Home / Topics / Duty Quotes

Duty Quotes

Browse 4172 quotes about Duty.

Duty Quotes

“The gods gave me a father who ruled over me and rid me of any trace of arrogance and showed me that one can live in a palace without bodyguards, extravagant attire, chandeliers, statues, and other luxuries. He taught me that it is possible to live instead pretty much in the manner of a private citizen without losing any of the dignity and authority a ruler must possess to discharge his imperial duties effectively.”

Father Taught Duty Citizens Authority Losing Dignity Luxury Arrogance Rulers Statues Palaces Extravagant Discharge Bodyguard Attire Chandeliers

Book:The Emperor's Handbook: A New Translation of The Meditations

Source: The Emperor's Handbook: A New Translation of The Meditations

“The great interests of an agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing nation are so linked in union together that no permanent cause of prosperity to one of them can operate without extending its influence to the others. All these interests are alike under the protecting power of the legislative authority, and the duties of the representative bodies are to conciliate them in harmony together.”

Body Together Nations Causes Interest Influence Duty Authority Harmony Unions Prosperity Permanent Representatives Linked Manufacturing Extending

Book:John Quincy Adams, 1767-1848; chronology, documents, bibliographical aids

Source: John Quincy Adams, 1767-1848; chronology, documents, bibliographical aids

“Dear rulers ... I maintain that the civil authorities are under obligation to compel the people to send their children to school. ... If the government can compel such citizens as are fit for military service to bear spear and rifle, to mount ramparts, and perform other martial duties in time of war, how much more has it a right to compel the people to send their children to school, because in this case we are warring with the devil, whose object it is secretly to exhaust our cities and principalities of their strong men.”

People Ifs Men Children War Government School Strong Cities Cases Military Objects Duty Bears Citizens Fit Authority Devil Dear Obligation Rulers Rifles Spears Strong Man Military Service

Author:Martin Luther

“State authority can never be an end in itself; for, if that were so, any kind of tyranny would be inviolable and sacred. If a government uses the instruments of power in its hands for the purpose of leading a people to ruin, then rebellion is not only the right but also the duty of every individual citizen.”

Source: Mein Kampf: My Struggle: (Vol. I & Vol. II) - (Complete & Illustrated Edition)

“Dodge v. Ford still stands for the legal principal that managers and directors have a legal duty to put the shareholders' interests above all others and no legal authority to serve any other interests - what has come to be known as "the best interests of the corporation" principal.”

Stills Interest Known Duty Directors Authority Managers Corporations Principal Shareholders Dodge

Book:The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power

Source: The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power

“You received the power, the authority, and the sacred duty to minister the moment you were ordained to the priesthood. President James E. Faust taught, “Priesthood is the authority delegated to man to minister in the name of God. “The Aaronic Priesthood holds the keys of the ministering of angels. As you love His children, Heavenly Father will guide you, and angels will assist you. You will be given power to bless lives and rescue souls.”

Men Children Soul Moments Father Names Given President Taught Duty Keys Authority Angel Sacred Guides Ministers Heavenly Bless Rescue Heavenly Father Priesthood Faust

Author:David L. Beck

“Man cannot be exempted from his divinely-imposed obligations toward civil society, and the representatives of authority have the right to coerce him when he refuses without reason to do his duty. Society, on the other hand, cannot defraud man of his God-granted right... Nor can society systematically void these rights by making their use impossible.”

Source: Encyclical letter of Pope Pius XI on atheistic communism: official Vatican text

“When it can be proved that the observance of Christmas, Whitsuntide, and other Popish festivals was ever instituted by a divine statute, we also will attend to them, but not till then. It is as much our duty to reject the traditions of men, as to observe the ordinances of the Lord. We ask concerning every rite and rubric, "Is this a law of the God of Jacob?" and if it be not clearly so, it is of no authority with us, who walk in Christian liberty.”

Source: The Treasury of David: Spurgeon's Classic Work on the Psalms

“It is easier for a woman to be a good wife than a good mother. A widow has two duties with contrary obligations: she is a mother and she must exercise paternal authority. Few woman are strong enough to understand and to play this role.”

Two Enough Play Mother Strong Roles Wife Duty Easier Exercise Authority Contrary Obligation Strong Enough Widows Good Mother Good Wife

Author:Honore de Balzac

“The highest duty is to respect authority.”

Duty Authority Highest

Author:Bill Vaughan

“Because the bill vests in the said incorporated church an authority to provide for the support of the poor and the education of poor children of the same, an authority which, being altogether superfluous if the provision is to be the result of pious charity, would be a precedent for giving to religious societies as such a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty.”

Source: Selected Writings of James Madison

“There are always those who are willing to surrender local self-government and turn over their affairs to some national authority in exchange for a payment of money out of the Federal Treasury. Whenever they find some abuse needs correction in their neighborhood, instead of applying the remedy themselves they seek to have a tribunal sent on from Washington to discharge their duties for them, regardless of the fact that in accepting such supervision they are bartering away their freedom.”

“I regard the state of which I am a citizen as a public utility, like the organization that supplies me with water, gas, and electricity. I feel that it is my civic duty to pay my taxes as well as my other bills, and that it is my moral duty to make an honest declaration of my income to the income tax authorities. But I do not feel that I and my fellow citizens have a religious duty to sacrifice our lives in war on behalf of our own state, and, a fortiori, I do not feel that we have an obligation or a right to kill and maim citizens of other states or to devastate their land.”

