Quotes about Duty

We ought to be much concerned to know whether we do not live in the gratification of some lust, either in practice or in our thoughts: whether we do not live in the omission of some duty, some thing which God expects we should do; whether we do not go into some practice or manner of behaviour, which is not warrantable.

Bonhoeffer himself knew that in all of it, he was being utterly obedient to God. For him, that was the cantus firmus that made the dizzying complexities of it all perfectly coherent.

It's our job to "keep" the republic called America, and we can hardly keep what we don't even know we have.

The term "noblesse oblige"—the idea that those who have been blessed with much are to use it to help those who have not been so blessed—would not be coined for another half-century, and Wilberforce had yet to discover the relevance of any such idea to his own life.

Strange that the most generous men and religious, do not see that their duties increase with their fortune, and that they will be punished for spending it" on themselves in eating and drinking.

Christians were free, but he also made it clear that their freedom made them duty-bound to behave well toward others. Christian truth was eleven parts paradox out of ten. This was its essentially mysterious and glorious nature.

Wilberforce could put her at ease. Some, he writes to her, "are thrown into public, some have their lot in private life…. It would merit no better name than desertion…if I were thus to fly from the post where Providence has placed me.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it sis my duty ... This is my highest and best use as a human.

Power has only one duty--to secure the social welfare of the people.

Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.

It is the duty and high privilege of every human being to endeavor to improve himself. Effort at self-improvement is the definition sometimes given for religion. It may relate to our actions or to our convictions. In our actions we should aim at goodness; in our convictions, at truth.

If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty.