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Duty is a term loosely applied to any action (or course of action) which is regarded as morally incumbent, apart from personal likes and dislikes or any external compulsion.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
  • The great object of the Christian is duty; his predominant desire, to obey God. When he can please the world consistently with these, he will do so; otherwise it is enough for him that God commands, and enough for them that he cannot disobey.

  • Attention is our first duty whenever we want to know what is our second duty. There is no such cause of confusion and worry about what we ought to do, and how to do it, as our unwillingness to hear what God would tell us on that very point.
    • H. Clay Trumbull, p. 197.

  • 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.

  • Duty reaches down the ages in its effects, and into eternity; and when the man goes about it resolutely, it seems to me now as though his footsteps were echoing beyond the stars, though only heard faintly in the atmosphere of this world.

  • Speak, Lord, our souls are hushed to hear what Thou hast to say to us. Great is the stake, overwhelming may be the risks — most glorious are the opportunities. Speak, Lord, and show us what our duty is — how high, how difficult, yet how happy, how blessed — show us what our duty is, and, O great God and Father, give us strength to do it.

  • Brethren, léife is passing; youth goes, strength decays. But duty performed, work done for God — this abides forever, this alone is imperishable.

  • 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.

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

  • If the duties before us be not noble, let us ennoble them by doing them in a noble spirit; we become reconciled to life if we live in the spirit of Him who reconciled the life of God with the lowly duties of servants.

  • The primal duties shine aloft like stars;
    The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless,
    Are scattered at the feet of man, like flowers.

  • Knowledge is the hill which few may hope to climb;
    Duty is the path that all may tread.

  • The constant duty of every man to his fellows is to ascertain his own powers and special gifts, and to strengthen them for the help of others.

  • Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.

    • Aamanuel the greates king
  • The doing of things from duty is but a stage on the road to the kingdom of truth and love.

  • Let a man begin in earnest with, "I ought," and he will end, by God's grace, if he persevere, with, "I will." Let him force himself to abound in all small offices of kindliness, attention, affectionateness, and all these for God's sake. By and by he will feel them become the habit of his soul.

  • The moment you can make a very simple discovery; viz., that obligation to God is your privilege, and is not imposed as a burden, your experience will teach you many things, — that duty is liberty, that repentance is a release from sorrow, that sacrif1ce is gain, that humility is dignity, that the truth from which you hide is a healing element that bathes your disordered life, and that even the penalties and terrors of God are the artillery only of protection to His realm.

  • The most fruitful and elevating influence I have ever seemed to meet has been my impression of obligation to God.

  • In the sacred fact of obligation you touch the immutable, and lay hold, as it were, on the eternities. At the very centre of your being, there is a fixed element, and that of a kind or degree essentially sovereign. A standard is set up in your very thought, by which a great part of your questions are determined, and about which your otherwise random thoughts may settle into order and law.

  • Man not only owes his services but himself to God.
    • Author unidentified, p. 199.

  • Christian obligation cannot be made to accord with a law of expediency. The Christian's maxims are, "Do right because you are bound to do right." "Do right though the heavens fall." There is a world of difference between "You had better" and "You are bound to."
    • Francis L. Patton, p. 200.

  • It is not the profession of religion which creates the obligation for the performance of duty; for that existed before any such profession was made. The profession of religion only recognises the obligation.

  • Men must be either the slaves of duty, or the slaves of force.

  • Not until the soul is fastened in loving sympathies upon God as its centre, will it sweep the orbit of duty.
    • Author unidentified, p. 200.

  • He who can at all times sacrifice pleasure to duty approaches sublimity.

  • Only when the voice of duty is silent, or when it has already spoken, may we allowably think of the consequences of a particular action.
    • Guesses at Truth, p. 200.

  • When any duty is to be done, it is fortunate for you if you feel like doing it; but, if you do not feel like it, that is no reason for not doing it.

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

  • Do right! and thou hast naught to fear;
    Right hath a power that makes thee strong.
    The night is dark, but light is near;
    The grief is short, the joy is long.

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


  • A deliberate rejection of duty prescribed by already recognized truth cannot but destroy, or at least impair most seriously the clearness of our mental vision.

  • No man living in deliberate violation of his duty, in willful disobedience to God's commands, as taught by conscience, can possibly make progress in acquaintance with the Supreme Being. Vain are all acts of worship in church or in secret, vain are religious reading and conversation, without this instant fidelity.

  • He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will see the defect when the weavingof a life-time is unrolled. Neglect of one duty often renders us unfit for another. God "is a rewarder," and one great principle on which He dispenses His rewards is this — through our faithfulness in one thing He bestows grace upon us to be faithful in another.
    • Ichabod Spencer, p. 201.

