Earned The Right Quotes & Sayings

Mammy had a point.
What rankled Laila was that Mammy hadn't earned the right to make it. It would have been one thing if Babi had raised this issue. But Mammy? All those years of aloofness, of cooping herself up and not caring where Laila went and whom she saw and what she thought ... It was unfair. Laila felt like she was no better than these pots and pans, something that could go neglected, then laid claim to, at will, whenever the mood struck. — Khaled Hosseini

We go through life discovering the truth about who we are and determining who has earned the right to share the space within our heart. And now I simply want to share what I've been given. I want to continue to encourage as many people as I can to open their hearts to life, because if I know anything for sure, it's that opening my heart is what has brought memory greatest success and joy. — Oprah Winfrey

If a woman earned a dollar by scrubbing, her husband had a right to take the dollar and go and get drunk with it and beat her afterwards. It was his dollar. — Lucy Stone

Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: "Who has earned the right to hear my story?" If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky. If we have a friend, or small group of friends, or family who embraces our imperfections, vulnerabilities, and power, and fills us with a sense of belonging, we are incredibly lucky. — Brene Brown

I think, with never-ending gratitude, that the young women of today do not and can never know at what price their right to free speech and to speak at all in public has been earned. — Lucy Stone

It's very disheartening to encounter a fearful twenty-one year old. They haven't earned the right to be that afraid. It's not like we're living in war-torn Bosnia or something. — Fran Lebowitz

The left tended to think people's private lives should be their own, even if they made choices traditional Christian society regarded as immoral; but that people's working lives, from how much they earned to where they worked, were fit for State interference. The right had a reverse view, that the State should uphold traditional moral codes with the full rigour of the law, but keep out of the economy as much as possible. — Andrew Marr

This is not the moment to wilt into the underbrush of your insecurities. You've earned the right to grow. — Cheryl Strayed

Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship. — Frederick Douglass

I played in the Premier League for Blackpool and earned the right to go to a club like Liverpool. — Charlie Adam

It's different now but I enjoy it more than I did then. I think I appreciate it more now and I love playing acoustically. This is the way I started. Herb and I met each other forty years ago when we were both eighteen years old, playing bluegrass, and that's what drew me into music, and I enjoyed every particular part of my career. But now I enjoy it because it's the twilight of my career, where I can play what I want and I can play when I want and where I want. And that's the greatest part it all. So it's sort of a right that I've earned. I can record records the way I want to. — Chris Hillman

I earned the right to get in the team, and fought every game to be in it. — Graham Roberts

Young dreams may be wild ones, but they are never corrected by ridiculing them. They must be steered by a loving voice that has earned the right to be heard, not one enforced by means of power. This is a very difficult lesson for parents to learn. And as cultures lose their restraining power, there will be greater need for mutual love and respect between parents and children if a relationship of trust is to be built, rather than banking on authority because of position. — Ravi Zacharias

Hunt shook his head and quit writing. "I don't understand. You can become this ... messiah ... by leaving your deathbed?" The pale oval of Keats's face moved back and forth on the pillow in a motion which might have been a substitute for laughter. "We all could have, Hunt. Humankind's folly and greatest pride. We accept our pain. We make way for our children. That earned us the right to become the God we dreamed of. — Dan Simmons

True love takes time. It's an earned comfort that tells you she'll be right there beside you no matter what you do, not necessarily happy with your every action, but faithful to you just the same. — Richelle E. Goodrich

If you believe you're right ... stand up and fight for your place in the sun. If you believe you can do it, hang in for the whole 15 rounds because even if you don't win, you will have earned the respect of everyone in the fight, including yourself, and in that sense you will have prevailed. — Erin Brockovich

Ask yourself whether you have earned the right to have an opinion. Opinions are easy to produce, so bad ones abound. Knowing that you don't know something is nearly as valuable as knowing it. The worst situation is thinking you know something when you don't. — Ray Dalio

I grew up on a farm and my grandfather quit school when he was 12, but when it came to common sense and animals, he was the smartest person I've ever met, before or since. He taught me that to touch an animal is an earned privilege. It's not a right. — Ian Dunbar

The fundamental idea of modern capitalism is not the right of the individual to possess and enjoy what he has earned, but the ;thesis that the exercise of this right redounds to the general good. — Ralph Barton Perry

There are millions receiving government payments who have come to consider them as an earned right, who of course find them inadequate, and who are outraged at the slightest suggestion of a critical re-examination of the subject. The political pressure for constant extension and increase of these benefits is almost irresistible. — Henry Hazlitt

