Standing For What It Right Quotes & Sayings

I think in that context, when a generation of kids is that ignorant of their recent history, it does a good job of showing what the Pistols were standing for. It's current and it's in the air, partly because I think nothing contemporary is as extreme or as strongly stated as what The Sex Pistols were able to do in their time, in the '70s. I think the reason to [make the film] is that their ideas are still alive: the defense of the right to be an individual, and questioning everything you read, and questioning all the information that's bombarded increasingly at you. — Julien Temple

I wish I were a poet. I've never confessed that to anyone, and I'm confessing it to you, because you've given me reason to feel that I can trust you. I've spent my life observing the universe, mostly in my mind's eye. It's been a tremendously rewarding life, a wonderful life. I've been able to explore the origins of time and space with some of the great living thinkers. But I wish I were a poet.
Albert Einstein, a hero of mine, once wrote, 'Our situation is the following. We are standing in front of a closed box which we cannot open.'
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the vast majority of the universe is composed of dark matter. The fragile balance depends on things we'll never be able to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Life itself depends on them. What's real? What isn't real? Maybe those aren't the right questions to be asking. What does life depend on?
I wish I had made things for life to depend on. — Jonathan Safran Foer

And I think for a moment, because people don't actually ask that very often. They tell me what they think I feel because they've read it in books, or they say incredible things like "autistic people have no sense of humour or imagination or empathy" when I'm standing right there beside them (and one day I'm going to point out that that is more than a little bit rude, not to mention Not Even True) or they -- even worse -- talk to me like I'm about five, and can't understand.
"It's like living with all your senses turned up to full volume all the time," I say. "And it's like living life in a different language, so you can't ever quite relax because even when you think you're fluent it's still using a different part of your brain so by the end of the day you're exhausted. — Rachael Lucas

I cannot accept that,' said Uriel. 'The destruction of the Emperor's loyal subjects cannot be right.'
'We cannot always do what is right, Uriel. There is often a great gulf in the difference between the way things are and the way we believe they should be. Sometimes we must learn to accept the things we cannot change.'
'No, lord admiral, I believe we must endeavour to change the things we cannot accept. It is by striving against that which is perceived as wrong that makes a great warrior. The primarch himself said that when a warrior makes peace with his fear and stands against it, he becomes a true hero. For if you do not fear a thing, where is the courage in standing against it? — Graham McNeill

As American culture changes, the scandal of Christianity is increasingly right up front, exactly where it was in the first century. The shaking of American culture will get us back to the question Jesus asked his disciples at Caesarea Philippi: "Who do you say that I am?" As the Bible Belt recedes, those left standing up for Jesus will be those who, like Simon Peter of old, know how to answer that question. Once Christianity is no longer seen as part and parcel of patriotism, the church must offer more than "What would Jesus do?" moralism and the "I vote values" populism to which we've grown accustomed. Good. — Russell D. Moore

But more than that, if you ally yourself with people who are prepared to fight to make a difference, then your life will always be in danger. I don't think it's fair to ever blame the person who makes the stand. Because the Doctor's so old, because he's done this so many times before, he sometimes forgets how dangerous it is. But if he didn't create the danger by opposing evil, if he didn't get these people to help him, then terrible things would happen. Standing up for what's right is always the best thing to do. — Tom MacRae

Uh, Miss Carlson," I said, standing at her desk after everybody else had gone on to their next class, "somebody told me you went to that guy's funeral the one the highway patrol shot."
"Yes," SHe said. "I did."
She didn't look like she was mad at me about it. She had real long eyelashes. I bet she was good-looking when she was young.
"Was he a relative or something?" That was what I was afraid of.
"No. Not even a friend really." She paused, like she was hunting for the right words. Finally she said, "I read a book once that ended with the words 'the incommunicable past' You can only share the past with someone who's shared it with you. So I can't explain to you what Mark was to me, exactly. I knew him a long time ago. — S.E. Hinton

A sound of laughter was heard-they turned sharply. Vera Claythorne was standing in the yard. She cried out in a high shrill voice, shaken with wild bursts of laughter:
"Do they keep bees on this island? Tell me that. Where do we go for honey? Ha! ha!"
They stared at her uncomprehendingly. It was as though the sane well-balanced girl had gone mad right before their eyes. She went on in that high unnatural voice:
"Don't stare like that! As though you thought I was mad. It's sane enough what I'm asking. Bees, hives, bees! Oh, don't you understand? Haven't you read that idiotic rhyme? It's up in all of your bedrooms-put it there for you to study! We might have come here straightaway if we'd had sense. Seven little soldiers chopping up sticks. And the next verse, I know the whole thing by heart, I tell you! Six little soldier boys playing with a hive. And that's why I'm asking-do they keep bees on this island- isn't it damned funny ... ? — Agatha Christie

