“A duty dodged is like a debt unpaid; it is only deferred, and we must come back and settle the account at last.”
“Duty is the sublimest word in the language. You can never do more than your duty. You should never wish to do less.”
“Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.”
“The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight.”
“He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will find the flaw when he may have forgotten its cause.”
“The sense of obligation to continue is present in all of us. A duty to strive is the duty of us all. I felt a call to that duty.”
“Do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.”
“A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.”
“For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms, and did my duty faithfully, though I never received one cent for it.”
“How can we know ourselves? Never by reflection, but only through action. Begin at once to do your duty and immediately you will know what is inside you.”
“It is easier to do one's duty to others than to one's self. If you do your duty to others, you are considered reliable. If you do your duty to yourself, you are considered selfish.”
“Sufficient to each day are the duties to be done and the trials to be endured. God never built a Christian strong enough to carry today's duties and tomorrow's anxieties piled on the top of them.”
“Duties are not performed for duty's sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty --the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself.”
“When we can say no not only to things that are wrong and sinful, but also to things pleasant, profitable, and good which would hinder and clog our grand duties and our chief work, we shall understand more fully what life is worth, and how to make the most of it.”
“When one has come to accept a certain course as duty he has a pleasant sense of relief and of lifted responsibility, even if the course involves pain and renunciation. It is like obedience to some external authority; any clear way, though it lead to death, is mentally preferable to the tangle of uncertainty.”
“Let us do our duty, in our shop in our kitchen, in 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 knew that victory for mankind depends on 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.”
“It is not enough for us to prostrate ourselves under the tree which is Creation, and to contemplate its tremendous branches filled with stars. We have a duty to perform, to work upon the human soul, to defend the mystery against the miracle, to worship the incomprehensible while rejecting the absurd; to accept, in the inexplicable, only what is necessary; to dispel the superstitions that surround religion --to rid God of His Maggots.”