.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Source: Pale Fire

Reality

“It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right --especially when one is right.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“Parker: She believed, absolutely, that each person, each heart, had a counterpart—had a mate. A rightness. She’d always believed it, and understood that unshakable belief was a reason she was good at what she did.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Heart, Personality

“Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but, leave him when he is wrong.”

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

“If you concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man. You'll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens… Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we're living right now.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Life, Happiness, Star

“Love demands all, and has a right to all.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

Love

“Patience is power.
Patience is not an absence of action;
rather it is "timing"
it waits on the right time to act,
for the right principles
and in the right way.”

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

Way, Time, Waiting, Patience

“On that night after Phoebe had given her Pandora report, I thought about the Hope in Pandora's box. Maybe when everything seemed sad and miserable, Phoebe and I could both hope that something might start to go right.”

Sharon Creech Walk Two Moons

Source: Walk Two Moons

Sadness, Hope, Night, Box

“If it is not right, do not do it, if it is not true, do not say it.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

XII, 17
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book XII
Context: If it is not right, do not do it, if it is not true, do not say it. For let thy efforts be

“Now, my mom always said two wrongs don't make a right. But she never said anything about four wrongs, and that always left me confused.”

Hugh Laurie (1959) British actor, comedian, writer, musician and director

Moms

“There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Feeling

“money is not everything but it ranks right up there with oxygen”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

Money

“Remember, do the things that you believe in, alright? This is what it's all about right now. [MTV Awards 2005]”

Green Day

“It was like when you ripped a piece of paper into two: no matter how you tried, the seams never fit exactly right again.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

Source: What Happened to Goodbye

“Sometimes you break your heart in the right way, if you know what I mean.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Way, Heart, Heartbreaking, Depressing

“But then, in his lifetime, Halt had often ignored what was technically legal. Technicalities didn't appeal to him. All too often, they simply got in the way of doing the right thing.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Lost Stories

Way

“It is far easier for me to teach twenty what were right to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.”

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Source: As You Like It

“Whut's the plan, Rob?" said one of them.
"Okay, lads, this is what we'll do. As soon as we see somethin', we'll attack it. Right?"
This caused a cheer.
"Ach, 'tis a good plan," said Daft Wullie.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

“A noble and God-like character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with God-like thoughts.”

James Allen book As a Man Thinketh

Source: As a Man Thinketh

God, Nature, Thinking, Effort

“We're not stupid! We're just poor! And we have a right to insist on this distinction”

Orhan Pamuk book Snow

Source: Snow

Stupidity

“Deep down, below the surface of the average man's conscience, he hears a voice whispering, "There is something not right," no matter how much his rightness is supported by public opinion or moral code.”

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

Support

“I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him. Be honest, but hate no one; overturn a man's wrongdoing, but do not overturn him unless it must be done in overturning the wrong. Stand with a man while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”

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

The last sentence is from the 16 October 1854 Peoria speech, slightly paraphrased. No known contemporary source for the rest. It first appears, attributed to Lincoln, in US religious/inspirational journals in 1907-8, such as p123, Friends Intelligencer: a religious and family journal, Volume 65, Issue 8 (1908)
Misattributed

Hate, Parting

“When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be old enough to do right also.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Source: A Woman of No Importance

“The hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.”

Eddie Van Halen (1955) Dutch-American rock musician

Hell

“Being brave is when you have to do something because you know it is right, but at the same time, you are afraid to do it, because it might hurt or whatever. But you do it anyway.”

Meg Cabot book All American Girl

Source: All-American Girl

Time, Hurt

“You know how it is with some girls. They seem to take the stuffing right out of you. I mean to say, there is something about their personality that paralyses the vocal cords and reduces the contents of the brain to cauliflower.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Source: Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

Girl, Personality

“I like to watch the news, because I don't like people very much and when you watch the news… if you ever had an idea that people were really terrible, you could watch the news and know that you're right.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Appearance on Thicke of the Night (28 April 1984).

People, Idea

“Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't think it right.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Men, Girl, Thinking

“No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.”