Changing our behavior purely for the sake of appearances may seem to conflict with the need to be authentic and consistent, but in many ways it is actually a result of those needs. After all, resolving the tension between standing out from the crowd and becoming isolated requires finding our niche in the world. But what would happen if we weren't accepted in the place where we felt we belonged? For others to see us as a "poseur" or as "delusional" would be painful. Even worse, what if they were right? The social consequences and self-doubt that follow when our self-perceptions conflict with how others see us can be just as destabilizing to our identity as conflicts between our own self-perceptions and actions. — Sheena Iyengar

The thing I'm trying to ignore. The thing I shouldn't want, the thing I can't have.
And he's standing in front of me right now.
So what do I wish for? Something I'm not sure I want? Someone I'm not sure I need? Or someone I know I can't have?
Screw it. Let the fates decide. — Stephanie Perkins

'The Machinist' changed me. I learned that I really enjoy, literally, not saying a damned word for days at a time, except for what was in the scene. Whole days of ... nothing. Just ... standing still. I know a lot of people found it bizarre, because they'd be standing right next to me thinking, 'Why aren't we talking? What's going on?' — Christian Bale

He smiled down at the baby, and kissed him on the head. "I give you my blessing, Leo. First male great-grandchild! I have a feeling you are special, like Hazel was. You are more than a regular baby, eh? You will carry on for me. You will see her someday. Tell her hello for me."
"Bisabuelo," Ezperanza said, a little more insistently.
"yes, yes." Sammy chuckled. "El viejo loco rambles on. I am tired, Ezperanza. You are right. But I'll rest soon. It's been a good life. Raise him well, nieta."
The scene faded.
Leo was standing on the deck of the Argo II, holding Hazel's hand. The sun had gone down, and the ship was lit only by bronze lanterns. Hazel's eyes were puffy from crying.
What they'd seen was too much. The whole ocean heaved under them, and now for the first time Leo felt as if they were totally adrift.
"Hello, Hazel Levesque," he said, his voice gravelly. — Rick Riordan

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

It's too easy to forget oneself, to take comfort in becoming part of the great amorphous mass of the thoughtless, the spineless, the soulless, as I would say. To go along with the wrong instead of standing up for what's right. To become nothing because so many are nothing and being nothing takes less effort than becoming something worthwhile. — Lynmar Brock Jr.

What I recall is this: this native people he lived with, deep in the jungle - their language had dozens of words for rain. Because it was so common to them, you see. Where they lived, it rained almost constantly. Several times a day. So they had words for light rain, and heavy rain, and pounding rain. Something like eighteen different terms for storms, and a whole classification system for mist."
"Why are you telling me this?"
His touch skimmed lightly down her arm. "Because I'm standing here, wanting to give you fitting compliment, but my paltry vocabulary fails me. I think what I need is a scientific excursion. I need to venture deep into some jungle where beauty takes the place of rain. Where loveliness itself falls from the sky at regular intervals. Dots every surface, saturates the ground, hangs like vapor in the air. Because the way you look right now ... " His gaze cought hers in the reflection. "They'd have a word for it there. — Tessa Dare

Arya, What are you doing?"
"Syrio says a water dancer can stand on one toe for hours." Her hands flailed at the air to steady herself.
Ned had to smile. "Which toe?" he teased.
"ANY toe," Arya said, exasperated with the question. She hopped from her right leg to her left, swaying dangerously before she regained her balance.
"Must you do your standing here?" he asked. "It's a long hard fall down these steps."
"Syrio says a water dancer NEVER falls. — George R R Martin

She scrambled to her feet. She knew her sisters were eyeing her strangely, knew that what she was feeling was undisguised. Right then, she didn't care. She turned and ran for him. Bastian! Standing at the door, so tall and proud.
When he saw her, his lips parted, then he absently palmed the center of his chest.
As she hadn't slowed, he opened his arms - she knew what this meant - but she didn't hesitate to run into them, leaping up and latching onto him. They would have gone reeling if he weren't so strong.
The Valkyrie who'd flown down the stairs at the marked lightning saw her. All around them, she heard gasps. One muttered, "She ran to his arms. I saw it."
"Bastian, I missed you!" Kaderin whispered.
"God, I missed you, too," he murmured, clutching her. — Kresley Cole

