Ought

Ought the English word to be spelt with a _t_, or thus,

Notes and Queries, Number 47, September 21, 1850 Various

Ought is an ethical statement, the US ought/not to invade Iraq for human rights.

Matthew Yglesias » Is Stimulus Impossible 2010

That sounds to me like a man who could be persuaded – and St Andrews Night is still to come, in Ought Nine.

Archive 2009-05-01 Jean 2009

That sounds to me like a man who could be persuaded – and St Andrews Night is still to come, in Ought Nine.

Jean's Knitting Jean 2009

In its own consciousness the official Christian State is an Ought, which is impossible of realization.

Selected Essays Karl Marx 1850

But in a poem that begins "The Zeros taught," it does seem possible that "Ought" might actually mean zero, as in the phrase "nineteen ought two."

Helen Vendler's new commentary on Emily Dickinson, reviewed by Michael Dirda 2010

"Ought" is the operative word; I have many feeble hopes in my stable, so to speak.

"I will discover to my shock and chagrin ... Glenn Greenwald has already written about it, and I’m totally hosed." Ann Althouse 2007

"What is Duty?" he proceeded, "Whence the conviction, the mysterious fact, that whatever my inclination may be, I _ought_ to do some act -- ought to do it though the cup of pleasure be dashed from the lifting hand, though a loved face most pale, though the stars in their high courses reel, and the gulfs of perdition smoke, -- why is it that the grave, unalterable 'Ought' must still demand reverence?"

The Young Seigneur Or, Nation-Making Wilfrid Ch��teauclair

'Ought' is a singular instance of the confusion wrought by words and of their inefficiency.

More Pages from a Journal Mark Rutherford 1872

'Ought' of self-sacrifice refers to love, and 'ought' of sobriety to the subordination of desires, to a difference in their authority of which we can give no account, excepting that we are creatures fashioned in a certain way.

More Pages from a Journal Mark Rutherford 1872