Speaking Up For What Is Right Quotes & Sayings

Liza made a sudden decision. "I'll be your friend," she announced. she had trouble speaking the words but was glad once she had spoken them. She did not really want to be friends with an enormous rat of questionable sanity, but it seemed the right thing to say. — Lauren Oliver

Thomas was baffled by this girl - first the connection he'd felt to her from the very beginning, then the mind-speaking, now this. "Everything about you is weird. You know that, right?"
"Judging by your little hiding spot, I'd say you're not so normal yourself. Like living in the woods, do ya? — James Dashner

Madam Li nods. She reaches over the table for Chinatsu's hand. It would look like a gesture of sympathy for a friend. Chinatsu uncurls her right hand and allows the money to be retrieved. The initial wedge of money that Madam Li takes now is more than she ever takes later on. It almost entirely depletes the stash of money she's been saving for years. The woman's magician-eyes are framed by the steam snaking from their tea. Cat-green, they are striking and marred by yellow jelly spots in the whites.
'You no drink you no eat. What you, pregnant?'
'Would I be here?'
Madam Li screws her chin back into her neck. The chair creaks as she sits back, spine straight. 'Well, if you not going eat drink speaking truth, fuck off.'
Chinatsu's eyebrows flick up. She bursts out laughing. — Sarah Dobbs

Imagine a world where speaking or writing words can literally or directly make things happen, where getting one of those words wrong can wreak unbelievable havoc, but where the right spell you can summon immensely powerful agencies to work your will. Imagine further that this world is administered: there is an extensive division of labour, among the magicians themselves and between the magicians and those who coordinate their activity. It's bureaucratic, and also (therefore) chaotic, and it's full of people at desks muttering curses and writing invocations, all beavering away at a small part of the big picture. The coordinators, because they don't understand what's going on, are easy prey for smooth-talking preachers of bizarre cults that demand arbitrary sacrifices and vanish with large amounts of money. Welcome to the IT department. — Ken MacLeod

Miles's pause had lasted just a little too long. Genially taking his turn to fill it, Illyan turned to Ekaterin. "Speaking of weddings, Madame Vorsoisson, how long has Miles been courting you? Have you awarded him a date yet? Personally, I think you ought to string him along and make him work for it." A chill flush plunged to the pit of Miles's stomach. Alys bit her lip. Even Galeni winced. Olivia looked up in confusion. "I thought we weren't supposed to mention that yet." Kou, next to her, muttered, "Hush, lovie." Lord Dono, with malicious Vorrutyer innocence, turned to her and inquired, "What weren't we supposed to mention?" "Oh, but if Captain Illyan said it, it must be all right," Olivia concluded. Captain Illyan had his brains blown out last year, thought Miles. He is not all right. All right is precisely what he is not . . . Her gaze crossed Miles's. "Or maybe . . ." Not, Miles finished silently for her. Ekaterin — Lois McMaster Bujold

According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy. — Jerry Seinfeld

He'd set down his drink and leaned in. "Fine. You want me to elaborate, I will. Here's the deal: I'm a guy. Generally speaking, we're pretty simple folk. I know women always want to think we have these deep, romantic, and emotionally angsty thoughts going on in our heads, but in reality? Not so much. You women have layers and you're complicated and mysterious and you say one thing, but you really mean another, and it's this whole tricky package that intrigues us and scares us and challenges us all at the same time. But men aren't like that. You talk about me not letting you in, but maybe what you don't realize is this: there is no in." He pointed to himself. "It's all right here on the surface, Jessica. What you see is what you get. — Julie James

Stephens resumed speaking as the crowd quieted. He referred to one final "improvement" the Confederate Constitution had introduced, a brief but crucial clause that banned forever any "bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves." "The new Constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions - African slavery as it exists among us - the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization." This question, Stephens baldly admitted, "was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution."20 Stephens then referenced — Don H. Doyle

Lord, speak to me about Your will for my life so that I can always walk in it. Your will is a place of safety and protection for me, and I need to know I am headed in the right direction. Help me to hear Your voice speaking to my heart telling me what to do, especially with regard to the decisions I need to make each day of my life. — Stormie O'martian