Judd figured he must have done something right along the way. How else could a rebel arrow have earned the right to call this amazing woman his own? Even if it was a mistake, too damn bad. He was never giving her up. — Nalini Singh

he had come to believe that parents see their children not only as they are but as they hope they will be in the future. Happy, fulfilled, not afraid. When Maddie first came to live with him Bosch didn't have this vision right away, but soon enough he earned it. When he closed his eyes at night, he saw her older: — Michael Connelly

How can we not believe in the greatness of America? How can we not do what is right and needed to preserve this last best hope of man on Earth? After all our struggles to restore America, to revive confidence in our country, hope for our future - after all our hard-won victories earned through the patience and courage of every citizen - we cannot, must not, and will not turn. We will finish our job. How could we do less? We're Americans. — Ronald Reagan

The rich think this land is theirs though they have never earned the right to call it theirs. — Maaza Mengiste

If our hard-earned liberty, our desire to be irreverent of the old and to question the new, can be reduced to one, basic and indispensable right, it must be the right to free speech. — Maajid Nawaz

This is about you. This is about everything it took you to get to this point, everything it cost you, and everyone who laughed when you dared to dream of something big and bright. You're here tonight because you refused to give up and refused to give in. You're here where they all said you'd never be, and no one can say you haven't earned the right to play this game. — Nora Sakavic

As for my brothers,' Zeus said, 'we are thankful -' he cleared his throat, like the words were hard to get out - 'erm, thankful for the aid of Hades.'
The Lord of the Dead nodded. He had a smug look on his face, but I figure he'd earned the right. He patted his son Nico on the shoulders, and Nico looked happier than I'd ever seen him. — Rick Riordan

In the black hour before dawn, they stopped to let the horses drink and fed them each a handful of oats and a twist or two of hay. "We are not far from the place the wildlings died," said Qhorin. "From there, one man could hold a hundred. The right man." He looked at Squire Dalbridge.
The squire bowed his head. "Leave me as many arrows as you can spare, brothers." He stroked his longbow. "And see my garron has an apple when you're home. He's earned it, poor beastie." He's staying to die, Jon realized.
Qhorin clasped the squire's forearm with a gloved hand. "If the eagle flies down for a look at you..."
"...he'll sprout some new feathers. — George R R Martin

When you do the right thing, but not to any particular person, we instinctively feel that we have earned some sort of pay back. Since no-one will do that for us, we opt for self-service reciprocation. — Julian Baggini

And you just had to rush right over here to rub my face in it."
"Nope. I rushed right over here to slap your face in it."
"A rude but effective wake-up call," Laura commented and earned a shocked stare.
"I expected better from you."
"You shouldn't have." Hands brisk and competent, she affixed a shiny silver bow to the box. "If you don't want to tell us what happened between you and Josh,fine.But you can't expect us to sit around quietly while you mope."
"I have not been moping."
"We've been cleaning up the blood spilling out of your heart for weeks." Kate passed Laura her credit card. "Face it,pal, you're just no fun anymore."
"And that's all this friendship is about?Fun? I thought I might get a little support,a little sympathy, a little compassion."
"Sorry," Laura imprinted the card with a steady sweep. "Fresh out. — Nora Roberts

I don't have the slightest idea what my future holds, but what I do know is that I am capable of figuring it out, and I'm okay being me while I do that. I have earned the right to trust myself. And this feels like freedom to me. My — Lucetta Zaytoun

We know that Diana Vishneva is a phenomenon of strength and style, and she certainly has earned the right to stretch her talents as best she can. — Robert Gottlieb

Gavin scratched his head, idly wondering what his father would tell him right about then. Probably steal the slave and run. Father's solution was always to steal and run. But he had a job to finish.
"All right," he said finally, "here's what we'll do. We'll pretend this night didn't happen."
That earned another sarcastic look. — Suzanna J. Linton

You share with people who've earned the right to hear your story ... You have to earn the right to hear my story. It's an honor to hold space for me when I'm in shame. — Brene Brown

Quick, somebody call the caretaker!' Gemma's stage voice rang out loud and clear. 'There's some trash here that needs to be taken out.' She earned a chorus of laughs as she walked towards us, then came to a standstill right beside me. 'Christ, it reeks, too,' she said, pinching her nose. 'What did you do, Malice? Douse yourself in the whole bottle? Oh, never mind. I don't expect you to have heard of the adage "less is more". — Aurelia B. Rowl