Raffin appeared again, a floor above her, on the balconied passageway that ran past his workrooms. He leaned over the railing and called down to her. "Kat!"
"What is it?"
"You look lost . Have you forgotten the way to your rooms?"
"I'm stalling."
"How long will you be? I'd like to show you a couple of my new discoveries."
"I've been told to make myself pretty for dinner."
He grinned. "Well in that case, you'll be ages."
His face dissolved into laughter, and she tore a button from one of her bags an hurled it at him. He squealed and dropped to the floor, and the button hit the wall right where he'd been standing. When he peeked back over the railing, she stood in the courtyard with her hands on her hips, grinning. "I missed on purpose," she said.
"Show off! Come if you have time." He waved, and turned into his rooms. — Kristin Cashore

Escape, baby. The lack of control is control. When you're hanging on each moment, anticipating what comes next, it leaves room for nothing else. That's what I want to do for you.
...
"And who helps you escape, Liam?"
"We're going to the same place, Amy. I'm not standing outside, watching." His lips find my neck and then my ear. "I'm right here with you. — Lisa Renee Jones

Take a long, hard look down the road you will have to travel once you have made a commitment to work for change. Know that this transformation will not happen right away. Change often takes time. It rarely happens all at once. In the movement, we didn't know how history would play itself out. When we were getting arrested and waiting in jail or standing in unmovable lines on the courthouse steps, we didn't know what would happen, but we knew it had to happen.

Use the words of the movement to pace yourself. We used to say that ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part. And if we believe in the change we seek, then it is easy to commit to doing all we can, because the responsibility is ours alone to build a better society and a more peaceful world. — John Lewis

Graduates: Throughout your lives, do not be afraid of saying what you believe is right, no matter how unpopular it may be, especially when it comes to defending the rights of others. "Standing up for the rights of others is in some ways even more important than standing up for your own rights. Because when people seek to repress freedom for some, and you remain silent, you are complicit in that repression and you may well become its victim. "Do not be complicit, and do not follow the crowd. Speak up, and fight back. "You will take your lumps, I can assure you of that. You will lose some friends and make some enemies. But the arc of history will be on your side, and our nation will be stronger for it. "Now, — Anonymous

What is morality? It is not the following of enjoined rules of conduct. It is not a question of standing above temptations, or of conquering hate, anger, greed, lust and violence.
Questioning your actions before and after creates the moral problem. What is responsible for this situation is the faculty of distinguishing between right and wrong and influencing your actions accordingly.Life is action. Unquestioned action is morality. Questioning your actions is destroying the expression of life. A person who lets life act in its own way without the protective movement of thought has no self to defend. What need will he have to lie or cheat or pretend or to commit any other act which his society considers immoral? — U.G. Krishnamurti

For some reason our priorities in America are all screwed up! It's now all about making money ... instead of standing up for what's right! — Timothy Pina

Lindsay strode to the door and picked up his overcoat from the back of the couch, where he'd tossed it when they came in. She wheeled around to hand him his coat; once again, as expected, Fred was standing right behind her. But this time he wasn't looking at her. He was looking up.
At the mistletoe, directly over their heads.
He met her eyes with a look that glimmered with promise. Then he took the overcoat from her hand and tossed it, lightly, onto the back of the sofa once again.
Everything seemed to slow. His intentions were clear, and she had plenty of time to step back. Yet Lindsay did nothing to stop him when he took her chin in his hand, tipped it upward, and brought his lips down to hers, as purposefully as if he'd meant to do it all along.
Lindsay could have sworn she heard bells....
Still dazed, she followed his eyes upward. "And what's the penalty for ignoring mistletoe?"
"Struck by lightning, I think. — Sierra Donovan

The view was breathtaking. Her gaze swept out across the splendid, exciting square. Yes, she could see the horizon, the view so much more sweeping than she had expected. She saw now what Jim had seen, what had been there all the time. So much to do and know, and yes, she could do this.
And then she saw something else. A familiar figure, cap pushed back, walking toward her. She saw him moving closer, saw those clear, blue eyes. She heard a laugh-- whose? Her own. And it was all right. She could be right or wrong, but her vow to herself was clear now. She would be strong and not always too careful, not settle for a smaller life, and face what was true.
What was true? Perhaps it was here, staring her in the face.
"May I help you down?" Jim said. He was standing beneath her now, his hands on the bridle, looking up, his eyes alight.
Palms up, arms stretched out, she reached toward him.
"Yes," she said. — Kate Alcott

