This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"It is the duty of government to make it difficult for people to do wrong, easy to do right." - William Ewart Gladstone
"Knowledge of our duties is the most essential part of the philosophy of life. If you escape duty you avoid action. The world demands results." - George Washington Goethals
"Duty is carrying on promptly and faithfully the affairs now before you. It is to fulfill the claims of to-day." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Self knowledge is best learned, not by contemplation, but action. Strive to do your duty and you will soon discover of what stuff you are made." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"There is generally no such thing as duty to the people who do it. They simply take life as it comes, meeting, not shirking its demands, whether pleasant or unpleasant; and that is pretty much all there is of it." - Gail Hamilton, Pseud. of Mary A. Dodge
"Do your duty, and don’t swerve from it. Do that which your conscience tells you to be right, and leave the consequences to God." - Benjamin R. Haydon
"Wherever the right of property clashes with a duty toward humanity, the former has not credentials that are entitled to consideration." - Emil G. Hirsch, fully Emil Gustav Hirsch
"The end of worship amongst men is power. For where a man seeth another worshipped, he supposeth him powerful, and is the readier to obey him; which makes his power greater. But God has no ends: the worship we do him proceeds from our duty and is directed according to our capacity by those rules of honor that reason dictateth to be done by the weak to the more potent men, in hope of benefit, for fear of damage, or in thankfulness for good already received from them." - Thomas Hobbes
"In the whole range of human vision nothing is more attractive than to see a young man full of promise and of hope, bending all his energies in the direction of truth and duty and God, his soul pervaded with the loftiest enthusiasm, and his life consecrated to the noblest ends. To be such a young man is to rival the noblest and best of men in heroic valor." -
"In the whole range of human vision nothing is more attractive than to see a young man full of promise and of hope, bending all his energies in the direction of truth and duty and God, his soul pervaded with the loftiest enthusiasm, and his life consecrated to the noblest ends. To be such a young man is to rival the noblest and best of men in heroic valor." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
"The things of the world are ever rising and falling, and in perpetual change; and this change must be according to the will of God, as he has bestowed upon man neither the wisdom nor the power to enable him to check it. The great lesson in these things is, that man must strengthen himself doubly at such times to fulfill his duty and to do what is right, and must seek his happiness and inward peace from objects which cannot be taken away from him." -
"The Golden Rule exists in each of the world's major religions... Hinduism: Do naught to others which, if done to thee, would cause thee pain: this is the sum of duty. Buddhism: A clansman [should] minister to his friends and familiars... by treating them as he treats himself. Confucianism: The Master replied: "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do unto others." Taoism: To those who are good to me, I am good; and to those who are not good to me, I am also good. And thus all get to be good. To those who are sincere with me, I am sincere; and to those who are not sincere with me, I am also sincere. And thus all get to be sincere. Zorastrianism: Whatever thou dost not approve for thyself, do not approve for anyone else. When thou hast acted in this manner, thou art righteous. Judaism: Take heed to thyself, my child, in all thy works; and be discreet in all thy behavior. And what thou thyself hatest, do to no man. Christianity: All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them. Greek Philosophy: Do not do to others what you would not wish to suffer yourself. Treat your friends as you would want them to treat you." - Robert Ernest Hume
"The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal, every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open, this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude… The love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul." - Washington Irving
"It is our right to hate an evil man for his actions, but because his deepest self is the image of God, it is our duty to honor him with love." - Abraham Isaac Kook
"Study to follow His will in all, to have no will but His. This is thy duty and thy wisdom. Nothing is gained by spurring and struggling, but to hurt and vex thyself; but by complying all is gained, sweet peace." - Robert Leighton
"Let us have faith that right makes right, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it." - Abraham Lincoln
"Belief in immortality gives dignity to life and enables us to endure cheerfully those trials which come to us all. As the thought of immortality occupies our minds, we gain a clearer conception of duty and are inspired to cultivate character. Living for the future is not coward's philosophy, but an inspiration to noble and unselfish activity." - Samuel M. Lindsay
"To pursue joy is to lose it. The only way to get it is to follow steadily the path of duty, without thinking of joy, and then, like sheep, it comes most surely unsought and we "being in the way," the angel of God, a bright-haired Joy, is sure to meet us." - Alexander Maclaren
"It may be that, while we plodding realists go on, for ever preoccupied with our daily chores, abstracting a microscopic pleasure from each microscopic duty, your true romantic has the truer vision, and beholds, afar off, in all its lurid splendour and terrible proportions, the piquant adventure we call life." - William (Morley Punshon) McFee
"Yet it is meet and proper that a nation should set apart an annual day for national giving of thanks. It is a public recognition of God as the Author of all prosperity. It is the erection of a memorial to the honor of him who has led us through another year. The annual proclamations which call to the duty of thanksgiving are calculated to remind the people of their indebtedness to God, to stir in their minds and hearts emotions of gratitude and praise, and to call out thanks and sincere worship which otherwise might not find expression. But if the observance of the day be not marked by real remembering of mercies and by real lifting of hearts to God in thanks, what blessing can possibly come with it?" -
"Knowledge is the hill which few may hope to climb; duty is the path that all may tread." - Lewis Morris
"Duty reaches down the ages in its effects, and into eternity; and when the man goes about it resolutely, it seems to me now as though his footsteps were echoing beyond the stars, though only heard faintly in the atmosphere of this world." - William Mountford