Every dollar and every moment of care devoted to increasing the individual importance of people, all skill and training, all fine organization to humanize work, every increase of political expression, is a protection against idle use of our military power, against any attempt to convert legitimate and necessary preparation for defense into an instrument of conquest. It may be said with justice that the man is dangerous who talks loudly about military preparation and is uninterested in social reform. It is the people engaged in adding to the values of civilization who have earned the right to talk about its defense. — Franklin Foer

Wendy warmed my heart, earned my trust, touched my soul, and then touched me in a lot of other places. And right after we'd slept together for the very first time she looked up at me with her chocolate-brown, trustworthy doe eyes and said, I've got herpes. I thought you should know. — Caprice Crane

Reason is given to all men, but all men do not know how to use it. Liberty is offered to each one of us, but few learn to be free. Such gifts are, in any case, a right to be earned, not a privilege for the shiftless. — Anthony Powell

I want you to consider this distinction as you go forward in life. Being male is not enough; being a man is a right to be earned and an honor to be cherished. I cannot tell you how to earn that right or deserve that honor ... but I can tell you that the formation of your manhood must be a conscious act governed by the highest vision of the man you want to be. — Kent Nerburn

If you are a boss, ask yourself: When you look back at how you've treated followers, peers, and superiors, in their eyes, will you have earned the right to be proud of yourself? Or will they believe that you ought to be ashamed of yourself and embarrassed by how you have trampled on others' dignity day after day? — Robert I. Sutton

I'm a veteran, and I've earned the right to be heard. I'll lead by example and show that gay players are no different from straight ones. I'm not the loudest person in the room, but I'll speak up when something isn't right. And try to make everyone laugh. — Jason Collins

The indiscriminate denunciation of the rich is mischievous ... No poor man was ever made richer or happier by it. It is quite as illogical to despise a man because he is rich as because he is poor. Not what a man has, but what he is, settles his class. We can not right matters by taking from one what he has honestly acquired to bestow upon another what he has not earned. — Benjamin Harrison

Unlike the huge majority of the current generation in the West, the men on both sides at Dien Bien Phu did not live at a time or in places where they enjoyed the luxury of disregarding [that war is what human beings do]; and we, who are lifelong civilians, have not earned the right to sit in judgement over them. — Martin Windrow

Share with people who have earned the right to hear your story. — Brene Brown

He's the sort of man who wants power. He doesn't have it, but he thinks he's entitled to it by birthright. He's incapable of earning what he wants, so he wants what he hasn't earned. The sort of man who, if he wants something, thinks it's all right to take it. — Laura Lee Guhrke

I earned my place,
With the tidal waves.
I can't escape this feeling,
That something ain't right.
I called my name
As I crashed the gates,
Still I can't escape this feeling
That something ain't right. — All Time Low

The right to criticize must be earned, even if the advice is constructive in nature. — James Dobson

Child, you do not forgive because the person who wronged deserves it.You misunderstand the point of forgiveness entirely. The only cage that a grudge creates is around the holder of that grudge. Forgiveness is not saying that the person who hurt you was right, or has earned it, or is allowed to hurt you again. All forgiveness means is that you will carry on without the burdens of rage and hatred. — Merrie Haskell

Academic credentials are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for having your ideas taken seriously. If a famous professor repeatedly says stupid things, then tries to claim he never said them, there's no rule against calling him a mendacious idiot - and no special qualifications required to make that pronouncement other than doing your own homework.Conversely, if someone without formal credentials consistently makes trenchant, insightful observations, he or she has earned the right to be taken seriously, regardless of background. — Paul Krugman

Thanks to economists, all of us, from the days of Adam Smith and before right down to the present, tariffs are perhaps one tenth of one percent lower than they otherwise would have been. ...
And because of our efforts, we have earned our salaries ten-thousand fold. — Milton Friedman

Peter Jackson has just really earned the right to be Tolkien's torchbearer on screen. — Evangeline Lilly

On the red carpet, I need to be protected. When I wear a Chanel dress, I feel like I've earned the right to be there. And Karl Lagerfeld is so poetic, such an intelligent man. I like the way he has the power to draw attention. — Rinko Kikuchi

