quotations about duty
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
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
The journey of life is plain and straight enough if people were trained to make principle their watchword and duty their rule.
JAMES PLATT
Platt's Essays
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
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"
Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties.
DOUG LARSON
attributed, Great Funny Quotes
I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
ELLEN STURGIS HOOPER
Life a Duty
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
The want of reward is no warrant for us to dispense with our duty.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
Clarissa
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
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
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"
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
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?"
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