Obliged Quotes - Page 7

• His [Jesus'] historians, having brought him into the world in a supernatural manner, were obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or the first part of the story must have fallen to the ground.

  Thomas Paine

  Jesus, Religion, Stories

  Thomas Paine (1852). “The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology”, p.10

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...the act of eating,which hath by several wise men been considered as extremely mean and derogatory from the philosophic dignity, must be in some measure performed by the greatest prince, hero, or philosopher upon earth; nay, sometimes Nature hath been so frolicsome as to exact of these dignified characters a much more exorbitant share of this office than she hath obliged those of the lowest orders to perform.

  Henry Fielding

  Wise, Hero, Food

  Henry Fielding (1844). “The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling: With the Life of the Author : in Two Volumes”, p.443

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• For years, I'd say yes to almost everything, trying to be nice and generous. Feeling obliged to be of service to the world. Maybe also a fear of being forgotten if I don't. But I paid the ultimate price in doing that, because for all those years, I got almost no work done! Some famous authors have written about this: that if they said yes to every request, then they'd never have time to write another book again.

  Derek Sivers

  Nice, Book, Writing

  "Brave Interview: Derek Sivers". Interview with Margie Warrell, www.business2community.com. July 5, 2015.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• And a great misunderstanding is that children think their parents are grown-up, and parents feel obliged to act as if they were.

  Anna Quindlen

  Children, Thinking, Parent

  4 Copy quote

• I think ex-Soviet or Russian-Jewish women are tougher and that comes through. And if they are more pragmatic than the men, it's because they are obliged to be. They have all the female responsibilities and all the male responsibilities.

  David Bezmozgis

  Responsibility, Thinking, Men

  Interview with Ratik Asokan, logger.believermag.com. September 23, 2014.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Buonaparte is certainly writing, or rather dictating, his memoirs. He walks backwards and forwards with his hands behind him, and dictates so fast that two or three of his suite are obliged to be in attendance, that the one may take down one-half of a sentence, and another the rest; they then literally compare notes, and put the disjointed legs and wings and heads of periods together. This is writing a book as he fought a battle.

  Mary Russell Mitford

  Book, Writing, Wings

  Mary Russell Mitford (1870). “The Life of Mary Russell Mitford ; Related in an Selection from Her Letters to Her Friends. Ed. by A.G. Estrange”, p.7

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A passage is not plain English - still less is it good English - if we are obliged to read it twice to find out what it means.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Mean, Clarity, Plain English

  5 Copy quote

• Whereas a lot of men used to ask for conversation when they really wanted sex, nowadays they often feel obliged to ask for sex even when they really want conversation.

  Katharine Whitehorn

  Sex, Men, Want

  11 Copy quote

• John Wesley's conversation is good, but he is never at leisure. He is always obliged to go at a certain hour. This is very disagreeable to a man who loves to fold his legs and have his talk out as I do.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Leisure, Legs

  In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 3, p. 230 (31 March 1778)

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The tyrant, who in order to hold his power, suppresses every superiority, does away with good men, forbids education and light, controls every movement of the citizens and, keeping them under a perpetual servitude, wants them to grow accustomed to baseness and cowardice, has his spies everywhere to listen to what is said in the meetings, and spreads dissension and calumny among the citizens and impoverishes them, is obliged to make war in order to keep his subjects occupied and impose on them permanent need of a chief.

  Aristotle

  War, Men, Light

  229 Copy quote

• Socrates' way of life is the consequence of his recognition that we can know what it is that we do not know about the most important things and that we are by nature obliged to seek that knowledge.

  Allan Bloom

  Important, Way, Recognition

  "Giants and Dwarfs". Book by Allan Bloom. Chapter: "Western Civ," p. 18, 1990.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The breakdown of Plato's philosophy is made apparent in the fact that he could not trust to gradual improvements in education to bring about a better society which should then improve education, and so on indefinitely. Correct education could not come into existence until an ideal state existed, and after that education would be devoted simply to its conservation. For the existence of this state he was obliged to trust to some happy accident by which philosophic wisdom should happen to coincide with possession of ruling power in the state.