In the early years of the Roaring Twenties, American women not only won the right to vote but they also earned headlines along side their male counterparts during the Golden Age of American sports. Michael Bohn shares an engaging story of how two sports heroines, tennis player Helen Wills and swimmer Gertrude Ederle, helped embolden women to seek self-fulfillment by challenging the status quo. — Donna De Varona

The right to reticence seems earned only by having nothing to hide. — Jill Johnston

Pitkin untwisted to his normal position, focusing on Wolfe from under his brows. He sniffed. "You see what I mean when I say that life is nothing but bookkeeping?" Wolfe nodded. "It's not too recondite for me. How about Miss Eads? Wasn't her position essentially the same as Mrs. Jaffee's? Wasn't she also a parasite? Or had the interest she had recently shown in the business made her an earner?" "No. That was no service to the corporation. It was an interference." "Then she had earned nothing?" "That's right." "And deserved nothing?" "That's right. — Rex Stout

I have lived my life backwards as compared to my peers. Everyone did incredibly stupid things as teenagers and pre-teens. I didn't. I was the one telling everybody that they were incredibly stupid. Now that they are all past that stage and we are all much older - I am the one doing incredibly stupid things. I have figured that I've earned that right, by now! You have to earn the right to be stupid. — C. JoyBell C.

Vulnerability is about sharing our feelings and our experiences with people who have earned the right to hear them. Being vulnerable and open is mutual and an integral part of the trust-building process. — Brene Brown

Success is not something that must be deserved or earned. It is more an inherent right - an inherent responsibility. The only qualification for success is that you be you, that you utilize whatever combination of talent you possess to the fullest extent possible. — Og Mandino

If it's too much for people, if audiences don't accept it, well I guess that's just the way it is. I'm not being cavalier when it comes to my financial partners, but I think I've earned the right to do my thing my way. While I really want it to do well and it would be lovely if it's popular, movies are for a long time. I'm really proud of the piece. If it ends up not connecting with audiences, I won't be heartbroken. I'll be a little disappointed, but I won't be heartbroken. — Quentin Tarantino

Not bad, not bad. That's one down. Only a million to go.'
'Right. Thanks, Shark.'
I should have known to expect something like that from him.
'Now that you've proven yourself I reckon you've earned a go at a very important assignment.'
'Making tea?'
'No, I said important. You want to have a crack at it?'
'All right. That'd be good.'
'That's the way. Run down the post office and get the mail for us. Key's hanging up in the front office. When you come back, I want you to open it up and sort it into three piles: good stuff, bad stuff, and shit. Off you go.'
You bastard, Shark. You bastard. I say that to myself as I trudge away. — Bill Condon

The way to fight shame and to honor who we are is by sharing our experience with someone who has earned the right to hear it. — Brene Brown

After a lifetime of enabling others, surely she'd earned the right to make her own choices, no matter how outlandish? — Helen Brown

I got called and was told, "We'd like you to do The Hobbit", which was my favorite of all of them when I was a kid - "And we want you to play a character that's not in the books", I gulped and hesitated, but then I went, "These guys know this world, and they represent this world so well, that I actually think they've earned the right to have a little play." — Evangeline Lilly

Walking with your chest out and your head held high says you have earned the right to stomp and pummel this particular piece of real estate. — RuPaul

They forget that we, too, have earned the right to live! So I say if we are going to die, my friend, let us die trying, not sitting. — Velma Wallis

It's great to know you've earned your place and to know that you are right for the role because my biggest fear is being offered something and showing up on set and doing one day and everyone going, "Oh geez, oh no, this isn't, she isn't.." and feeling that way myself. — Olivia Wilde

But, hey I did everything the right way and earned my spot in this game, nothing was given to me. — Shaquille O'Neal

You convey too great a compliment when you say that I have earned the right to the presidential nomination. No man can establish such an obligation upon any part of the American people. My country owes me no debt. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope. My whole life has taught me what America means. I am indebted to my country beyond any human power to repay. — Herbert Hoover

We [women] have earned the right to forget about stupefying household busywork. But kitchens where food is cooked and eaten - those were really a good idea. We threw that baby out with the bathwater. — Barbara Kingsolver

He was fantastic eye candy, and I earned the right to have a few cavities. — Lani Woodland

We are fortified by exemplary lives, especially those who have earned the right to be respected by their character, sacrifice, patience, and ability to press on in spite of hardship, injustice, pain, and failure. Our heroes do not have to be perfect. They must, however be courageous, authentic, clear-minded, and determined to endure no matter the sacrifice or cost. We need heroes of integrity and consistency, admirable men and women we can admire, not because they exemplify a quick burst of bravery, but because they represent the stuff of greatness and stay at it to the end. — Charles R. Swindoll