He felt so tired, so weary of holding on with an iron grip to something he knew was slipping away.
"You can't make someone love you," he said.
Her hand stilled for a moment, the dirty tissue between her fingers. "True."
"Even if you love them so much you'd do anything, anything, for them." The truth of his words sank in. Speaking about it wasn't helping. It felt worse, like probing an open wound.
"Even if," his grandmasaid, nodding.
"Sometimes they pick another person to love when you've been right in front of them the whole time."
"It does happen." Her voice was soft.
"And then there's nothing left but to keep going as you were, pretending you never felt anything more than . . ."
"Friendship?" Her eyes met his and there was the faintest glimmer of tears.
"But I don't think I can have even that, anymore. — Mary Jane Hathaway

Twenty-seven."
His brow puckered, and he blinked over at her. "Twenty-seven hundred years, right?"
If he were speaking to Taliyah, yes. "No. Just twenty-seven plain, ordinary years."
"You don't mean human years, do you?"
"No. I mean dog years," she said dryly, then pressed her lips together. Where was the filter that was usually poised over her mouth? Strider didn't seem to mind, though. Rather, he seemed stupefied. Would Sabin have had the same reaction were he awake? "What's so hard to believe about my age?" As the question echoed between them, a thought occurred to her and she blanched. "Do I look ancient?"
"No, no. Of course not. But you're immortal. Powerful. — Gena Showalter

He saw that at its center were Coretta and Yoki, unharmed. And then, having made sure of that, Martin Luther King became very calm, with what Branch calls "the remote calm of a commander." Stepping back out on the porch, he held up his hand for silence. Everything was all right, he told the crowd. "Don't get panicky. Don't do anything panicky. Don't get your weapons. If you have weapons, take them home. He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword. Remember that is what Jesus said. We are not advocating violence. We want to love our enemies. I want you to love our enemies. Be good to them. This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love." The crowd was silent now, as King continued speaking. He himself might die, he said, but that wouldn't matter. "If I am stopped, this movement will not stop. If I am stopped, our work will not stop. For what we are doing is right. What we are doing is just. — Robert A. Caro

It's easy to respond to the hate cries, usually carefully wrapped up in a flag. Perhaps hate is the greatest simplifier of them all. It's the man with the throb in his voice, the man with the easy formula, the man who tries to shout to my emotions instead of speaking to my mind, the man who is sure he is right that I run from like hell. — Rae Foley

Just as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom, so also the individual's freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed established by the majority. — John Paul Stevens

Speaking of important things, there are so many battles right now that people are fighting for that it's overwhelming, but I am always in favor of people who crusade for the sake of people's hearts and their well-being. That is what is important. — Drew Barrymore

And can you mention any pursuit of mankind in which the male sex has not all these gifts and qualities in a higher degree than the female? Need I waste time in speaking of the art of weaving, and the management of pancakes and preserves, in which womankind does really appear to be great, and in which for her to be beaten by a man is of all things the most absurd? You are quite right, he replied, in maintaining the general inferiority of the female sex: although many women are in many things superior to many men, yet on the whole what you say is true. And — Plato

We live in a vengeful time. You didn't get the orange chicken you ordered or the sticky rice? And now you're already home? Meaning you'd have to drive all the way back to get the orange chicken and sticky rice you ordered? Injustice! And thus avenge. Avenge the proprietor's crimes! This [is] our contemporary version of balance, of speaking truth to power. Avenge the proprietor on thy customer-review site! Right the imbalance! — Dave Eggers

believed in The Good Luck of Right Now. Believing - or maybe even pretending - made you feel better about what had happened, regardless of what was true and what wasn't. And what is reality, if it isn't how we feel about things? What else matters at the end of the day when we lie in bed alone with our thoughts? And isn't it true, statistically speaking - regardless of whether we believe in luck or not - that good and bad must happen — Matthew Quick

