Ought Quotes - Page 20

• There was the strangest combination of church influence against me. Baker is a Campbellite; and therefore, as I suppose with few exceptions, got all of that Church. My wife had some relations in the Presbyterian churches, and some in the Episcopal churches; and therefore, wherever it would tell, I was set down as either one or the other, while it was everywhere contended that no Christian ought to vote for me because I belonged to no Church, and was suspected of being a Deist and had talked of fighting a duel.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Christian, Fighting, Wife

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• In this age of space flight, when we use the modern tools of science to advance into new regions of human activity, the Bible... remains in every way an up-to-date book. Our knowledge and use of the laws of nature that enable us to fly to the Moon also enable us to destroy our home planet with the atom bomb. Science itself does not address the question whether we should use the power at our disposal for good or for evil. The guidelines of what we ought to do are furnished in the moral law of God.

  Wernher von Braun

  Bible, Christian, Book

  "Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts & Funny Sayings". Book by Bob Phillips, 1993.

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• [President-elect George W] Bush has reached out to these other groups like Blacks and Hispanics.... He ought to do his reaching out to the people who elected him.

  Phyllis Schlafly

  People, Scary, President

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• Reelection ought not to be the primary preoccupation of any politician. It ought to be standing up for truth and justice.

  Cornel West

  Justice, Reelection, Politician

  "Dr. Cornel West’s Prognosis for the Country’s Prospects". Interview with Kam Williams, www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com.

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• I think we ought to give ourselves more time. We should be more patient with ourselves and with each other.

  Maya Angelou

  Thinking, Giving, Patient

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• It's very important for any artist, in any field, to take their own temperature and check out their own energy, and see what it is they ought to be doing to keep the energy up. Because if your energy is not up, you're going to come up with some really dreary piece of work that no one's going to enjoy.

  Steve Reich

  Artist, Important, Fields

  Interview with Joshua Klein, pitchfork.com. November 22, 2006.

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• People should see your faith. If all you do is talk about your faith and people don't see it, but they ought to see it in the way you treat your family, you treat your friends, you treat your community.

  Jeff Foxworthy

  People, Community, Way

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Writers ought to be regarded as wrongdoers who deserve to be acquitted or pardoned only in the rarest cases: that would be a way to keep books from getting out of hand.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Book, Hands, Would Be

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• A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savor of it. Let him act like the clever archers who, designing to hit the mark which yet appears too far distant, and knowing the limits to which the strength of their bow attains, take aim much higher than the mark, not to reach by their strength or arrow to so great a height, but to be able with the aid of so high an aim to hit the mark they wish to reach.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Strength, Wise, Hope

  Niccolo Machiavelli (2017). “The Prince”, p.38, BookRix

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• Vain men delight in telling what Honours have been done them, what great Company they have kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess, that these Honours were more than their Due, and such as their Friends would not believe if they had not been told: Whereas a Man truly proud, thinks the greatest Honours below his Merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver it as a Maxim that whoever desires the Character of a proud Man, ought to conceal his Vanity.

  Jonathan Swift

  Believe, Character, Pride

  Jonathan Swift (1856). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published ... With Memoir of the Author”, p.305

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• If a man has come to that point where he is no content that he says; I do not want to know any more, or do any more or be any more, he is in a state in which he ought to be changed into a mummy.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Men, Want, States

  Henry Ward BEECHER (1862). “Royal Truths, etc”, p.27

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• Scientific reason, with its strict conscience, its lack of prejudice, and its determination to question every result again the moment it might lead to the least intellectual advantage, does in an area of secondary interest what we ought to be doing with the basic questions of life.

  Robert Musil

  Life, Determination, Intellectual

  Robert Musil, Burton Pike, David S. Luft (1995). “Precision and Soul: Essays and Addresses”, p.34, University of Chicago Press

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• Even to this day it is easier than it ought to be for me to get a rise out of an American by telling him something about himself which is equally true about every human being on the face of the globe. He at once resents this as a disparagement and an assertion on my part that people in other parts of the globe are not like that, and are loftily superior to such weaknesses.

  George Bernard Shaw

  People, Weakness, Faces

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• It's usually pointed out that women are not fit for political power, and ought not to be trusted with a vote because they are politically ignorant, socially prejudiced, narrow-minded, and selfish. True enough, but precisely the same is true of men!

  George Bernard Shaw

  Selfish, Men, Political

  Tribune (London), 12 Mar. 1906

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• A power above all human responsibility ought to be above all human attainment.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Responsibility, Attainment, Humans

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.215

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• I certainly know that if the war fails, the administration fails, and that I will be blamed for it, whether I deserve it or not. And I ought to be blamed, if I could do better. You think I could do better; therefore you blame me already. I think I could not do better; therefore I blame you for blaming me.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Thinking, Administration

  Abraham Lincoln (2012). “The Complete Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln (Biographically Annotated Edition)”, p.1084, Jazzybee Verlag

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• We ought to regard ourselves and to act as socialists--believers in the wholesomeness and beneficence of the body politic.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Government, Body, Socialism

  Woodrow Wilson (1898). “The State: Elements of Historical and Practical Politics”

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• The English Writers of Tragedy are possessed with a Notion, that when they represent a virtuous or innocent Person in Distress, they ought not to leave him till they have delivered him out of his Troubles, or made him triumph over his Enemies.

  Joseph Addison

  Innocent Person, Enemy, Criticism

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steel (1858). “The Spectator”, p.80

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• Some authorities hold that the young ought not to lie at all. That, of course, is putting it rather stronger than necessary; still, while I cannot go quite so far as that, I do maintain, and I believe I am right, that the young ought to be temperate in the use of this great art until practice and experience shall give them that confidence, elegance and precision which alone can make the accomplishment graceful and profitable.

  Mark Twain

  Education, Art, Lying

  Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.4158, Delphi Classics

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• The low level which commercial morality has reached in America is deplorable. We have humble God fearing Christian men among us who will stoop to do things for a million dollars that they ought not to be willing to do for less than 2 millions.

  Mark Twain

  Christian, Humble, Men

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.284, Courier Corporation

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• They ought to be gentle to their friends and dangerous to their enemies.

  Plato

  Friendship, Enemy, Dangerous

  Plato, Charles Henry Augustus Bulkley (1876). “Plato's Best Thoughts: Compiled from Prof. Jowett's Translation of the Dialogues of Plato”, p.196

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• Government is being founded on opinion, the opinion of the public, even when it is wrong, ought to be respected to a certain degree.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Degrees, Public Opinion

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1789-1792”, p.194, Cosimo, Inc.

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• So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought;
  Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

  Edmund Spenser

  God, Love Is, Taught

  'Amoretti' (1595) sonnet 68

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• Bolkenstein, a Minister, was speaking on the Dutch programme from London, and he said that they ought to make a collection of diaries and letters after the war. Of course, they all made a rush at my diary immediately. Just imagine how interesting it would be if I were to publish a romance of the "Secret Annexe." The title alone would be enough to make people think it was a detective story.

  Anne Frank

  War, Thinking, People

  Anne Frank (1954). “The Diary of Anne Frank”, Pan

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• They have their belief, these poor Tibet people, that Providence sends down always an Incarnation of Himself into every generation. At bottom some belief in a kind of Pope! At bottom still better, a belief that there is a Greatest Man; that he is discoverable; that, once discovered, we ought to treat him with an obedience which knows no bounds. This is the truth of Grand Lamaism; the "discoverability" is the only error here.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Buddhism, Men, Errors

  "The Hero as Divinity. Odin. Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology". "On Heroes" by Thomas Carlyle, Chapter 1, ebooks.adelaide.edu.au. 1840.

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