If we can find someone who has earned the right to hear our story, we need to tell it. Shame loses power when it is spoken. In this way, we need to cultivate our story to let go of shame, and we need to develop shame resilience in order to cultivate our story. — Brene Brown

Listen, I'm going to give you some advice, not because I
think you need it, but because I feel like I've earned it. The right, I mean. To give advice. Here it is:
don't hold onto things. It's a problem the men in my family have. It's taken me a long time to figure
this out. Me, my father, my grandfather, we collect things. We collect miseries. It's what we do. But
sometimes the best thing to do is to just let things go. To let them pass. — Joe Meno

Ghislaine didn't look up from the book she was poring over. There was a stack of them on the desk before her, and another beside the narrow bed. Where the eldest and cleverest of her Thirteen had gotten them from, who she'd likely gutted to steal them, Manon didn't care. "Hello, and come right in, why don't you" was the response. Manon leaned against the door and crossed her arms. Only with books, only when reading, was Ghislaine so snappish. On the battlefield, in the air, the dark-skinned witch was quiet, easy to command. A solid soldier, made more valuable by her razor-sharp intelligence, which had earned her the spot among the Thirteen. — Sarah J. Maas

I would love to retire a Raider, but I have earned the right to be a free agent. — Richard Seymour

Walter Moody was much experienced in the art of confidences. He knew that by confessing, one earned the subtle right to become confessor to the other, in his turn. A secret deserves a secret, and a tale deserves a tale; the gentle expectation of a response in kind was a pressure he knew how to apply. — Eleanor Catton

What am I doing here?
I haven't talked to my dad in two days. He's probably moved from worry to sheer panic because I haven't come home. And maybe he's right to be afraid. Maybe I should be more afraid. I had sex with a guy I barely know. Followed him into the middle of nowhere because of it. Even after I found out about the gun. Even after Lindsey didn't go home. He swears he won't hurt me, but his past tells a different, violent story, and I don't know what to believe. I rationalized everything, telling myself that I earned this time away from home. But now, with too much time to do nothing but think, I wonder if I was just plain selfish. Just . . . stupid. — Trish Doller

I believed that one person owes a duty to another with no payment for it in return. I believed that it was my duty to love a woman who gave me nothing, who betrayed everything I lived for, who demanded her happiness at the price of mine. I believed that love is some static gift which, once granted, need no longer be deserved - just as they believe that wealth is a static possession which can be seized and held without further effort. I believed that love is a gratuity, not a reward to be earned just as they believe it is their right to demand an unearned wealth. And just as they believe that their need is a claim on my energy, so I believed that her unhappiness was a claim on my life. For the sake of pity, not justice, I — Ayn Rand

You earned him fair and square. He's not mine to take back." He rose to get himself a drink. The peaty odour of scotch flickered up and stung my nose. "I'd like one of those." He looked at me, surprised. "You'll have to go for water." I shook my head. "All right," he said. "I guess you've earned that, too." He handed me the rounded heavy glass, and we sat in silence as the sun retreated. I'd had wine and champagne, but this was different. It made me feel older. — Paula McLain

By doing this, apparently they have earned the right to change its name to "beef," which is the monosyllable furthest away from "cow," because the last thing a human wants to think about when eating cow is an actual cow. — Matt Haig

Why do you tell me ... so much?"
Luthe considered her. "I tell you ... some you need to know, and some you have earned the right to know, and some it won't hurt you to know
" He stopped ...
"Some things I tell you only because I wish to tell them to you. — Robin McKinley

Don't be misled into believing that somehow the world owes you a living. The boy who believes that his parents, or the government, or any one else owes him his livelihood and that he can collect it without labor will wake up one day and find himself working for another boy who did not have that belief and, therefore, earned the right to have others work for him. — David Sarnoff

If a ghost was a recording of a memory, as some believed, and Wasp pulled back the curtain from the third alcove on the right, she might find the wide-eyed bloody-handed ghost of herself, hugging her knees and shivering, trying to unremember the sound of her little dagger sinking hilt-deep into girlflesh, the day she earned her name. — Nicole Kornher-Stace

