This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Julian Huxley, fully Sir Julian Sorell Huxley
There are two complementary parts of our cosmic duty – one to ourselves, to be fulfilled in the realization and enjoyment of our capacities; the other to others, to be fulfilled in service to the community and in promoting the welfare of the generations to come and the advancement of our species as a whole.
Abbie Hoffman, fully Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
Duty |
Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller
I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.
Duty |
The ultimate grounding of obligation, and finally of all morality, is a single but universal relationship between each and all… a sense of duty grounded in the recognition of the intrinsic worth of persons.
Duty | Morality | Obligation | Relationship | Sense | Worth |
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
The chaff from winnowing will blind a man’s eyes so that he cannot tell the points of the compass. Mosquitoes will keep a man awake all night with their biting. And just in the same way this talk of charity and duty to one’s neighbor drives me nearly crazy. Sir! strive to keep the world to its own simplicity. And as the wind bloweth where it listeth, so let virtue establish itself. Wherefore such undue energy, as though searching for a fugitive with a big drum?
Charity | Duty | Energy | Man | Simplicity | Virtue | Virtue | Will | World |
It is loyalty to great ends, even though forced to combine the small and opposing motives of selfish men to accomplish them; it is the anchored cling to solid principles of duty and action, which knows how to swing with the tide, but is never carried away by it – that we demand in public men, and not sameness of policy, or a conscientious persistency in what is impracticable.
Action | Duty | Ends | Loyalty | Loyalty | Men | Motives | Policy | Principles | Public |
It is as much the duty of government to render prompt justice against itself, in favor of citizens, as it is to administer the same between private individuals.
Duty | Government | Justice | Government |
Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Duty | Faith | Right | Understand |
Lord Palmerston, Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and these interests it is our duty to follow.
He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Duty to Man has replaced Duty to God. It is the central point of Humanism.
Leon Shenendoah, elected Tadodaho, aka Chief Leon Shenendoah
These are our times and our responsibilities. Every human being has a sacred duty to protect the welfare of our Mother Earth, from whom all life comes. In order to do this we must recognize the enemy -- the one within us. We must begin with ourselves.
Duty | Earth | Enemy | Life | Life | Mother | Order | Sacred |
Among the smaller duties of life, I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due. Reputation is one of the prizes for which men contend: it produces more labor and more talent than twice the wealth of a country could ever rear up. It is the coin of genius, and it is the imperious duty of every man to bestow it with the most scrupulous justice and the wisest economy.
Duty | Important | Justice | Labor | Life | Life | Man | Men | Praise | Reputation | Wealth | Talent |
William Safire, fully William Lewis Safire
A sense of duty is moral glue, constantly subject to stress.