Quotes about Duty

To serve the Word is to fulfill the highest function of which man is capable.

Can any man or woman choose duties? No more than they can choose their birthplace or their father and mother.

If a superior give any order to one who is under him which is against that man's conscience, although he do not obey it yet he shall not be dismissed.

The book the reader has now before his eyes - from one end to the other, in its whole and in its details, whatever the omissions, the exceptions, or the faults - is the march from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from the false to the true, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from rottenness to life, from brutality to duty, from Hell to Heaven, from nothingness to God. Starting point: matter; goal: the soul. Hydra at the beginning, angel at the end.

If we wish to be happy, monsieur, we must never comprehend duty; for, as soon as we comprehend it, it is implacable. One would say that it punishes you for comprehending it; but no, it rewards you for it; for it puts you into a hell where you feel God at your side.

Javert, though hideous, was not ignoble.

Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things which may become hideous when wrongly directed; but which, even when hideous, remain grand: their majesty, the majesty peculiar to the human conscience, clings to them in the midst of horror; they are virtues which have one vice,—error.

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.

When men are tired of hearing and meditating upon the things of God, the fault lies within; in the background there is greed, and behind that sacrilege, and behind that again profanity. Let us search our hearts, and find whether the things of God have become merely a duty, a weariness, that we would relinquish if we dare, and to which we only hold for the sake of appearances.

No man lived a more strong and beautiful life than did John Wesley, and his view of death was that whenever it came he would be found at his duty; and the transition from that duty to heaven's service would be a natural one. Instead of death, let the Lord be expected; and the true attitude of life will be that of quiet pursuit of duty and constant readiness to greet Him.

Virtue, though often mocked and ridiculed, is as beautiful as wickedness is ugly. Self-denial curiously spawns joyful happiness, while selfishness and arrogance produce desperation and obsession. Being faithful to duty brings great fulfillment, while following unchecked passions eventually leads us to despise ourselves. And the greatest truth of all: There is no higher end, no more glorious life, no better aim, than to live in the fear and favor of Almighty God.

We have a duty to meet our spouse in their need. Correspondingly, we also have a Christian duty not to demand too much of our spouse.