This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"A man's usefulness depends upon his living up to his ideals insofar as he can. It is hard to fail but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. All daring and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune, make for a finer, nobler type of manhood. Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die, and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of the life and the duty of life." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt
"The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt
"In the past we have admitted the right of the individual to injure the future of the Republic for his own present profit. In fact there has been a good deal of a demand for unrestricted individualism, for the right of the individual to injure the future of all of us for his own temporary and immediate profit. The time has come for a change. As a people we have the right and the duty, second to moral law, of requiring and doing justice, to protect ourselves and our children against the wasteful development of our natural resources, whether that waste is caused by the actual destruction of such resources or by making them impossible of development hereafter." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt
"For us in the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt
"Of a truth, it is the duty of all men, especially of all philosophers, to note down with accuracy the characteristic circumstances of their education - what furthered, what hindered, what in any way modified it." - Thomas Carlyle
"Obedience is our universal duty and destiny; wherein whoso will not bend must break; too early and too thoroughly we cannot be trained to know that “would,” in this world of ours, is a mere zero to “should,” and for most part as the smallest of fractions even to “shall.”" - Thomas Carlyle
"Let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this precept well to heart: “Do the duty which lies nearest to thee,” which thou knowest to be a duty! Thy second duty will already have become clearer." - Thomas Carlyle
"Do the duty which lieth nearest to thee! Thy second duty will already have become clearer." - Thomas Carlyle
"The situation that has not its duty, its ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy ideal; work it out there from, and, working, believe, lie be free. Fool! the ideal is in thyself." - Thomas Carlyle
"The thing a man does practically believe (and this is often enough without asserting it even to himself, much less to others); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest. That is his religion." - Thomas Carlyle
"We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it." - Thomas Henry Huxley, aka T.H. Huxley and Darwin's Bulldog
"“Learn what is true in order to do what is right,” is the summary of the whole duty of man, for all who are unable to satisfy their mental hunger with the east wind of authority." - Thomas Henry Huxley, aka T.H. Huxley and Darwin's Bulldog
"Character is a by-product; it is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
"It is just as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shooting at you." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
"War is only a sort of dramatic representation, a sort of dramatic symbol of a thousand forms of duty." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
"Pleasure is the object, the duty, and the goal of all rational creatures." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"Never mind your happiness, do your duty." - Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man; it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail." - William Faulkner, fully William Cuthbert Faulkner
"There is one thing diviner than duty, namely, the bond of obligation transmuted into liberty." - William Rounseville Alger
"Duty is above all consequences, and often, at a crisis of difficulty, commands us to throw them overboard. It commands us to look neither to the right, nor to the left, but straight onward. Hence every act of duty is an act of faith. It is performed in the assurance that God will take care of the consequences, and will so order the course of the world, that, whatever the immediate results may be, His word shall not return to Him void." - Aubrey de Vere, fully Aubrey Albericus de Vere NULL
"To enforce one's rights when they are violated is never a legal wrong, and may often be a moral duty." - Benjamin Cardozo, fully Benjamin Nathan Cardozo
"Self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice. " - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
"Psychoanalysis, which interprets the human being as a socialized being, and the psychic apparatus as essentially developed and determined through the relationship of the individual to society, must consider it a duty to participate in the investigation of sociological problems to the extent the human being or his/her psyche plays any part at all." - Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
"When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual. " - Frank Herbert, formally Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr.