“Muhammad divided the world in two sectors. One he called Dar us Salam (House of Peace) and the other, Dar al Harb (House of War). All countries, where Islam is not the ruling authority, are Dar al Harb. It is the duty of the Muslims to wage Jihad in Dar al Harb, overthrow the governments and force people into submission. This is the only kind of peace that Islam recognizes.”

People World Kind Two War Country Government House Force Duty Authority Islam Als Divided Submission Ruling Muhammad Jihad

Author:Ali Sina

“It is the interest of every man to live as much at his ease as he can; and if his emoluments are to be precisely the same, whether he does or does not perform some very laborious duty, it is certainly his interest, at least as interest is vulgarly understood, either to neglect it altogether, or, if he is subject to some authority which will not suffer him to do this, to perform it in as careless and slovenly a manner as that authority will permit.”

Ifs Men Doe Suffering Interest Subjects Duty Authority Understood Every Man Ease Neglect Permit Careless

Book:The Wealth of Nations: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Source: The Wealth of Nations: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

“'Rights' are granted; 'duties' are enforced. To speak of rights and duties is to think in terms of authority.”

Thinking Speak Term Rights Duty Authority Granted Rights And Duties

Author:Laurance Labadie

“The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.”

Science Natural Sin Duty Authority Highest Blind Refuse Acknowledge Skepticism Blind Faith

Book:Huxley's Autobiography and Essays

Source: Huxley's Autobiography and Essays

“[It] is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign to maintain the authority of the laws.”

Wells Law Interest Duty Authority Sovereign

Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“To maintain the harmony of authority and obedience, to chastise the proud, to protect the weak, to reward the deserving, to banish vice and idleness from his dominions, to secure the traveller and merchant, to restrain the depredations of the soldier, to cherish the labors of the husbandman, to encourage industry and learning, and, by an equal and moderate assessment, to increase the revenue, without increasing the taxes, are indeed the duties of a prince . . .”

Source: THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (All 6 Volumes): From the Height of the Roman Empire, the Age of Trajan and the Antonines - to the Fall of Byzantium; Including a Review of the Crusades, and the State of Rome during the Middle Ages

“[Parental] authority must be tempered...with loving kindness and patient encouragement. To temper authority with kindness is to triumph in the struggle which belongs to your duty as parents...All those who would advantageously rule over others, must as an essential element, first dominate themselves, their passions, their impressions.”

Firsts Passion Parent Kindness Struggle Duty Essentials Authority Elements Encouragement Patient Impression Triumph Temper Parental Loving Kindness Parental Authority

Author:Pope Pius XII

“READILY and, I trust, feelingly acknowledge the duty incumbent on us all . . . to provide for those who, in the mysterious order of Providence, are subject to want and to disease of body or mind; but I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States . . . .”

Want Mind States Body Government Order United United States Subjects Duty Disease Authority Constitution Charity Mysterious Acknowledge Providence Federal Government Incumbents

Author:Franklin Pierce

“For me the very important thing was never to forget that they had no right to have me there, that my duty was to escape and that I needed to get back to my family and to my children no matter what. And that I could not accept to just see them as an authority, that I had to always keep in mind that I had to rebel and to keep my distance and to protect my soul because the core of the problem is dignity.”

“Anyway, it's not true that the authorities cannot access the content of the phone even if there is no back door. When I was at the NSA, we did this every single day, even on Sundays. I believe that encryption is a civic responsibility, a civic duty.”

Ifs Believe I Believe Responsibility Doors Duty Authority Phones Access Sunday Civics Nsa Civic Duty Back Doors Encryption Civic Responsibility

Author:Edward Snowden

“There is all the difference in the world between the nonviolence that the ordinary Christian should embrace and the duty of civic authorities to police their communities. The end of Romans 12 is quite clear about the first; the start of Romans 13 is quite clear about the second.”

World Should Firsts Ends Christian Community Differences Clear Duty Authority Ordinary Police Embrace Nonviolence Civics Romans 12

Author:N. T. Wright

“Jorge Luis Borges had the soapbox and the authority to complain about this myopic understanding of the duty of Latin American writers, which sometimes forecloses their unique modernism and experience of modernization in favor of a mythic past or an artificially constructed ideal national subject. So likewise in João Gilberto Noll, readers shouldn't expect samba and Carnival and football. The Brazilian national identity is not one of his primary concerns.”

Sometimes Past Understanding Identity Football Duty Authority Unique Concern Complaining Latin Modernism Latin America American Writer

Author:Adam Morris

“The president has a duty and a right to oversee the FBI, and you know, he properly delegate the law enforcement to the FBI and try to insulate it from politics. But that's not to curb the president's authority over the FBI. So if he wants to meet with the FBI and give his opinion or even talk about his hopes, if indeed, he said that, he has every right to do so.”

Giving Trying President Opinion Duty Authority Law Enforcement Fbi Curb

Author:Laura Ingraham

“Now a slave is not 'held' by any legal contract, obligation, duty, or authority, which the laws will enforce. He is 'held' only by brute force. One person beats another until the latter will obey him, work for him, if he require it, or do nothing if he require it.”

Ifs Persons Law Force Duty Authority Beats Slave Obligation Latter Contracts Brutes Brute Force

Book:A Defence for Fugitive Slaves

Source: A Defence for Fugitive Slaves