"Repeat that?"
"It's National Talk Like a Pirate Day. Didn't you know?"
"Somehow I missed the memo."
"You mean, 'Somehow I missed the memo, arrr!'"
"Precisely. Arr. So, Mrs. Jack ... Er, is that still your name? Or, I tremble to ask, have you adopted a pirate identity?"
"Arr, matey, of course I have! It's ... " She pulled an eggplant from the grocery bag. "Captain Eggplantier." She needed to stop speaking the first words that popped into her mind.
"Captain Eggplanteir." He sounded very doubtful.
"That's right. A family name. It's Belgian. — Shannon Hale

Broadly speaking, I learned to recognize sin as the refusal to live up to the enlightenment we possess: to know the right order of values and deliberately to choose the lower ones: to know that, however much these values may differ with different people at different stages of spiritual growth, for one's self there must be no compromise with that which one knows to be the lower value. — Margaret Bondfield

We talk a lot about our right to freedom of expression, but we need to talk more about our responsibility to freedom of expression. We all want to be heard, but let's acknowledge the difference between speaking up with intention and speaking up for attention — Monica Lewinsky

Take the time to make some sense for what you wanna say,
And cast your words away upon the waves.
Sail them home with acquiesce on a ship of hope today,
And as they land upon the shore,
Tell them not to fear no more.
I'm not saying right is wrong,
It's up to us to make the best of all the things that come our way.
Cos' everything that's been has past,
The answers in the looking glass.
There's four and twenty million doors
On life's endless corridor,
So say it loud and sing it proud today. — Noel Gallagher

It only takes one voice, at the right pitch, to start an avalanche. — Dianna Hardy

What do you think your valuation is right now? Mark asked as they both sat uncomfortably across from and below him, peering up at a boy who could, hypothetically speaking, quite happily buy them or murder them, all with the same exact expression on his face. — Nick Bilton

When I went to Los Angeles right after high school, I got some acting jobs, and I never, ever wanted to be an actress! Public speaking and acting make me want to vomit. But I have never been nervous singing. When it comes to public speaking, I stumble on my words, sweat, and pull at my clothes. — Kelly Clarkson

That is my most comfortable place: close-up beauty shots! I also love to stand and speak in front of people. I can get a bit nervous while I'm speaking, but I love to touch others with my message. TV hosting with a teleprompter is also a comfort zone. I love to nail the copy quickly with the right expression and facial expression. Delivery is key! — Kim Alexis

Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character. — Margaret Chase Smith

Properly speaking, global thinking is not possible ... Look at one of those photographs of half the earth taken from outer space, and see if you recognize your neighborhood. The right local questions and answers will be the right global ones. The Amish question, what will this do to our community? tends toward the right answer for the world. — Wendell Berry

Why do you suppose they made you king in the first place?' I ask him. 'Not for your benefit, but for theirs. They meant you to devote your energies to making their lives more comfortable, and protecting them from injustice. So your job is to see that they're all right, not that you are - just as a shepherd's job, strictly speaking, is to feed his sheep, not himself. — Thomas More

Jack?"
"Hmmm?"
"We are going to be all right, aren't we? I mean, the two of us?"
He groaned as he eased his feet onto the bed. He rolled on his side to face Mabel, reached to her, and ran his hand down her unbraided hair, again and again, without speaking. Mabel saw tears in the corners of his eyes, and she propped herself on an elbow. She leaned to him and kissed him on his closed wet eyelids.
"We will, Jack. We will be all right," and she cradled his head in the crook of her arm and let him cry. — Eowyn Ivey

Libby wasn't a big talker - Michelle and Debby seemed to hog all her words. She made pronouncements: I like ponies. I hate spaghetti. I hate you. Like her mother, she had no poker face. No poker mood. It was all right there. When she wasn't angry or sad, she just didn't say much. — Gillian Flynn