If sympathy is all that human beings need, then the Cross of Christ is an absurdity and there is absolutely no need for it. What the world needs is not "a little bit of love," but major surgery. If you think you are helping lost people with your sympathy and understanding, you are a traitor to Jesus Christ. You must have a right-standing relationship with Him yourself, and pour your life out in helping others in His way - not in a human way that ignores God. — Oswald Chambers

You spend so much time being upset about being in the hospital in the first place that it is almost jarring to realize how many people don't ever leave. I could have been just like his sister. I could have never woken up. But I did. I'm one of the ones who did. I consider for a moment what would have happened if I'd been standing just a little bit farther in the road or a little bit off to the side. What if I'd been thrown to the left instead of to the right? Or if the car had been going five miles per hour faster? I might not have ever woken up. Today could have been my funeral. How weird is that? How absolutely insane is that? The difference between life and death could be as simple and as uncomfortably slight as a step you take in either direction. Which means that I am here today, alive today, because I made the right choices, however brief and insignificant they felt at the time. I made the right choices. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I believe that You Reap What You Sow. I believe that we don't meet people by accident; everything happens for a reason. I believe that standing for what you believe in isn't an easy thing but it's the right thing to do; be brave to stand for what you believe in even if you stand alone. — Roy Bennett

When an apple ripens and falls - what makes it fall? Is it that it is attracted to the ground, is it that the stem withers, is it that the sun has dried it up, that it has grown heavier, that the wind shakes it, that the boy standing underneath wants to eat it? No one thing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions under which every organic, elemental event of life is accomplished. And the botanist who finds that the apple falls because the cellular tissue degenerates, and so on, will be as right and as wrong as the child who stands underneath and says that the apple fell because he wanted to eat it and prayed for it. — Leo Tolstoy

I dreamily and digestively drowse. I have time, between synaesthesias. And it's extraordinary to think that, if I were asked right now what I want for this short life, I could think nothing better than these long slow minutes, this absence of thought and emotion, of action and almost o sensation itself, this inner sunset of dissipated desire. And then it occurs to me, almost without thinking, that most if not all people live like this, with greater or lesser consciousness, moving forward or standing still, but still with the very same indifference towards ultimate aims, the same renunciation of their personal goals, the same watered-down life. — Fernando Pessoa

Please do, however, allow me to deliver one very personal message. It is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: Rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this:
"Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg."
Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will decide. If there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be? — Haruki Murakami

I have a surprise for you," the Beast had said, in his usual brusque tone.
Belle had just come in from feeding her horse, Philippe, and was standing by the kitchen's back door, shaking snow from her cloak. She'd taken one look at him - at the scowl on his face, at his clenched paws, at his awkward stance - and said, "No, thank you."
The Beast had blinked, taken aback by her refusal. His scowl had deepened. "I said, I have a surprise for you!"
"And I heard you," Belle had replied, "but I've had enough surprises to last me a lifetime. Including cold, dark cells, packs of wolves, and tantrums."
"Tantrums? Tantrums?" the Beast had sputtered. "I can't believe ... How can you say ... That wasn't a tantrum! And it wasn't my fault! I told you not to go to the West Wing. I told you -"
Belle had given him a sidelong look. "You're right. What was I thinking? You'd never throw a tantrum. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to hang up my cloak. — Jennifer Donnelly

There are all kinds of ways and reasons that mothers can and should be praised. But for cultivating a sense of invisibility, martyrdom and tirelessly working unnoticed and unsung? Those are not reasons. Praising women for standing in the shadows? Wrong. Where is the greeting card that praises the kinds of mothers I know? Or better yet, the kind of mother I was raised by? I need a card that says: "Happy Mother's Day to the mom who taught me to be strong, to be powerful, to be independent, to be competitive, to be fiercely myself and fight for what I want." Or "Happy Birthday to a mother who taught me to argue when necessary, to raise my voice for my beliefs, to not back down when I know I am right." Or "Mom, thanks for teaching me to kick ass and take names at work. Get well soon." Or simply "Thank you, Mom, for teaching me how to make money and feel good about doing it. Merry Christmas. — Shonda Rhimes

