quotations about duty
The modern state no longer has anything but rights; it does not recognize duties any more.
GEORGES BERNANOS
Last Essays
When the destinies of the world are at stake, there comes a point at which private esteem and admiration must give way to the sense of public duty.
WILLIAM ARCHER
Shirking the Issue: A Letter to Dr. George Brandes
We never fail when we
try to do our duty--
We always fail when we
neglect to do it.
LORD BADEN-POWELL
Rovering to Success
Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech, Feb. 27, 1860
Honor is no phantom. Duty doesn't melt away, no matter how much we might wish it to.
CLAUDIA J. EDWARDS
Taming the Forest King
Duties are not performed for duty's sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty--the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself.
MARK TWAIN
"What Is Man?"
That famous ring that pricked its owner when he forgot duty and followed desire--I wonder if it pricked very hard when he set out on the chase, or whether it pricked but lightly then, and only pierced to the quick when the chase had long been ended, and hope folding her wings, looked backward and became regret?
GEORGE ELIOT
Silas Marner
It is wrong to tantalize you so while you are braving all things in trying to fulfil duty. Duty is black and brown--home is bright and shining, and the spirit and the bride say come, and let him that wandereth come, for behold all things are ready.
EMILY DICKINSON
letter to William Austin Dickinson, October 1851
Duty is like Aaron's rod; hold it fast, and it performs miracles; cast it from you, and it becomes a loathsome reptile.
E.P. DAY
Day's Collacon
It's your duty duty, to shake that booty booty
LENE
"It's Your Duty"
You've seen balloons set, haven't you?
So stately they ascend
It is as swans discarded you
For duties diamond.
EMILY DICKINSON
"The Balloon"
Oh righteous doom, that they who make
Pleasure their only end,
Ordering the whole life for its sake,
Miss that whereto they tend.
While they who bid stern duty lead,
Content to follow, they,
Of duty only taking heed,
Find pleasure by the way.
RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH
"Retribution"
From the point of view of the individual, duty is the surrender of one's thought and mind to the fixed ideas of culture, society, and the state.
JOHN F. WELSH
Max Stirner's Dialectical Egoism
All domestic pleasures and enjoyments are absorbed in the great and important duty you owe your country.
ABIGAIL ADAMS
letter to John Adams, May 7, 1776
We survived. You and I. And those who survive have a duty. Our duty is to do our best to keep on living. Even if our lives are not perfect.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Duty is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never do less.
ROBERT E. LEE
Memoirs of Robert E. Lee