Rank imposes obligation. [ Motto ]
The sequence of requests is obligation. [ Junius ]
A too quick return of an obligation is a sort of ingratitude. [ Proverb ]
Love is a debt which inclination always pays, obligation never. [ Pascal ]
Let honor be to us as strong an obligation, as necessity is to others. [ Pliny ]
There is no conferring a favour (involving obligation) on a man against his will. [ Law Max ]
It is a species of agreeable servitude, to be under an obligation to those we esteem. [ Queen Christina ]
War suspends the rules of moral obligation, and what is long suspended is in danger of being totally abrogated. [ Burke ]
The most fruitful and elevating influence I have ever seemed to meet has been my impression of obligation to God. [ Daniel Webster ]
All duties are matter of conscience, with this restriction that a superior obligation suspends the force of an inferior one. [ L'Estrange ]
The possession of wealth is, as it were, prepayment, and involves an obligation of honor to the doing of correspondent work. [ George MacDonald ]
I have never believed that friendship supposed the obligation of hating those whom your friends did not love, and I believe rather it obliges me to love those whom they love. [ Morellet ]
Gratitude is never conferred but where there have been previous endeavours to excite it; we consider it as a debt, and our spirits wear a load till we have discharged the obligation. [ Goldsmith ]
Ought or Should? Both of these words, though implying obligation, have different shades of meaning. Ought is the stronger term. Thus a man ought to be honest; he should be neat in his dress. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]
Friendship is like a debt of honor; the moment it is talked of it loses its real name, and assumes the more ungrateful form of obligation. From hence we find that those who regularly undertake to cultivate friendship find ingratitude generally repays their endeavors. [ Goldsmith ]
The first being that rushes to the recollection of a soldier or a sailor, in his heart's difficulty, is his mother; she clings to his memory and affection in the midst of all the f orgetf ulness and hardihood induced by a roving life; the last message he leaves is for her; his last whisper breathes her name. The mother, as she instills the lessons of piety and filial obligation into the heart of her infant son, should always feel that her labor is not in vain. She may drop into the grave, but she has left behind her influences that will work for her. The bow is broken, but the arrow is sped, and will do its ofiice. [ A. H. Motte ]