The want for that kiss had shocked him more than the interruption, and he fell back into the chair, cool and nonchalant as Quen came in with his questions and demands. He wasn't sure if he believed he'd really helped, but one thing was very clear. He wanted that again, that feeling of standing with her against all odds and succeeding. He wanted it so bad, he was going to risk destroying everything he and his father had worked for. He should walk away. Right now. But as she was ushered out the door under David's arm, all he wanted to do was follow her. What the hell was he doing, falling in love with a demon? — Kim Harrison

Only one comment seemed to perfectly fit her current situation. "I see dead people."
He leaned forward hands on his hips. "Me too. It's the only explanation for what's standing in front of me. Unless some high school kids broke into the anatomy closet and stole the classroom skeleton, stretched some cadaver skin over that bitch then cast an ancient ritual to animate it." She laughed. For as much as she now disliked the bastard she had to admit he was amusing. "Did they do the same to that shit you're wearing? You do realize it's 2008 right?" She raised a hand. "Wait let me see if I can reach you using your own language. You do ken 'tis year of our Lord two thousand and eight aye? — Jennifer Turner

Nothing makes much sense, does it?" she asks. "I mean, really, what do we know for sure except that right now, in this moment, we're standing here, breathing? The rest, who knows? Let's stop asking questions. Let's just stop trying to figure out everything and simply be happy we're here. What do you say? — Lisa Schroeder

Archibald MacLeish affirmed that 'A poem should be equal to / not true'. As a defiant statement of poetry's gift for telling truth but telling it slant, this is both cogent and corrective. Yet there are times when a deeper need enters, when we want the poem to be not only pleasurably right but compellingly wise, not only a surprising variation played upon the world, but a retuning of the world itself. We want the surprise to be transitive, like the impatient thump which unexpectedly restores the picture to the television set, or the electric shock which sets the fibrillating heart back to its proper rhythm. We want what the woman wanted in the prison queue in Leningrad, standing there blue with cold and whispering for fear, enduring the terror of Stalin's regime and asking the poet Anna Akhmatova if she could describe it all, if her art could be equal to it. — Seamus Heaney

Give me a good game-day party on Sunday afternoon and I'll show up, but knowing the intricate details about what was happening on the field had no interest for me. And I told that to my pal, Johnny. He was raving about a game, and I said that it seemed to me that 'every play was a few seconds of incomprehensible frenetic activity, followed by a minute and a half of standing around.' And he said, "Man, every single play is an entire chess game played out in six seconds." I didn't play chess, but I got the idea. The thought of a battle for territory being played both physically and strategically fascinated me. That was war, right? And if the game was war, then each play was a battle. — Gilbert Klein

Courage can't exist without action. Anything else is a lion without his roar. — Shannon L. Alder

Those who progress are those who understand that God's highest purpose for the Cross was not merely to forgive us of sin. It was so that, by forgiving us on the basis of Christ's blood, He could invite us back into an intimate family relationship with Him, our heavenly Father. John 1:12 says, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name."This legal standing of relationship to God as His sons and daughters is precisely what gives us an inheritance. — Bill Johnson

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us - set us right with him, make us fit for him - we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand - out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise. — Paul The Apostle

Standing up for what's right is a huge burden to bear. It's normal to have some doubt. — Daisy Whitney

Aunt Ester: He didn't care if anybody else knew if he did or not. He knew. He didn't do it for the people standing around watching. He did it for himself. He say I'd rather die in truth than to live a lie. That way he can say that his life is worth more than a bucket of nails. What is your life worth, Mr. Citizen? That what you got to find out. You got to find a way to live in truth. If you live right you die right. — August Wilson

Stand up for what is right even if it means standing alone. — Suzy Kassem

I stopped right in the middle of the road. There was no traffic. Before heading back towards my flat to get the number I paused for a while, I don't know how long, and stood in what had been the marksmen's sightlines. I turned the palms of my hands outwards, closed my eyes and thought about that memory of just before the accident, being buffeted by wind. Remembering it sent a tingling from the top of my legs to my shoulders and right up into my neck. It lasted for just a moment-but while it did it felt not-neutral. I felt different, intense: both intense and serene at the same time. I remember feeling this way very well: standing there, passive, with my palms turned outwards, feeling intense and serene. — Tom McCarthy