Ansel Adams (1902–1984) American photographer and environmentalist

Men, Confidence

“The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Fools

“Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong when he ain’t ignorant and knows better.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Business

“Nothing in the world is ever completely wrong. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

World

“If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place. Primary reality is within; secondary reality without.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Reality

“Be careful with whom you associate, especially when you feel emotionally vulnerable, because negative people can steal the dream right out of your heart.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day

People, Dreams, Feeling, Heart

“Searching for truth is itself a big illusion because whatever we term the truth is always and everywhere. We don't have to search for it; we don't have to seek it; it always is. Now the only problem is your inability to experience life beyond what you call mind; or right now your capability to experience life only through the limited dimension that we call mind. That is the only problem.”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Source: Himalayan Lust

Life, Truth, Search, Problem

“I cannot conceive how anybody in his right mind should go to a psychoanalyst.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

“Down a path worn into the woods, past a stream and a hollowed-out log full of pill bugs and termites, was a glass coffin. It rested right on the ground, and in it slept a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives.”

Holly Black book The Darkest Part of the Forest

Source: The Darkest Part of the Forest

Boy, Past

“We think we don't deserve love, we think if we let it in we'll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said." Love is the only rational act.”

Morrie Schwartz (1916–1995) American sociologist

Love, Thinking

“We move in and out of darkness and light all our lives. Right now I'm pleased to be in the light.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

Light

“In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive. Don’t insist on your rights, don’t blame each other, don’t judge or condemn each other, don’t find fault with each other, but accept each other as you are, and forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts…”

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

Source: Letters and Papers from Prison

Marriage, Forgiveness, Heart

“Dogs do not have many advantages over people, but one of them is extremely important: euthanasia is not forbidden by law in their case; animals have the right to a merciful death.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Death, People, Law, Dogs

“Woman's degradation is in mans idea of his sexual rights. Our religion, laws, customs, are all founded on the belief that woman was made for man.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

Letter to Susan B. Anthony (1860-06-14).
Context: Women's degradation is in man's idea of his sexual rights. Our religion, laws, customs, are all founded on the belief that woman was made for man. Come what will, my whole soul rejoices in the truth that I have uttered.

Religion, Law, Idea

“Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.”

Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker

Source: Principle-Centered Leadership (1992), Ch. 11
Context: Unless we exercise our power to choose wisely, our actions will be determined by conditions. Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.

Freedom

“But I think you have a right to know what it is you’re not being told.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

Thinking

“Ah," said Mr Pin. "Right. I remember. You are concerned citizens." He knew about concerned citizens. Wherever they were, they all spoke the same private language, where 'traditional values' meant 'hang someone'.”

Terry Pratchett book The Truth

Source: The Truth

“It’s a good thing when you don’t dare do something if you don’t think it’s right. But it’s not good when you think something’s not right because you don’t dare do it.”

Sigrid Undset (1882–1949) Norwegian writer

Source: The Wreath

Thinking

“The 50-50-90 rule: anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.”

Andy Rooney (1919–2011) writer, humorist, television personality

Chance

“It doesn't matter if you can't say it right now. I'll say it for both of us. And someday you'll learn.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: The Awakening

Learning

“… and the funny thing was that people who weren't entirely certain they were right always argued much louder than other people, as if the main person they were trying to convince were themselves.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: The Bromeliad Trilogy

People, Personality

“Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Life

“Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Source: 1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

“The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.”

Mark Twain book What Is Man?

Source: What Is Man? (1906), Ch. 6

“What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Happiness, Science

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Letter to George Bainton, 15 October 1888, solicited for and printed in George Bainton, The Art of Authorship: Literary Reminiscences, Methods of Work, and Advice to Young Beginners (1890), pp. 87–88 http://books.google.com/books?id=XjBjzRN71_IC&pg=PA87. Twain repeated the lightning bug/lightning comparison in several contexts, and credited Josh Billings for the idea: Josh Billings defined the difference between humor and wit as that between the lightning bug and the lightning. Speech at the 145th annual dinner of St. Andrew's Society, New York, 30 November 1901, Mark Twain Speaking (1976), ed. Paul Fatout, p. 424 Billings' original wording was characteristically affected: Don't mistake vivacity for wit, thare iz about az mutch difference az thare iz between lightning and a lightning bug. Josh Billings' Old Farmer's Allminax, "January 1871" http://books.google.com/books?id=sUI1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PT30. Also in Everybody's Friend, or; Josh Billing's Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor (1874), p. 304 http://books.google.com/books?id=7rA8AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA304 Source: The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain

“You cannot do wrong and feel right. It is impossible!”

Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Feeling

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”

Peter F. Drucker book The Essential Drucker

Misattributed
Variant: Efficiency is doing the thing right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing.
Source: The Essential Drucker

Leadership

“The bottom line is this: Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens--and honor its own previous commitments--by accepting its legal borders. All Arab neighbors must pledge to honor Israel's right to live in peace under these conditions. The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories.”

