Home / Topics / Duty Quotes

Duty Quotes

Browse 4172 quotes about Duty.

Duty Quotes

“Our virtues themselves are not free and floating qualities over which we retain a permanent control and power of disposal; they come to be so closely linked in our minds with the actions in conjunction with which we have made it our duty to exercise them that if we come to engage in an activity of a different kind, it catches us off guard and without the slightest awareness that it might involve the application of those same virtues.”

Source: In Search Of Lost Time, Vol 2: Within a Budding Grove

“The application requisite to the duties of the office I hold [governor of Virginia] is so excessive, and the execution of them after all so imperfect, that I have determined to retire from it at the close of the present campaign.”

Duty Office Determined Campaigns Retirement Application Retiring Imperfect Execution Governors Virginia

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“Duty is that mode of action on the part of the individual which constitutes the best possible application of his capacity to the general benefit.”

Action Individual Duty Benefits Capacity Application

Book:Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness: By William Godwin

Source: Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness: By William Godwin

“Though this motion for a new trial is an application to the discretion of the Court, it must be remembered that the discretion to be exercised on such an occasion is not a wild but a sound discretion, and to be confined within those limits within which an honest man, competent to discharge the duties of his office, ought to confine himself. And that discretion will be best exercised by not deviating from the rules laid down by our predecessors; for the practice of the Court forms the law of the Court.”

Men Form Law Sound Practice Honest Duty Ought Limits Office Court Trials Occasions Remembered Application Confined Competent Discretion Honest Man Predecessors Discharge

Author:Sherrilyn Kenyon

“The Executive is charged officially in the Departments under it with the disbursement of the public money, and is responsible for the faithful application of it to the purposes for which it is raised. The Legislature is the watchful guardian over the public purse. It is its duty to see that the disbursement has been honestly made.”

Has Beens Made Purpose Duty Responsible Raised Honestly Faithful Department Executives Application Guardian Purses Legislature Public Money

Book:James Monroe, 1758-1831: chronology, documents, bibliographical aids

Source: James Monroe, 1758-1831: chronology, documents, bibliographical aids

“Kantian ethical theory distinguishes three levels: First, that of a fundamental principle (the categorical imperative, formulated in three main ways in Kant's Groundwork); second, a set of duties, not deduced from but derived from this principle, by way of its interpretation or specification, its application to the general conditions of human life - which Kant does in the Doctrine of virtue, the second main part of the Metaphysics of Morals; and then finally an act of judgment, through which these duties are applied to particular cases.”

“But why must everything have a practical application? I'd been such a diligent soldier for years - working, producing, never missing a deadline, taking care of my loved ones, my gums and my credit record, voting, etc. Is this lifetime supposed to be only about duty? In this dark period of loss, did I need any justification for learning Italian other than that it was the only thing I could imagine bringing me any pleasure right now?”

Source: Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything