“We must look at what immigration to America involves. To the new arrivals, the change is excruciating. Learning a new language and dealing with strange customs make the first years of life in the new land painful... The economic system of the United States is a mighty engine of persuasion. It motivates people to do what otherwise they never would in return for fulfilling their dreams. In the process, people learn that there is no sharp line between physical well-being and the higher purposes of life. The comfort of owning a house is at once meeting the obligation to care for one” PeopleYearsFirstsWellsLooksStatesDreamCareAmericaPurposeHouseLanguageProcessLinesUnitedUnited StatesEconomicLandStrangeReturnHigherComfortMeetingsPainfulImmigrationObligationWell BeingCustomsPurpose Of LifeEnginesFulfillingPersuasionArrivalsEconomic SystemsYears Of LifeHigher PurposeNew Arrivals Author:John Lachs
“Our politics and science have never mastered the fact that people need more than to understand their obligation to one another and to the earth; they need also the feeling of such obligation, and the feeling can come only within the patterns of familiarity. A nation of urban nomads, such as we have become, may simply be unable to be enough disturbed by its destruction of the ecological health of the land, because the people's dependence on the land, though it has been expounded to them over and over again in general terms, is not immediate to their feelings.” PeopleNeedsMayHas BeensEnoughFactsFeelingsEarthNationsTermLandDestructionPatternsObligationUrbanDependenceFamiliarityDisturbedEcologicalNomad Author:Wendell Berry
“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.” FeelsWellsWarStatesWaterReligiousPayMoralOur LivesSacrificeLandHonestDutyCitizensTaxesAuthorityOrganizationRegardFellowsBillsIncomeObligationGasElectricityDeclarationBehalfUtilityCivicsSuppliesIncome TaxCivic DutyMoral Duty Author:Arnold J. Toynbee
“Our land of new promise will be a nation that meets its obligations, a nation that balances its budget, but never loses the balance of its values.” ValuesNationsLosesLandBalancePromiseObligationBudgets Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1997 Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1997
“Men and women who live in America...have a responsibility greater than that yet borne by any other people. Theirs the duty, the obligation to preserve not only the Constitution of the land but the Christian principles from which sprang that immortal document.” PeopleMenChristianAmericaResponsibilityPrinciplesGreaterLandDutyMen And WomenConstitutionObligationPreservesImmortalDocuments Author:David O. McKay