"That in which every man is interested, is every man’s duty to support; and any burden which falls equally on all men, and from which every man is to receive an equal benefit, is consistent with the most perfect ideas of liberty." - Thomas Paine
"No man’s spirits were ever hurt by doing his duty; on the contrary, one good action, one temptation resisted and overcome, one sacrifice of desire or interest, purely for conscience’ sake, will prove a cordial for weak and low spirits, far beyond what either indulgence or diversion or company can do for them." - William Paley, Archdeacon of Saragossa
"Let us do our duty in our shop or our kitchen, the market, the street, the office, the school, the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in the front rank of some great battle and we knew that victory for mankind depended upon our bravery, strength, and skill. When we do that the humblest of us will be serving in that great army which achieves the welfare of the world." - Joseph Parker
"All destiny begins with thinking. Responsibilities connected with the present duty. Duty of which leads to the balancing of the thought. One of the objects of life is to think without creating thoughts. That is without being attached to the object for which the thought is created and can be attained only when desire is self-controlled and directed by thinking. Until then, thoughts are created and are destiny." - Harold W. Percival, fully Sir Harold Waldwin Percival
"Every political society is composed of other smaller societies of different kinds, each of which has its interests and its rules of conduct: but those societies which everybody perceives, because they have an external and authorized form, are not the only ones that actually exist in the State... Unhappily personal interest is always found in inverse ratio to duty, and increases in proportion as the association grows narrower, and the engagement less sacred; which irrefragably proves that the most general will always the most just also, and that the voice of the people is in fact the voice of God." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"The greatest happiness in life, I find, after all, to consist in the regular discharge of some mechanical duty." - Friedrich Schiller, fully Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
"There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy." - Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson
"There is a higher form of patriotism than nationalism, and that higher form is not limited by the boundaries of one's country; but by a duty to mankind to safeguard the trust of civilization." - Oscar S. Straus, fully Oscar Solomon Straus
"Ethics is the science of human duty. Arithmetic tells man how to count his money; ethics how he should acquire it, whether by honesty or fraud. Geography is a map of the world; ethics is a beautiful map of duty. This ethics is not Christianity, it is not even religion; but it is the sister of religion, because the path of duty is in full harmony, as to quality and direction, with the path of God." - David Swing, aka Professor Swing
"Faith is a certain image of eternity. All things are present to it - things past, and things to come; it converses with angels, and antedates the hymns of glory. Every man that hath this grace is as certain there are glories for him, if he perseveres in duty, as if he had heard and sung thanksgiving song for the blessed sentence of doomsday." - Jeremy Taylor
"Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit; and our wandering thoughts in prayer are but the neglects of meditation and recessions from that duty; according as we neglect meditation, so are our prayers imperfect, meditation being the soul of prayer and the intention of our spirit." - Jeremy Taylor
"A man who neglects his duty as a citizen is not entitled to his rights as a citizen." - Tiorio NULL
"Simple duty hath no place for fear." - John Greenleaf Whittier
"Who tells me he denies his soul’s immortal, whate’er his boast, has told me he’s a knave; his duty, ‘tis to love himself alone, nor care though mankind perish, if he smiles, who thinks ere long the man shall wholly die, is dead already; nought but brute survives." - Edward Young
"The man whom neither riches nor luxury nor grandeur can render happy may, with a book in his hand, forget all his troubles under the friendly shade of every tree, and may experience pleasures as infinite as they are varied, as pure as they are lasting, as lively as they are unfading, and as compatible with every public duty as they are contributory to private happiness." - Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
"Those even who persecuted Christ or His followers, whom they considered it their duty to persecute, are said to have sinned in action; but they would have committed a graver fault if, contrary to their conscience, they had spared them." - Peter Abelard, Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard
"Never to tire, never to grow cold; to be patient, sympathetic, tender; to look for the budding flower and the opening heart; to hope always, like God, to love always - this is duty." - Henri Frédéric Amiel
"Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires but according to our powers." - Henri Frédéric Amiel
"What is threatened today is moral liberty, conscience, respect for the soul, the very nobility of man. To defend the soul, its interests, its rights, its dignity, is the most pressing duty for whoever sees the danger." - Henri Frédéric Amiel
"God has laid upon man the duty of being free, of safeguarding freedom of spirit, no matter how difficult that may be, or how much sacrifice and suffering it may require." - Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev
"Man’s greatest duty is to love God: that is the first commandment. The second is to love his neighbor. And it is possible for two creatures to love one another only because God exists and is their common Father – it is the divine image and likeness that is loveable in our fellow-men." - Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev
"One should not (seek to) please others in an improper way, not be lavish of his words... To cultivate one’s person and fulfill one’s word is called good conduct. When the conduct is (thus) ordered, and the words are accordant with the (right) course, we have the substance of the rules of propriety... The course (of duty), virtue, benevolence, and righteousness cannot be fully carried out without the rules of propriety... nor can the clearing up of quarrels and discriminating in disputes be accomplished." - Book of Li, aka Book of Rites or Record of Rites or Classic Rites NULL
"To stand held only by the invisible chains of higher duty, and so standing, to let the fire creep up to the heart - that is the truer heroism." - Phillips Brooks
"You must ask yourself first, what God is. You must see how at the very bottom of His existence, as you conceive of it, lie these two thoughts – purpose and righteousness; how absolutely impossible it is to give God any personality except as the fulfillment of these two qualities – the intelligence that plans in love, and the righteousness that lives in duty." - Phillips Brooks