DUTY QUOTES III

quotations about duty

I thought the remnant of mine age
Should have been cherish'd by her child-like duty.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The Two Gentlemen of Verona


Families are nothing other than the idolatry of duty.

ANN OAKLEY

Taking It Like a Woman


Stern daughter of the voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring and reprove.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Ode to Duty


Duty doesn't need to call; it only needs to whisper. And if you heed the call, no matter what happens, you have no need for regret.

DEAN KOONTZ

Odd Apocalypse


Death is lighter than a feather, but Duty is heavier than a mountain.

ROBERT JORDAN

To the Blight


If you lay duties upon people and give them no rights, you must pay them well.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe


Every duty is great; great, because it tries our principle; great, because for the time being it tries our loyalty to conscience, and our energy and will.

E. H. CHAPIN

Living Words


The brave man wants no charms to encourage him to his duty, and the good man scorns all warnings that would deter him from fulfilling it.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings


Oh! Duty is an icy shadow. It will freeze you. It cannot fill the heart's sanctuary.

AUGUSTA JANE EVANS

Beulah


I give nothing as duties,
What others give as duties I give as living impulses

WALT WHITMAN

Leaves of Grass


You have your duty and your heart. To chose one means the other must suffer.

TOMI ADEYEMI

Children of Blood and Bone


Not once or twice in our fair island-story,
The path of duty was the way to glory.

ALFRED LORD TENNYSON

"Ode on the Death of Wellington"


No duty is imposed on the rich.

EUGENE EDINE POTTIER

The Internationale


Three things prompt men to a regular discharge of their duty in time of action: natural bravery, hope of reward, and fear of punishment.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

letter to the President of Congress, Feb. 9, 1776


If there is to be no satisfaction in pleasure, none in wisdom, none in ambition, none in the golden mean, what then? Ah, where then? In duty. In doing right because it is right.

LYMAN ABBOTT

Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott


The idea of duty, that recognition of something to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of self, is to the moral life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal life. No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience: a principle of subordination, of self-mastery, has been introduced into his nature; he is no longer a mere bundle of impressions, desires, and impulses.

GEORGE ELIOT

Janet's Repentance


The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country, than the coward who deserts her in the hour of danger.

ANDREW JACKSON

speech to troops, Jan. 8, 1815


A man who refuses a duty ... is not punished ... but forsaken. And he will never know love or honor or happiness again.

S. M. STIRLING

The Sunrise Lands


Make it a point to do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

MARK TWAIN

Following the Equator


The destiny of mankind is not decided by material computation. When great causes are on the move in the world ... we learn that we are spirits, not animals, and that something is going on in space and time beyond space and time, which whether we like it or not, spells duty.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

speech in Rochester, 1941