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 |
John Kane, fully John L. Lane Jr.
The public interest is best served by the free exchange of ideas.
Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life. Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interest upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance.
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 |
Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul… You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.
Confidence | Despair | Doubt | Faith | Fear | Hope | Ideals | People | Self | Self-confidence | Soul | Old |
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.
At particular epochs of their life, [children] reveal an intense and extraordinary interest in certain objects and exercises, which one might look for in vain at a later age… Such attention is not the results of mere curiosity; it is more like a burning passion. A keen emotion first rises from the depths of the unconscious, and sets in motion a marvelous creative activity in contact with the outside world, thus building up consciousness.
Age | Attention | Children | Consciousness | Curiosity | Life | Life | Passion | World |