Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Right; Rights
Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.
Samuel Adams—Statement of the Rights of the Colonists, etc. (1772).
Right as a trivet.
R. H. Barham—The Ingoldsby Legends. Auto-da-fé.
They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the rights of man.
Burke—On the Army Estimates. Vol. III. P. 221.
Sir, I would rather be right than be President.
Henry Clay—Speech. (1850). Referring to the Compromise Measure.
He will hew to the line of right, let the chips fly where they may.
Roscoe Conkling—Speech at the National Convention, Chicago, 1880, when General Grant was nominated for a third term.
But ’twas a maxim he had often tried,
That right was right, and there he would abide.
Crabbe—Tales. Tale XV. The Squire and the Priest.
Be sure you are right, then go ahead.
David Crockett—Motto. In War of 1812.
The rule of the road is a parodox quite,
If you drive with a whip or a thong;
If you go to the left you are sure to be right,
If you go to the right you are wrong.
Henry Erskine—Rule of the Road.
For right is right, since God is God,
And right the day must win;
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin.
F. W. Faber—The Right Must Win. St. 18.
Wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being, whatever may be the sex or complexion.
William Lloyd Garrison. In his Life. Vol. III. P. 390.
The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air—it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence. For we cannot suppose that some men have a right to be in this world, and others no right.
Henry George—Progress and Poverty. Bk. VII. Ch. I.
And wanting the right rule they take chalke for cheese, as the saying is.
Nicholas Grimald—Preface to his Trans. of Marcus Tullius Cicero. Three Bookes of Duties to Marcus his Sonne. Same expression in Gower—Confessio Amantis.
For the ultimate notion of right is that which tends to the universal good; and when one’s acting in a certain manner has this tendency he has a right thus to act.
Francis Hutcheson—A System of Moral Philosophy. The General Notions of Rights and Laws Explained. Bk. II. Ch. III.
Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.
Thomas Jefferson.
We hold these truths to be self-evident,—that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Thomas Jefferson—Declaration of Independence of the U. S. of America.
Let us have faith that Right makes Might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Abraham Lincoln—Address. New York City, Feb. 21, 1859. See Henry J. Raymond’s Life and Public Services of Lincoln. Ch. III.
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.
Abraham Lincoln—Second Inaugural Address. March 4, 1865.
Mensuraque juris
Vis erat.
Might was the measure of right.
Lucan—Pharsalia. I. 175. Found in Thucydides. IV. 86. Plautus—Truncul. IV. 3. 30. Lucan. I. 175. Seneca—Hercules Furens. 291. Schiller—Wallenstein’s Camp. VI. 144.
All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights.
Constitution of Massachusetts.
Every man has by the law of nature a right to such a waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his subsistence.
More—Utopia. Bk. II.
Reparation for our rights at home, and security against the like future violations.
William Pitt (Earl of Chatham)—Letter to the Earl of Shelburne. Sept. 29, 1770.
All Nature is but art unknown to thee;
All chance direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is is right.
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. I. L. 289.
No question is ever settled
Until it is settled right.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox.