Quotes on Ought

Given that we desire long life, should we not take eternal life into account? If we long for a kingdom which, however enduring, has an end, and glory and joy which, great as they are, will fade, and wealth that will perish with this present life, and we labour for the sake of such things; ought we not to seek the kingdom, glory, joy and riches which, as well as being all-surpassing, are unfading and endless, and ought we not to endure a little constraint in order to inherit it?

That God normally operates the universe consistently makes science possible; that he does not always do so ought to keep science humble.

You ought not attempt to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the body, so neither ought you attempt to cure the body without the soul.

I can't for the life of me imagine that God would say, 'I will punish you because you are black; you should have been white. I will punish you because you are a woman; you should have been a man. I punish you because you are homosexual; you ought to have been heterosexual. I can't, I can't for the life of me believe that that is how God sees things.

I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts him.

There is nothing in afflictions which ought to disturb our joy.

If Language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant. If what is said is not what is meant, then what ought to be done, remains undone.

There ought not be two histories, one of political and moral action and one of political and moral theorizing, because there were not two pasts, one populated only by actions, the other only by theories. Every action is the bearer and expression of more or less theory-laden beliefs and concepts; every piece of theorizing and every expression of belief is a politcal and moral action.

How gentle and tender ought we to be with others who are foolish when we remember how foolish we are ourselves

Words mean more than we mean to express when we use them: so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer meant.

The richness of God’s Word ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.

From that house there has come so much life that it ought never to die or fall into ruin... For me that house was a gateway to America.

Over against the devil and his missionaries, the authors of false doctrines and sects, we ought to be like the Apostle, impatient, and rigorously condemnatory, as parents are with the dog that bites their little one, but the weeping child itself they soothe.

Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner.

They often ask me to shoot for them. But I say no. I think an old guy like me ought not take pages away from young photographers who need the exposure.

A strong nation is one that is loved by its people and, as Edmund Burke put it, for a country to be loved it ought to be lovely.

I am quite ready to acknowledge . . . that I ought to be grieved at death, if I were not persuaded that I am going to other gods who are wise and good (of this I am as certain as I can be of any such matters), and to men departed who are better than those whom I leave behind. And therefore I do not grieve as I might have done, for I have good hope that there is yet something remaining for the dead.

Sophocles said he drew men as they ought to be, and Euripides as they were.

If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.

Perhaps there is no other knowing than the mere competence of the act. If at the heart of one's being, there is no self to which one ought to be true, then sincerity is simply nerve; it lies in the unabashed vigor of the pretense. But pretense is only pretense when it is assumed that the act is not true to the agent. Find the agent.

Faith, to my mind, is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch, which ought to be applied as sparingly as possible. I dislike the stuff. I do not believe in it, for its own sake, at all... My lawgivers are Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses and St Paul. My temple stands not upon Mount Moriah but in the Elysian Field where even the immoral are admitted. My motto is 'Lord, I disbelieve - help thou my unbelief.