Ought Quotes - Page 4

• What concerns me alone I only think, what concerns my friends I tell them, what can be of interest to only a limited public I write, and what the world ought to know is printed.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Writing, Thinking, World

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook B 52, 1799.

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• A work, however, should be judged by its design and its execution, and not by any preconceived notion of what it ought to be according to the critic, rather than the author.

  Isaac D'Israeli

  Design, Execution, Should

  "The Literary Character, Illustrated by the History of Men of Genius". Book by Isaac D'Israeli, 1795 - 1822.

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• To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to deprecate the value of freedom itself.

  Edmund Burke

  Freedom, Prove, Obliged

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• He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one.

  Edmund Burke

  Remember, Corruption, Accusation

  Edmund Burke (2015). “A Letter On the Affairs of America”, p.43, Lulu Press, Inc

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• There is a time when fear is good and ought to remain seated as a guardian of the heart.

  Aeschylus

  Heart, Guardian

  Aeschylus (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Aeschylus (Illustrated)”, p.247, Delphi Classics

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• It seems clear to me that marriage ought to be constituted by children, and relations not involving children ought to be ignored by the law and treated as indifferent by public opinion. It is only through children that relations cease to be a purely private matter.

  Bertrand Russell

  Children, Law, Public Opinion

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.270, Routledge

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• I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.

  Immanuel Kant

  Law, Als, Way

  "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals". Book by Immanuel Kant, 1785.

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• If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Common, Authority, Should

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.520, Random House

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• No man ought to looke a given horse in the mouth.

  John Heywood

  Horse, Men, Mouths

  John Heywood (1562). “The Proverbs, Epigrams, and Miscellanies of John Heywood ...”, p.391

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• It ought to be quite as natural and straightforward a matter for a labourer to take his pension from his parish, because he has deserved well of his parish, as for a man in higher rank to take his pension from his country, because he has deserved well of his country.

  John Ruskin

  Country, Men, Matter

  'Unto this Last' (1862) preface, 6 (4)

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• I do want an expensive honeymoon. Not because I'm extravagant, but because a honeymoon is a solemn, important thing ... a symbol. And it ought to be done -- well, adequately.

  Arnold Bennett

  Important, Done, Want

  Arnold Bennett (1910). “The Honeymoon: A Comedy in Three Acts”, New York : G.H. Doran

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• I foresee that man will resign himself each day to more atrocious undertakings; soon there will be no one but warriors and brigands; I give them this counsel: The author of an atrocious undertaking ought to imagine that he has already accomplished it, ought to impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Warrior, Past, Men

  Jorge Luis Borges, Donald A. Yates, James East Irby (1964). “Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings”, p.22, New Directions Publishing

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• It is past all controversy that what costs dearest is, and ought to be, most valued.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Past, History, Cost

  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1993). “Don Quixote”, p.270, Wordsworth Editions

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• Every wicked man is in ignorance as to what he ought to do, and from what to abstain, and it is because of error such as this that men become unjust and, in a word, wicked.

  Aristotle

  Ignorance, Men, Errors

  Aristotle (1869). “The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle”, p.63

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• We ought to be able to persuade on opposite sides of a question; as also we ought in the case of arguing by syllogism: not that we should practice both, for it is not right to persuade to what is bad; but in order that the bearing of the case may not escape us, and that when another makes an unfair use of these reasonings, we may be able to solve them.

  Aristotle

  Order, Opposites, Practice

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• When a man makes a specialty of knowing how some other fellow ought to spend his money, he usually thinks in millions and works for hundreds.

  George Horace Lorimer

  Money, Men, Thinking

  George Horace Lorimer (2006). “Old Gorgon Graham: More Letters from a Self-made Merchant to His Son”, p.7, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The illustrious and noble ought to place before them certain rules and regulations, not less for their hours of leisure and relaxation than for those of business.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Relaxation, Rules And Regulations, Noble

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• The doctrine of the Declaration of Independence predicated upon the glory of man and the corresponding duty to society that the rights of citizens ought to be protected with every power and resource of the state, and a government that does any less is false to the teachings of that great document - false to the name American.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Teaching, Men, Names

  "Equal Rights". Speech by Calvin Coolidge, en.wikisource.org. 1920.

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• A man ought to be able to live on a scale commensurate with the service that he renders.

  Henry Ford

  Men, Able, Scales

  Henry Ford (2015). “My Life and Work: Top Biography”, p.9, 谷月社

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• Never trample on any soul though it may be lying in the veriest mire; for that last spark of self-respect is its only hope, its only chance; the last seed of a new and better life: the voice of God that whispers to it: "You are not what you ought to be, and you are not what you can be. You are still God's child, still an immortal soul. You may rise yet. and fight a good fight yet, and be a man once more, after the likeness of God who made you, and Christ who died for you!

  Charles Kingsley

  Children, Lying, Fighting

  Charles Kingsley (2008). “The Good News of God: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.302, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Belief is involuntary; nothing involuntary is meritorious or reprehensible. A man ought not to be considered worse or better for his belief.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Men, Belief, Involuntary

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1994). “The Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley”, p.559, Wordsworth Editions

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• A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest ... because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.

  Terry Pratchett

  Soul, Forests, Witch

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• The maxim that men are not to be praised before their death was invented by envy and too lightly adopted by philosophers. I, on the contrary, maintain that they ought to be praised in their lifetime if they merit it; but jealousy and calumny, roused against their virtue or their talent, labour to degrade them if any one ventures to bear testimony to them. It is unjust criticism that they should fear to hazard, not sincere praise.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Men, Unjust Criticism, Envy

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• A sound does not view itself as thought, as ought, as needing another sound for its elucidation, as etc.; it has not time for any consideration--it is occupied with the performance of its characteristics: before it has died away it must have made perfectly exact its frequency, its loudness, its length, its overtone structure, the precise morphology of these and of itself.

  John Cage

  Views, Sound, Doe

  John Cage (2010). “Silence: Lectures and Writings”, p.28, Wesleyan University Press

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• For those who have only to obey, law is what the sovereign commands. For the sovereign, in the throes of deciding what he ought to command, this view of law is singularly empty of light and leading. In the dispersed sovereignty of modern states, and especially in times of rapid social change, law must look to the future as well as to history and precedent, and to what is possible and right as well as to what is actual.

  William Ernest Hocking

  Views, Law, Light

  "Present Status of the Philosophy of Law and of Rights". Book by William Ernest Hocking, Preface (20 May 1926), p. vii, 1926.

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