Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.
Aristotle

We've only been wealthy in this country for 70 years. Who said we ought to have all this? Is it ordained?
Jack Welch

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
John Adams

I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night.
Henry Ford

Any man who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.
Samuel Goldwyn

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.
Plato

The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.
Plato

We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue.
Plato

No trace of slavery ought to mix with the studies of the freeborn man. No study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory.
Plato

Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.
Plato

The want of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.
Jonathan Swift

A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
Thomas Paine

When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
Thomas Paine

What we call creative work, ought not to be called work at all, because it isn't. I imagine that Thomas Edison never did a day's work in his last fifty years.
Stephen Leacock

Teach and practice, practice and teach - that is all we have; that is all we are good for; that is all we ever ought to do.
Ernest Holmes

Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.
Langston Hughes

The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work.
Voltaire

It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.
Jane Austen

General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.
Jane Austen

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.
Dwight D. Eisenhower