Quotes
Quotes about Duty
Feast of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Martyr, c.155 There can be no end without means; and God furnishes no means that exempt us from the task and duty of joining our own best endeavors. The original stock, or wild olive tree, of our natural powers, was not given to us to be burnt or blighted, but to be grafted on.
One who receives this Word, and by it salvation, receives along with it the duty of passing this Word on... Where there is no mission, there is no Church, and where there is neither Church nor mission, there is no faith.
And do these objectors mean to say that, because God has redeemed us from the curse of the law, therefore we owe him nothing, we have no duty now to him? Has not redemption rather made us doubly debtors? We owe him more than ever: we owe his holy law more than ever; more honor, more obedience. Duty has been doubled, not canceled, by our being delivered from the law; and he who says that duty has ceased, because deliverance has come, knows nothing of duty, or law, or deliverance.
I read in Shakespeare of the majesty of the moral law, in Victor Hugo of the sacredness of childhood, in Tennyson the ugliness of hypocrisy, in George Eliot the supremacy of duty, in Dickens the divinity of kindness, and in Ruskin the dignity of service. Irving teaches me the lesson of cheerfulness, Hawthorne shows me the hatefulness of sin, Longfellow gives me the soft, tranquil music of hope. Lowell makes us feel that we must give ourselves to our fellow men. Whittier sings to me of divine Fatherhood and human brotherhood. These are Christian lessons: who inspired them? Who put it into the heart of Martin Luther to nail those theses on the church door of Wittenberg? Who stirred and fired the soul of Savonarola? Who thrilled and electrified the soul of John Wesley? Jesus Christ is back of these all.
God's manifestation of Himself has not been for our personal experience only, but all creation, and all time, all mankind and all man's life upon the earth, are manifestations of God; and the man turns to barrenness and folly who limits himself to his own narrow thought and futile endeavours. All human experience is revelation if the great purpose of life is the discipline of souls, and the one unchanging guidance for all men is duty.
Only on recognising the true, may we lay down our task of searching further for truth; and only on being satisfied that we have found the holy, are we justified in submitting to its guidance. The duty of following truth at all hazards is not altered, and it is only a false wisdom and prudence which shuns the search. The one chief reason why so much more may be revealed to babes than to the wise and prudent is still simply that, with less calculation and prejudice, they entirely abandon themselves to the leading of truth.
Voting is the least arduous of a citizen's duties. He has the prior and harder duty of making up his mind.
Certainly this is a duty, not a sin. "Cleanliness is indeed next to godliness."
Not to hurt our humble brethren in fur, feather or fin, is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission: to be of service to them whenever they require it.
Compromise is never anything but an ignoble truce between the duty of a man and the terror of a coward.
Compromise is never anything but an ignoble truce between the duty of a man and the terror of a coward.
Self-confidence is either a petty pride in our own narrowness, or the realization of our duty and privilege as God's children.
I slept and dreamed that life was beauty.I awokeâand found that life was duty.
Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it courage which arises from a sense of duty acts in a uniform manner.
Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it courage which arises from a sense of duty acts in a uniform manner.
Imperial Waltz! imported from the Rhine (Famed for the growth of pedigrees and wine), Long be thine import from all duty free, And hock itself be less esteem'd than thee.
Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.
Thanks to the gods! my boy has done his duty.
In doing what we ought we deserve no praise, because it is our duty.
He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will find the flaw when he may have forgotten its cause.
To do my duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call me.
Not aw'd to duty by superior sway.
So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man. When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can.
When I'm not thank'd at all, I'm thank'd enough: I've done my duty, and I've done no more.
In common things the law of sacrifice takes the form of positive duty.