For me, family means the silent treatment. At any given moment, someone is always not speaking to someone else.'
Really,' I said.
We're passive-aggressive people,' she explained, taking a sip of her coffee. 'Silence is our weapon of choice. Right now, for instance, I'm not speaking to two of my sisters and one brother ... At mine [my house], silence is golden. And common.'
To me,' Reggie said, picking up a bottle of Vitamin A and moving it thoughtfully from one hand to the other, 'family is, like, the wellspring of human energy. The place where all life begins.' ...
Harriet considered this as she took a sip of coffee. 'Huh,' she said. 'I guess when someone else does something worse. Then you need people on your side, so you make up with one person, jsut as you're getting pissed off at another.'
So it's an endless cycle,' I said.
I guess.' She took another sip. 'Coming together, falling apart. Isn't that what families are all about? — Sarah Dessen

Briefly speaking, our conclusion is that stochastic volatility does not make a huge difference as far as the pricing is concerned if you get the average volatility right. It makes a big difference as far as hedging is concerned. — John Hull

If I had to control what I was speaking, it would be a chore. Right now I just feel I've got my shoes off, everybody comes in, I talk. If I was an actor it could be a problem, but right now I just talk all the crap, I can badmouth anybody I want, I can say what I want and move on. — Tarsem Singh

O.K., then, all right, they would adopt a white-trash dog. Ha ha. They could name it Zeke, buy it a little corncob pipe and a straw hat. She imagined the puppy, having crapped on the rug, looking up at her, going, Cain't hep it. But no. Had she come from a perfect place? Everything was transmutable. She imagined the puppy grown up, entertaining some friends, speaking to them in a British accent: My family of origin was, um, rather not, shall we say, of the most respectable ...
Ha ha, wow, the mind was amazing, always cranking out these - — George Saunders

A moment of truth is very powerful. Instead of smiling to be polite, just frown. Instead of laughing when you are nervous or uncomfortable, just speak your truth. Instead of acting like everything is all right, proclaim it isn't alright, and talk about your feelings! Honor your truth. Honor yourself. Be real. — Bryant McGill

O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!' (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, 'A mouse - of a mouse - to a mouse - a mouse - O mouse!') — Lewis Carroll

Literary fiction and poetry are real marginalized right now. There's a fallacy that some of my friends sometimes fall into, the ol' "The audience is stupid. The audience only wants to go this deep. Poor us, we're marginalized because of TV, the great hypnotic blah, blah." You can sit around and have these pity parties for yourself. Of course this is bullshit. If an art form is marginalized it's because it's not speaking to people. One possible reason is that the people it's speaking to have become too stupid to appreciate it. That seems a little easy to me. — David Foster Wallace

Culturally, though not theologically, I'm a Christian. I was born a Protestant of the white Anglo-Saxon persuasion. And while I do love that great teacher of peace who was called Jesus, and while I do reserve the right to ask myself in certain trying situations what indeed He would do, I can't swallow that one fixed rule of Christianity insisting that Christ is the only path to God. Strictly speaking, then, I cannot call myself a Christian. Most of the Christians I know accept my feelings on this with grace and open-mindedness. Then again, most of the Christians I know don't speak very strictly. To those who do speak (and think) strictly, all I can do here is offer my regrets for any hurt feelings and now excuse myself from their business. — Elizabeth Gilbert

What I love in working on film is just working with actors. It's one thing to write scenes alone over a keyboard and to imagine the actions and reactions in your head, but it's a completely other thing to hear actors speaking your words, to see their bodies bringing the fullness of emotion, need, desire and pain to life right in front of you. It's amazing. — Dee Rees

You are right john cohen - quazimodo was right - mozart was right ... . I cannot say the word eye any more ... . when I speak this word eye, it is as if I am speaking of somebody's eye that I faintly remember ... . there is no eye - there is only a series of mouths - long live the mouths - your rooftop - if you don't already know - has been demolished ... . eye is plasma & you are right about that too - you are lucky - you don't have to think about such things as eye & rooftops & quazimodo. — Bob Dylan

I'm sure that was the right step, even though, formally speaking, it may seem disadvantageous for a president to resign. But, looking into what is happening today and what is going to happen in the future, I think history will show I made the right decision. — Eduard Shevardnadze