Duty Quotes - Page 37

• The price of being oneself is so high and involves so much ruthlessness toward others (or what looks like ruthlessness in our duty-bound culture) that very few people can afford it.

  May Sarton

  People, Culture, Looks

  May Sarton (2014). “The House by the Sea: A Journal”, p.43, Open Road Media

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• People constantly requesting government intervention are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Men, People, Looks

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• A true military officer is in one particular like a true monk. Not with more self-abnegation will the latter keep his vows of monastic obedience than the former his vows of allegiance to martial duty.

  Herman Melville

  Military, Self, Monk

  Herman Melville (2016). “Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories”, p.190, Penguin

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• Religion is something infinitely simple, ingenuous. It is not knowledge, not content of feeling... it is not duty and not renunciation, it is not restriction: but in the infinite extent of the universe it is a direction of the heart.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Heart, Simple, Feelings

  Rainer Maria Rilke “Letters: 1910-1926”

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• I wish you would moderate that fondness you have for your children. I do not mean you should abate any part of your care, or not do your duty to them in its utmost extent, but I would have you early prepare yourself for disappointments, which are heavy in proportion to their being surprising.

  Mary Wortley Montagu

  Children, Disappointment, Mean

  Mary Wortley Montagu (2015). “Letters”, p.504, Everyman's Library

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• The chief duty of governments, in so far as they are coercive, is to restrain those who would interfere with the inalienable rights of the individual, among which are the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to the pursuit of happiness and the right to worship God according to the dictates of ones conscience.

  William Jennings Bryan

  Pursuit Of Happiness, Rights, Government

  William Jennings Bryan (1917). “Heart to Heart Appeals”

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• Hollywood has always been political. They consider it their right and duty to tell us what is politically good and right.

  Mike Royko

  Political, Hollywood

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• How necessary it is to cultivate a spirit of joy. It is a psychological truth that the physical acts of reverence and devotion make one feel devout. The courteous gesture increases one's respect for others. To act lovingly is to begin to feel loving, and certainly to act joyfully brings joy to others which in turn makes one feel joyful. I believe we are called to the duty of delight.

  Dorothy Day

  Kindness, Believe, Joy

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• The first duty of man is to take none of the principles of conduct upon trust; to do nothing without a clear and individual conviction that it is right to be done.

  William Godwin

  Men, Principles, Done

  William Godwin (1793). “An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice: And Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness”, p.597

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• Justice is the sum of all moral duty.

  William Godwin

  Justice, Moral, Moral Duty

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• If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no other choice. Failing this duty, he sinks into oblivion. Society, on the other hand, has no obligation toward the poet. A majority by definition, society thinks of itself as having other options than reading verses, no matter how well written. Its failure to do so results in its sinking to that level of locution at which society falls easy prey to a demagogue or a tyrant. This is society's own equivalent of oblivion.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Fall, Reading, Writing

  "Less Than One: Selected Essays".

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• Amid all your duties, keep some hours to yourself.

  Margaret Fuller

  Solitude, Hours

  Margaret Fuller, Margaret F. Ossoli (2008). “Woman in the Ninteenth Century (EasyRead Large Edition)”, p.393, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• I don't regard James Bond precisely as a hero, but at least he does get on and do his duty, in an extremely corny way.

  Ian Fleming

  Hero, Doe, Way

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• Perish discretion, when it interferes With duty!

  Hannah More

  Interfere, Discretion

  "Miscellaneous Works: Tragedies. Miscellaneous poems. Hymns and ballads. Sacred Dramas. Coelebs. Practical piety. Moriana".

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• A bureaucracy is sure to think that its duty is to augment official power, official business, or official members, rather than to leave free the energies of mankind; it overdoes the quantity of government, as well as impairs its quality. The truth is, that a skilled bureaucracy is, though it boasts of an appearance of science, quite inconsistent with the true principles of the art of business.

  Walter Bagehot

  Art, Thinking, Government

  Walter Bagehot (1867). “The English Constitution”, p.237

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• There's a rule saying I have to ground anyone who's crazy ... There's a catch. Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy.

  Joseph Heller

  Crazy, Want, Combat

  Joseph Heller, Robert M. Scotto (1973). “Joseph Heller's Catch-22: A Critical Edition”

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• One man finds in religion his literature and his science, another finds in it his joy and his duty.

  Joseph Joubert

  Men, Joy, Religion

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• The mother as a social servant instead of a home servant will not lack in true mother duty. From her work, loved and honored though it is, she will return to her home life, the child life, with an eager, ceaseless pleasure, cleansed of all the fret and fraction and weariness that so mar it now.

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Mother, Children, Home

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman (2015). “Women and Economics”, p.175, Booklassic

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• To me a book is a message from the gods to mankind; or, if not, should never be published at all. A message from the gods should be delivered at once. It is damnably blasphemous to talk about the autumn season and so on. How dare the author or publisher demand a price for doing his duty, the highest and most honorable to which a man can be called?

  Aleister Crowley

  Book, Autumn, Men

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• I do not comprehend those rules of conduct that make us so content with self and so cold to those we love. I detest prudence, I even hate (suffer me to say so) those duties of friendship which substitute propriety for interest, and circumspection for feeling. How shall I say it? I love the abandonment to impulse, I act from impulse only, and I love to madness that others do the same by me.

  Jeanne Julie Eleonore de Lespinasse

  Hate, Self, Feelings

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• The atmosphere [in the school lunchroom] is not quite that of a prison, because the students are permitted to talk quietly, under the frowning scrutiny of teachers standing around on duty, during their meal-they are not supposed to talk while standing in line, though this rule is only sporadically enforced.

  Edgar Friedenberg

  Education, Teacher, School

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• A devotee who can call on God while living a householder's life is a hero indeed. God thinks: 'He is blessed indeed who prays to me in the midst of his worldly duties. He is trying to find me, overcoming a great obstacle -- pushing away, as it were, a huge block of stone weighing a ton. Such a man is a real hero.

  Ramakrishna

  Prayer, Block, Real

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• Vice-President Ford, possibly preparing for higher duties, assessed Kissinger's part in the Syrian-Israeli troop disengagement as "the great diplomatic triumph of this century or perhaps any other.

  Edwin Newman

  President, Vices, Triumph

  Edwin Newman (1974). “Strictly Speaking: Will america be the Death of English?”

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• Learn to commend thy daily acts to God, so shall the dry every-day duties of common life be steps to heaven, and lift they heart hither.

  Edward Bouverie Pusey

  Heart, Heaven, Dry

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• I am loaded down to the guards with educational, benevolent, and other miscellaneous public work, I must not attempt to do more. I cannot without neglecting imperative duties.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Educational, Neglect, Miscellaneous

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