She stopped at the foot of the trio of beach chairs and smiled down at Richter and his men. Richter was in the middle. The one on the left was a hairy beast of a man with the fat-over-muscle build of someone who'd earned their conditioning from life experience, not a gym bike. Someone who possessed the brute core strength to physically break you. The man on the right was younger and leaner, but still carried plenty of brawn. It squared with Isaiah's story - these weren't techie savants hired to pull a sophisticated vault break. Richter was lining up big scary men to storm a hotel room and take down an army of casino thugs by force. — Blake Crouch

I'm falling in love with you, Nathan."
At her words he groaned and wrapped both arms around her, holding her to his heart.
"Sweetheart, I'm right there with you. And I swear I'll catch you if you'll trust me enough to let yourself fall the rest of the way."
She smiled, kissed the center of his chest where his heart beat strong and steady beneath her lips.
"I do trust you." He'd earned her trust in giving him her heart, as well her body. — Kaylea Cross

Special ops have earned the right to boast and don't; you're just a wannabee, which is why you do. — Donna Lynn Hope

There is, I believe, no such thing as unconditional self-acceptance. Those who say so are promulgating a pernicious lie. One must first live a decent, honorable and productive life. Only then do you get to feel good about yourself.
Seeking to heedlessly gratify your desires or impulses of the moment to do things (or fail to do things) your conscience knows to be contrary to your standards of right, worthy and virtuous behavior is, in a mental, emotional and spiritual sense, akin to spending capital that you have not earned, and therefore will eventually cause you to feel very negatively ... about who and what you are. You cannot in the long run have your cake and eat it too. The longer ... you behave in certain ways, the more it comes to define you, not only to others, but also to yourself. — Laura C. Schlessinger

Families could often trace their lineage back several centuries. Their livelihood was earned from drum playing, a service considered to be dis-respectable. As members of a low caste, the drummers were forbidden to build decent houses. There were allowed to build wattle and daub huts, and to live rent-free on their patrons' properties. The right to own the country's land was restricted in this manner, a vicious condition that arose through tradition and was reinforced by law. Patterns of financial power and political hierarchy existed hand in hand. — Swarnakanthi Rajapakse

My books have been part of my life forever. They have been good soldiers, boon companions. Every book has survived numerous purges over the years; each book has repeatedly been called onto the carpet and asked to explain itself. I own no book that has not fought the good fight, taken on all comers, and earned the right to remain. If a book is there, it is there for a reason. — Joe Queenan

And now, the very thing that had earned her the right to call herself Adarlan's Assassin would be what sealed her doom. — Sarah J. Maas

My right to speak my mind, to have a voice, to be what some have called 'opinionated' is a right I deeply and profoundly cherish. My only hope is that, one day soon, women who have all earned the right to their opinions
instead of being called 'opinionated' will be called smart and well-informed, just like men. — Teresa Heinz

Just being alive - even if you're only on the planet for a few years - is struggle enough. You've earned the right to be remembered. — Paul Acampora

When I look at the way I was able to play in my 17th year, I feel like I earned the right to play in the NFL for another one, — Charles Woodson

In modern life the world belongs to the stupid, the insensitive and the disturbed. The right to live and triumph is today earned with the same qualifications one requires to be interned in a madhouse: amorality, hypomania and an incapacity for thought. — Fernando Pessoa

I joined Genesis when I was 19. I've earned the right to actually do nothing. I don't want to be a shadow of what I was, so I've kind of just quite willingly stood back. — Phil Collins

A Montana statue holds that a river has a right to overwhelm its banks and inundate its floodplain. Well, that's interesting, because it's not a right that we assign to the river. The river has earned it through centuries of deluging and shaping the floodplain, and the floodplain has a right to its rampaging river. They've earned their rights through a kind of reciprocal action. — Daniel Kemmis

I am forced to get my living by the labour of my hand; and the sweat of my brow ... for bitter bread, earned under the frowns of some who have no natural or divine right to be above me, and entirely owe their grandeur and honor to grinding the faces of the poor ... — James Otis

For too many years, politicians in Washington have been eager to pledge more hard-earned taxpayer dollars to help deal with the student debt load. But this doesn't sit right with the many Americans who take pride in making fiscally responsible choices and paying off their loans on time. — John Kline

I've probably earned the right to screw up a few times. I don't want the fear of failure to stop me from doing what I really care about. — Emma Watson

Spiritual Laws ensures that every entity will be at the exact place where it has earned the right to be, by all its previous thoughts, words and actions, including those of the previous lives. — Thomas Vazhakunnathu