  John Dewey

  Plato, Philosophy, Would Be

  "Democracy and Education". Book by John Dewey, 1916.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every one who has a heart and eyes sees that you, working men, are obliged to pass your lives in want and in hard labor, which is useless to you, while other men, who do not work, enjoy the fruits of your labor that you are the slaves of these men, and that this ought not to exist.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Heart, Eye, Men

  "To the Working People". Complete Works, translated by Leo Wiener, Volume 24, p. 129, 1905.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is when physicians are bogged down by their incomplete technologies, by the innumerable things they are obliged to do in medicine when they lack a clear understanding of disease mechanisms, that the deficiencies of the health-care system are most conspicuous. If I were a policy-maker, interested in saving money for health care over the long haul, I would regard it as an act of high prudence to give high priority to a lot more basic research in biologic science.

  Lewis Thomas

  Technology, Medicine, Long

  Lewis Thomas (1990). “A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to deprecate the value of freedom itself.

  Edmund Burke

  Freedom, Prove, Ought

  8 Copy quote

• You and I have formerly seen warm debates and high political passions. But gentlemen of different politics would then speak to each other and separate the business of the Senate from that of society. It is not so now. Men who have been intimate all their lives, cross the streets to avoid meeting, and turn their heads another way, lest they should be obliged to touch their hats. This may do for young men with whom passion is enjoyment. But it is afflicting to peaceable minds. Tranquility is the old man's milk.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Passion, Men, Political

  6 Copy quote

• In art, in taste, in life, in speech, you decide from feeling, and not from reason. If we were obliged to enter into a theoretical deliberation on every occasion before we act, life would be at a stand, and Art would be impracticable.

  William Hazlitt

  Art, Feelings, Would Be

  "Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners". Book by William Hazlitt. Chapter: "On Genius and Common Sense", 1822.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talks that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence. Inside its cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend. There are periods in the most thrilling day during which nothing happens, and though we continue to exclaim, "I do enjoy myself", or , "I am horrified," we are insincere.

  E. M. Forster

  Pain, Book, Interesting

  'A Passage to India' (1924) ch. 14

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• The News-writer lies down at Night in great Tranquillity, upon a piece of News which corrupts before Morning, and which he is obliged to throw away as soon as he awakes.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Morning, Lying, Night

  "The Characters or Manners of the Present Age". Book by Jean de La Bruyère, Chapter I, 1688.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• How can I be expected to believe that this same racial discrimination which has been the cause of so much injustice and suffering right through the years, should now operate here to give me a fair and open trial?....consider myself neither morally nor legally obliged to obey laws made by a Parliament in which I am not represented. That the will of the people is the basis of the authority of government, is a principle universally acknowledged as sacred throughout the civilized world.

  Nelson Mandela

  Believe, Government, Years

  16 Copy quote

• The longer we live, the more we are obliged to confront the deeper meaning of what it is we do.

  David Toop

  Deeper, Deeper Meaning

  6 Copy quote

• A king is sometimes obliged to commit crimes; but they are the crimes of his position.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Kings, Sometimes, Crime

  "Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts" collected and published by Cte. A. G. de Liancourt; edited by James Alexander Manning, 1848.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Others will give away large alms in order to be considered charitable people. Should they not give these out of their own wages, which so often they squander on trifles? If this has happened to you, do not forget that you are obliged to pay back to the person concerned all that you gave to the poor without the knowledge or consent of your employers. Then again, there is the one who has been entrusted by his employer with the supervision of the staff, or of workmen, who gives out wine and all sorts of other things to them if they ask him.

  John Vianney

  Wine, Order, People

  8 Copy quote

• The dollar represents a one dollar debt to the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve Banks create money out of thin air to buy Government Bonds from the U.S. Treasury...and has created out of nothing a ... debt which the American people are obliged to pay with interest.

  Wright Patman

  Government, Air, People

  13 Copy quote

• The international community must make pressure on Israel to recognize our right to get freedom, to fight against occupation, to have real peace, legitimacy on our ground. If the international community obliged Israel to do that, then they can come to us and ask us to take our step.

  Khaled Mashal

  Real, Fighting, Israel

  7 Copy quote