"A life regardful of duty is crowned with an object, directed by a purpose, inspired by an enthusiasm, till the very humblest routine, carried out conscientiously for the sake of God is elevated into moral grandeur; and the very obscurest office, filled conscientiously at the bidding of God, becomes an imperial stage on which all the virtues play. To one who lies thus the insignificant becomes important, the unpleasant delightful, the evanescent eternal." - Frederick William Faber
"The great duty of life is not to give pain; and the most acute reasoner cannot find an excuse for one who voluntarily wounds the heart of a fellow-creature. Even for their own sakes, people should show kindness and regard to their dependants. They are often better served in trifles, in proportion as they are rather feared than loved: but how small is this gain compared with the loss sustained in all the weightier affairs of life! Then the faithful servant shows himself at once as a friend, while one who serves from fear shows himself an enemy." - Frederika Bremer
"Not curiosity, not vanity, not the consideration of expediency, not duty and conscientiousness, but an unquenchable, unhappy thirst that brooks no compromise leads us to truth." - Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
"By “nationalism” I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled “good” or “bad.” But secondly… I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism… By “patriotism” I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force upon other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality. " - George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair
"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious. " - George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair
"The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, and the last duty done. " - George William McDonald
"The real duty of man is not to extend his power or multiply his wealth beyond his needs, but to enrich and enjoy his imperishable possession: his soul. " - Gilbert Arthur Highet
"Let pessimism once take hold of the mind, and life is all topsy-turvy, all vanity and vexation of spirit. There is no cure for individual or social disorder, except in forgetfulness and annihilation. "Let us eat, drink and be merry," says the pessimist, "for to-morrow we die." If I regarded my life from the point of view of the pessimist, I should be undone. I should seek in vain for the light that does not visit my eyes and the music that does not ring in my ears. I should beg night and day and never be satisfied. I should sit apart in awful solitude, a prey to fear and despair. But since I consider it a duty to myself and to others to be happy, I escape a misery worse than any physical deprivation." - Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller
"Attention is our first duty whenever we want to know what is our second duty. There is no such cause of confusion and worry about what we ought to do, and how to do it, as our unwillingness to bear what God would tell us on that very point." - Henry Clay Trumbull
"A deliberate rejection of duty prescribed by already recognized truth cannot but destroy, or at least impair most seriously the clearness of our mental vision." - Henry Parry Liddon
"Only a few rare souls in a century, to whose class I make no pretension, count much in the great flow of this Republic. The life stream of this nation is the generations of millions of human particles acting under the impulses of advancing ideas and national ideals gathered from a thousand springs... We are but transitory officials in government whose duty is to keep these channels clear and to strengthen and extend these dikes. What counts toward the honor of public officials is that they sustain the national ideals upon which are patterned the design of these channels of progress and the construction of these dikes of safety. " - Herbert Hoover, fully Herbert Clark Hoover
"I believe it is the duty of each of us to act as if the fate of the world depended on him. Admittedly, one man by himself cannot do the job. However, one man can make a difference... We must live for the future of the human race, and not for our own comfort or success." - Hyman George Rickover
"In self-awareness there is no need for confession, for self-awareness creates the mirror in which all things are reflected without distortion. Every thought- feeling is thrown, as it were, on the screen of awareness to be observed, studied and understood; but this flow of understanding is blocked when there is condemnation or acceptance, judgment or identification. The more the screen is watched and understood—not as a duty or enforced practice, but because pain and sorrow have created the insatiable interest that brings its own discipline—the greater the intensity of awareness, and this in turn brings heightened understanding." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
"We speak much of the duty of making others happy. No day should pass, we say, on which we do not put a little cheer into some discouraged heart, make the path a little smoother for someone’s tired feet, or help some fainting robin unto its nest again. This is right. We cannot put too great emphasis upon the duty of giving happiness and cheer to others. But it is no less a duty that we should be happy and cheerful ourselves." - J. R. Miller, fully James Russell Miller
"No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks. " - James Allen
"Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." - James Madison
"Is it worse to kill someone than to let someone die? It seems obvious to common sense that it is worse. We allow people to die, for example, when we fail to contribute money to famine-relief efforts; but even if we feel somewhat guilty, we do not consider ourselves murderers. Nor do we feel like accessories to murder when we fail to give blood, sign an organ-donor card, or do any of the other things that could save lives. Common sense tells us that, while we may not kill people, our duty to give them aid is much more limited." - James Rachels
"Partisanship is our great curse. We too readily assume that everything has two sides and that it is our duty to be on one or the other. " - James Harvey Robinson
"Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect. " - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"The very right to vote imposes on me the duty to instruct myself in public affair, however little influence my voice may have in them." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates in all future periods of this commonwealth to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them, especially the university at Cambridge, public schools, and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings, sincerity, good humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments among the people. " - John Adams
"The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it." - John Dickinson, pen name Fabius
"Our duty is to believe that for which we have sufficient evidence, and to suspend our judgment when we have not. " - John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, 4th Baronet, Sir John Lubbock
"Do not work primarily for money; do your duty to patients first and let the money follow; our life is short, we don't live twice; the whirlwind will pick up the leaves and spin them, but then it will drop them and they will form a pile." - John Hersey, fully John Richard Hersey