Duty Quotes

God is inconceivable, immortality is unbelievable, but duty is peremptory and absolute.

George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist.

The consciousness of a duty performed gives us music at midnight.

George Herbert (1593-1633) English clergyman, poet

I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) English historian.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is duty.

Duty. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) American author.

There is not a moment with out some duty.

Cicero.

Duty is carrying on promptly and faithfully the affairs now before you. It is to fulfill the claims of today.

Goethe.

Do the duty which lieth nearest to thee! Thy second duty will already have become clearer.

Thomas Carlyle.

Duty is a power that rises with us in the morning, and goes to rest with us at night. It is co-extensive with the action of our intelligence. It is the shadow that cleaves to us, go where we will.

Gladstone.

Every duty which we omit, obscures some truth which we should have known.

Ruskin.

Duties are ours, events are God’s. This removes an infinite burden from the shoulders of a miserable, tempted, dying creature. On this consideration only can he securely lay down his head and close his eyes.

Cecil.

Duty performed gives clearness and firmness to faith, and faith thus strengthened through duty becomes the more assured and satisfying to the soul.

Tryon Edwards.

Duty is the grandest of ideas, because it implies the idea of God, of the soul, of liberty, of responsibility, of immortality.

Lacordaire.

“We do not choose our own paths in life, and have nothing to do with selecting those parts. Our simple duty is confined to playing them well.”

Epictetus.

The brave man wants no charms to encourage him to duty, and the good man scorns all warnings that would deter him from doing it.

Bulwer.

Do to-day’s duty, fight to-day’s temptation, and do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things which you cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them.

Charles Kingsley.

The reward of one duty done is the power to fulfill another.

George Eliot.

Know thyself and do shine own work, says Plato; and each includes the other and covers the whole duty of man.

Montaigne.

The best things are nearest; light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life.

God always has an angel of help for those who are willing to do their duty.

T.L. Cuyler.

The truth is, one’s vocation is never some far-off possibility. It is always the simple round of duties which the passing hour brings.

J.W. Dulles.

Let us never forget that every station in life is necessary; that each deserves our respect; that not the station itself, but the worthy fulfillment of its duties does honor to man.

There is nothing in the universe that I fear, but that I shall not know all my duty, or shall fail to do it.

Mary Lyon.