Jimmy Carter book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid

Source: Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid

Peace, Law

“Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

Stupidity

“Granny was an old-fashioned witch. She didn’t do good for people, she did right by them.”

Terry Pratchett book Carpe Jugulum

Source: Carpe Jugulum

People, Fashion

“There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Feeling

“When every benefit received is a right, there is no place for good manners, let alone for gratitude.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

What is Poverty? http://www.city-journal.org/html/9_2_oh_to_be.html (Spring 1999). City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Gratitude

“One has a right to judge a man by the effect he has over his friends.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“The key to winning, as always, was looking as if you had every right, nay, duty to be where you were. It helped if you could also suggest in every line of your body that no one else had any rights to be doing anything, anywhere, whatsoever.”

Terry Pratchett book Night Watch

Source: Night Watch

Help

“Someone said to me once that a cigarette at the right moment is better than all the ideals in the world.”

Erich Maria Remarque (1898–1970) German novelist

Source: Flotsam

World

“[on buying a private island] Money doesn't buy you happiness, but it buys you a big enough yacht to sail right up to it.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Money, Happiness

“You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Family

“If you can't figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.”

T.D. Jakes (1957) American bishop

Passion

“Nothing goes perfectly for us. But… being incomplete is what pushes us onward to the next something… If we were even perfectly satisfied, what meaning would the rest of our lives hold, right?”

Takehiko Inoue (1967) Japanese artist

“There is only one sin. and that is theft… when you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Truth, Lie

“Use the right word, not its second cousin.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Tiffany thought of the little spot in the woods where Granny Weatherwax lay. Remembered.

And knew that You had been right. Granny Weatherwax was indeed here. And there. She was, in fact, and always would be, everywhere.”

Terry Pratchett book The Shepherd's Crown

Source: The Shepherd's Crown

“The first time you see something that you have never seen before, you almost always know right away if you should eat it or run away from it.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Time

“We have the right to lie, but not about the heart of the matter.”

Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director

Lie, Heart

“We're not really intruding," he called down. "This is all a big misunderstanding."
"Stop right there!" shouted one of them.
Skulduggery held his hand to an ear he didn't have.
"What's that?"
"Stop!"
"Keep going?"
"STOP!"
"OK, we'll keep going.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Death Bringer

“You can't let anybody else tell you what your choices are. Sometimes they won't give you the right choice.”

Louis Sachar book Stanley Yelnats' Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake

Source: Stanley Yelnats' Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake

“I realize that violence is not more prevalent today than in previous periods of human history, but there is a difference. We have seen visionary standards adopted by the global community that espouse peace and human rights, and the globalization of information ensures that the violation of these principles of nonviolence by a powerful and admired democracy tends to resonate throughout the world community. We should have advanced much further in the realization of women's rights, given these international commitments to peace and the rule of law.”

Jimmy Carter book A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

Source: A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

Women, World, Peace, Law

“All through life, be sure and put your feet in the right place, and then stand firm.”

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

As recalled by Rebecca R. Pomroy in Echoes from hospital and White House (1884), by Anna L. Boyden, p. 61 http://books.google.com/books?id=7LZiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA61&dq=feet Posthumous attributions Variant: Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

Life

“Broadmindedness, when it means indifference to right and wrong, eventually ends in a hatred of what is right.”

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

Source: Life of Christ

Indifference

“Coffee is a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your older self.”

Terry Pratchett Thud!

Source: Thud!

Way, Coffee, Time

“And if they don't believe us, I can give them the ghost eyes, you can go all big and threatening, Farmer can do his cracknob simpleton, and my lady can don her nobleness. We'll do all right.”

Tamora Pierce book Mastiff

Source: Mastiff

“Right now I’m having amnesia and déjà vu at the same time. I think I’ve forgotten this before.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Thinking, Time

“I would rather be in minority and be right, than in the majority and wrong.”

Jodi Picoult book Sing You Home

Source: Sing You Home

“The corporation is the creature of government, and the people have the right to handle it as they desire; all they need pay attention to is the expediency of realizing this right in some way that shall be productive of good and not harm.”

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

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

People, Way

“Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love,
But—why did you kick me down stairs?”

John Philip Kemble (1757–1823) British actor-manager

The Panel, Act i, Scene 1, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Altered from Isaac Bickerstaff's "'T is Well 't is no Worse"; also found in Debrett's "Asylum for Fugitive Pieces", vol. i., p. 15.

Love