Ought Quotes - Page 12

• There is not a single truth of science upon which we ought to bet more than about a million of millions to one.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Truth, Science, Gambling

  Charles Sanders Peirce (1974). “Collected Papers”, p.62, Harvard University Press

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• My husband says, 'Roseanne, don't you think we ought to talk about our sexual problems?' Like I'm gonna turn off Wheel of Fortune for that.

  Roseanne Barr

  Husband, Thinking, Wheels

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• I want that there should be a belief, a faith in the possibility of removing mountains to the side of right. If we believe that war is wrong, as everyone must, then we ought to believe that by proper efforts on our part, it may be done away with.

  Lucretia Mott

  War, Believe, Effort

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• Americans ought to be the best-traveled, most cosmopolitan people on earth, not only because experience of the world is desirable in its own right, but because as a people acquires a great concentration of power, worldliness becomes a moral imperative.

  Shana Alexander

  Travel, People, World

  Shana Alexander (1970). “The feminine eye”, McCall Pub. Co

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• a person who was clever ought to be clever enough not to be unjust or deliberately unkind to anyone.

  Frances Hodgson Burnett

  Clever, Unjust, Enough

  Frances Hodgson Burnett (2014). “Sara Crewe: Or, What Happened at the Miss Minchin's Boarding School”, p.17, The Floating Press

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• We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization. We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about a particular degree of interest and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimatized.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Believe, Passion, Exercise

  Reinhold Niebuhr (2010). “The Irony of American History”, p.5, University of Chicago Press

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• [On Helen Reddy:] She ought to be arrested for loitering in front of an orchestra.

  Bette Midler

  Singing, Orchestra, Helen

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• Relaxation is a physical and moral necessity. Animals, even to the simplest and dullest, have their games, their sports, their diversions. The toil-worn artisan, stooping and straining over his daily task, which taxes eye and brain and limb, ought to have opportunity and means for an hour or two of relaxation after that task is concluded.

  Horace Greeley

  Sports, Mean, Eye

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• The wanting of advice is the sign that the Spirit in you has not yet spoken with the compelling voice that you ought to obey.

  Annie Besant

  Voice, Advice, Spirit

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• The laws ought to be so framed as to secure the safety of every citizen as much as possible. ... Political liberty does not consist in the notion that a man may do whatever he pleases; liberty is the right to do whatsoever the laws allow. ... The equality of the citizens consists in that they should all be subject to the same laws.

  Catherine the Great

  Men, Law, Safety

  Proposals for a New Law Code, 1768.

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• No woman ought to pretend she's intelligent. And if she is she ought to have the intelligence to pretend she isn't.

  Edna Ferber

  Intelligent, Ifs

  Edna Ferber (1962). “Show Boat ; So Big ; Cimarron: Three Living Novels of American Life”

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• It must be assumed and established as a principle, that the right of private property must be regarded as sacred. Wherefore, the law ought to favor this right and, so far as it can, see that the largest possible number among the masses of the population prefer to own property.... But if the productive activity of the multitude can be stimulated by the hope of acquiring some property... , it will gradually come to pass that, with the difference between extreme wealth and extreme penury removed, one class will become the neighbor to the other.

  Pope Leo XIII

  Wisdom, Law, Class

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• A hippo sandwich is easy to make. All you do is simply take one slice of bread, one slice of cake, some mayonnaise, one onion ring, one hippopotamus, one piece of string, a dash of pepper. That ought to do it. And now comes the problem... biting into it!

  Shel Silverstein

  Food, Cake, Cooking

  Shel Silverstein, “Recipe For A Hippopotamus Sandwich”

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• The same people that tell me what I ought to have is the same people asking for an autograph.

  Kanye West

  People, Asking, Autographs

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• Detroit is really the most perfectly laid out city one could imagine, and such an enchanting park and lake, - infinitely better than any town I know in Europe. It ought to be a paradise in about fifty years when it has all matured.

  Elinor Glyn

  Years, Europe, Cities

  Elinor Glyn (2013). “The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection”, p.313, eBookIt.com

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• I've always thought the law ought to put on spectacles, it has mighty poor eyesight once in a while.

  Margaret Deland

  Law, Poor Eyesight, Spectacles

  Margaret Deland (1969). “Dr. Lavendar's People”

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• All your trouble comes from lack of exercise. A man of your strength and constitution ought always to have kept physically active. So don't jibe at the very wise advice that sentences you to one hour's walk a day. You imagine the work of the mind takes place only in the brain; but you're much mistaken. It takes place in the legs as well.

  George Sand

  Wise, Exercise, Men

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• Friendship, love, and piety ought to be handled with a sort of mysterious secrecy; they ought to be spoken of only in the rare moments of perfect confidence, to be mutually understood in silence. Many things are too delicate to be thought; many more, to be spoken.

  Novalis

  Perfect, Silence, Delicacy

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• God gives not kings the stile of Gods in vaine,
  For on his throne his sceptre do they sway;
  And as their subjects ought them to obey,
  So kings should feare and serve their God againe.

  King James I

  Kings, Giving, Thrones

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• I have learned from Jesus Christ Himself what charity is, and how we ought to practise it; for He says: "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye love one another." Never can I, therefore, please myself in the hope that I may obtain the name of a servant of Christ if I possess not a true and unfeigned charity within me.

  Saint Basil

  Jesus, Men, Names

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• You ought to be able to discover something from your stories. If you don't, probably nobody else will.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Stories, Able, Ifs

  Flannery O'Connor (2014). “Mystery and Manners”, p.60, Faber & Faber

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• It was a miracle; it was all a miracle: and one ought to have known, from the sufferings of saints, that miracles are horror.

  Nadine Gordimer

  Miracle, Suffering, Saint

  July's People (1981)

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• Slander, in the strict meaning of the term, comes under the head of lying; but it is a kind of lying which, like its antithesis flattery, ought to be set apart for special censure.

  Washington Gladden

  Lying, Special, Flattery

  Washington Gladden (1883). “Things New and Old in Discourses of Christian Truth and Life”

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• All confidence which is not absolute and entire, is dangerous. There are few occasions but where a man ought either to say all, or conceal all; for, how little so ever you have revealed of your secret to a friend, you have already said too much if you think it not safe to make him privy to all particulars.

  Francis Beaumont

  Men, Thinking, Secret

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• Nobody ought to be too old to improve: I should be sorry if I was; and I flatter myself I have already improved considerably by my travels. First, I can swallow gruel soup, egg soup, and all manner of soups, without making faces much. Secondly, I can pretty well live without tea.

  Anna Letitia Barbauld

  Travel, Sorry, Eggs

  Anna Letitia Barbauld, Lucy Aikin (1825). “The works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld: in two volumes”, p.65

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