Man cannot choose his duties. [ George Eliot ]
New occasions teach new duties. [ James Russell Lowell ]
Duties are ours; events are God's. [ Cecil ]
The duties of government are paternal. [ Gladstone ]
Life counts not hours by joys or pangs;
But just by duties done. [ Dinah Muloch Craik ]
What constitutes a state?... Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain. [ Sir William Jones ]
Knowledge of our duties is the most useful part of philosophy. [ Whately ]
Respect for one's parents is the highest of the duties of civil life. [ Chinese Proverb ]
To what gulfs a single deviation from the track of human duties leads! [ Byron ]
Observed duties maintain our credit, but secret duties maintain our life. [ Flavel ]
Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life. [ La Bruyère ]
Chastity is the band that holds together the sheaf of all holy affections and duties. [ Vinet ]
A bluestocking despises her duties as a woman, and always begins by making herself a man. [ Rousseau ]
The joy of heaven will begin as soon as we attain the character of heaven, and do its duties. [ Theodore Parker ]
Can man or woman choose duties? No more than they can choose their birthplace, or their father and mother. [ Mrs. Marian Lewes Cross (pen name George Eliot) ]
Stern duties need not speak sternly. He who stood firm before the thunder worshipped the still small voice.
[ Sidney Dobell ]
What are the aims which are at the same time duties? They are the perfecting of ourselves, the happiness of others. [ Immanuel Kant ]
What are the aims which are at the same time duties in life? The perfecting of ourselves and the happiness of others. [ Jean Paul ]
All duties are matter of conscience, with this restriction that a superior obligation suspends the force of an inferior one. [ L'Estrange ]
Health is so necessary to all the duties as well as pleasures of life that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly. [ Dr. Johnson ]
A nation, as an individual, has duties to fulfill appointed by God and Duty - the command of heaven, the eldest voice of God. [ Charles Kingsley ]
Fanaticism is such an overwhelming impression of the ideas relating to the future world as disqualifies for the duties of this. [ R. Hall ]
Character is made up of small duties faithfully performed - of self-denials, of self-sacrifices, of kindly acts of love and duty. [ Anonymous ]
Where much is given, much shall be required. There are never privileges to enjoy without corresponding duties to fulfil in return. [ Phiiups Brooks ]
The primal duties shine aloft like stars; The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, Are scattered at the feet of man, like flowers. [ Wordsworth ]
This span of life was lent for lofty duties, not for selfishness; not to be wiled away for aimless dreams, but to improve ourselves, and serve mankind. [ Sir Aubrey de Vere ]
Innocence and diligence are inseparable companions, and only those who are active in the discharge of their duties here below are blessed from on high. [ Magoon ]
See, indeed, that your daughter is thoroughly grounded and experienced in household duties; but take care, through religion and poetry, to keep her heart open to heaven. [ Richter ]
Nobody can live by teaching any more than by learning; both teaching and learning are proper duties of human life, or pleasures of it, but have nothing whatever to do with the support of it. [ John Ruskin ]
Great trials seem to be a necessary preparation for great duties. It would seem that the more important the enterprise, the more severe the trial to which the agent is subjected in his preparation. [ Edward Thomson ]
Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindnesses and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart, and secure comfort. [ Sir Humphry Davy ]
Don't waste your life in doubts and fears: spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours or ages that follow it. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
What with the duties expected of one during one's lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one's death, land has ceased to be either a profit or pleasure. It gives one position and prevents one from keeping it up. [ Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest ]
Happy men are full of the present, for its bounty suffices them; and wise men also, for its duties engage them. Our grand business undoubtedly is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. [ Thomas Carlyle ]
As he that lives longest lives but a little while, every man may be certain that he has no time to waste. The duties of life are commensurate to its duration; and every day brings its task, which, if neglected, is doubled on the morrow. [ Dr. Johnson ]
The golden hour of invention must terminate like other hours; and when the man of genius returns to the cares, the duties, the vexations, and the amusements of life, his companions behold him as one of themselves, - the creature of habits and infirmities. [ Isaac Disraeli ]
To act with commonsense, according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know; and the best philosophy, to do one's duties, take the world as it comes, submit respectfully to one's lot, bless the goodness that has given us so much happiness with it whatever it is, and despise affectation. [ Horace Walpole ]
Art is a jealous mistress, and, if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband, and an ill provider, and should be wise in season, and not fetter himself with duties which will imbitter his days, and spoil him for his proper work. [ Emerson ]
Motives are symptoms of weakness, and supplements for the deficient energy of the living principle, the law within us. Let them then be reserved for those momentous acts and duties in which the strongest and best balanced natures must feel themselves deficient, and where humility no less than prudence prescribes deliberation. [ Coleridge ]
Perpetually or Continually? Perpetual means never ceasing, continuing without interruption; continual, of frequent recurrence, etc., with occasional interruptions. Indolent pupils are perpetually failing in the tasks assigned them.
Here the proper word is continually. Time is perpetual; frequent disregard of our duties is continual. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]
Was man made to disdain the gifts of nature? Was he placed on earth but to gather bitter fruits? For whom are the flowers the gods cause to bloom at the feet of mortals? It pleases Providence when we abandon ourselves to the different inclinations that He has given us: our duties come from His laws, and our desires from His inspirations.
Personal attachment is no fit ground for public conduct, and those who declare they will take care of the rights of the sovereign because they have received favours at his hand, betray a little mind and warrant the conclusion that if they did not receive those favours they would be less mindful of their duties, and act with less zeal for his interest. [ C. Fox ]
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 is, as Mr. Burke calls it, the cheap defense and ornament of nations.
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. [ Sydney Smith ]
No process is so fatal as that which would cast all men in one mould. Every human being is intended to have a character of his own, to be what no other is, to do what no other can do. Our common nature is to be unfolded in unbounded diversities. It is rich enough for infinite manifestations. It is to wear innumerable forms of beauty and glory. Every human being has a work to carry on within, duties to perform abroad, influences to exert, which are peculiarly his, and which no conscience but his own can teach. [ Channing ]
Threescore years and ten! It is the Scriptural statute of limitations. After that, you owe no active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time-expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase: You have served your term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions are not for you, nor any bugle-tail but lights out.
You pay the time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline if you prefer - and without prejudice - for they are not legally collectable. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]