  • Feeble are we? Yes, without God we are nothing. But what, by faith, every man may be, God requires him to be. This is the only Christian idea of duty. Measure obligation by inherent ability! No, my brethren, Christian obligation has a very different measure. It is measured by the power that God will give us, measured by the gifts and possible increments of faith. And what a reckoning will it be for many of us, when Christ summons us to answer before Him under the law, not for what we are, but for what we might have been.

  • Take your duty, and be strong in it, as God will make you strong. The harder it is, the stronger in fact you will be. Understand, also, that the great question here is, not what you will get, but what you will become. The greatest wealth you can ever get will be in yourself. Take your burdens and troubles and losses and wrongs, if come they must and will, as your opportunity, knowing that God has girded you for greater things than these.

  • Submission to duty and God gives the highest energy. He, who has done the greatest work on earth, said that He came down from heaven, not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him, Whoever allies himself with God is armed with all the forces of the invisible world.

  • Go to your duty, every man, and trust yourself to Christ; for He will give you all supply just as fast as you need it. You will have just as much power as you believe you can have. Be a Christian; throw yourself upon God's work; and get the ability you want in it.

  • The great point is to renounce your own wisdom by simplicity of walk, and to be ready to give up the favor, esteem, and approbation of every one, whenever the path in which God leads you passes that way.

  • Let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this precept well to heart: "Do the duty which lieth nearest to thee," which thou knowest to be a duty! Thy second duty will already have become clearer.

  • When faith and hope fail, as they do sometimes, we must trust charity, which is love in action. We must speculate no more on our duty, but simply do it. When we have done it, however blindly, perhaps Heaven will show us the reason why.

  • Put thou thy trust in God;
    In duty's path go on;
    Fix on His word thy steadfast eye;
    So shall thy work be done.

  • Whatever our place allotted to us by Providence, that for us is the post of honor and duty. God estimates us, not by the position we are in, but by the way in which we fill it.

  • O thou sculptor, painter, poet,
    Take this lesson to thy heart;
    That is best which lieth nearest;
    Shape from that thy work of art.

  • Our grand business is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

  • Is there no reconciliation of some ancient quarrel, no payment of some long outstanding debt, no courtesy or love or honor to be rendered to those to whom it has long been due; no charitable, humble, kind, useful deed, by which you can promote the glory of God, or good-will among men, or peace upon earth? If there be any such, I beseech you, in God's name, in Christ's name, go and do it.

  • Let men of all ranks whether they are successful, or unsuccessful, whether they triumph or not — let them do their duty, and rest satisfied.

  • Not infrequently are Christians heard to speak of duties as crosses to be borne; and I am convinced that some among them regard their performance as a complete compliance with the law of self-denial. It is a cross to pray, to speak, to commend Christ to others, to attend church, to frequent the social meetings, and, indeed, to do any thing of a distinctly religious nature. By the force of their will and with the aid of sundry admonitions they bring themselves up to the discharge of those obligations, but, on the whole, they feel that it should entitle them to a place in " the noble army of martyrs." I am sorry to dissipate the comfortable illusion; but I am compelled to assure them that they totally misapprehend the doctrine of our Lord. He said that it was His meat and drink to do the will of His Father; and He never once refers to duty in any other way than as a delight. The cross was something distinct from it.

  • We should learn never to interpret duty by success. The opposition which assails us in the course of obedience is no evidence that we are mistaken.
    • Newman Hall, p. 205.

Critique of Practical Reason

by Immanuel Kant, translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott
  • Duty! Thou sublime and mighty name that dost embrace nothing charming or insinuating, but requirest submission, and yet seekest not to move the will by threatening aught that would arouse natural aversion or terror, but merely holdest forth a law which of itself finds entrance into the mind, and yet gains reluctant reverence (though not always obedience), a law before which all inclinations are dumb, even though they secretly counter-work it; what origin is there worthy of thee, and where is to be found the root of thy noble descent which proudly rejects all kindred with the inclinations; a root to be derived from which is the indispensable condition of the only worth which men can give themselves?

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  • The great problem is not to serve ones duties. The great problem is to understand what is my duty.


  • Duty is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less.

  • Perish discretion when it interferes with duty.

  • The people of this country have shown by the highest proofs human nature can give, that wherever the path of duty and honor may lead, however steep and rugged it may be, they are ready to walk in it.
    • James A. Garfield


  • Let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this precept well to heart: "Do the duty which lies nearest to thee," which thou knowest to be a duty! Thy second duty will already have become clearer.

  • Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
    • Ecclesiastes 12:13

  • Commonplace though it may appear, this doing of one's duty embodies the highest ideal of life and character. There may be nothing heroic about it; but the common lot of men is not heroic.


  • Let us do our duty in our shop or our kitchen, 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 we knew that victory for mankind depended upon 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.

  • In every profession the daily and common duties are the most useful.

  • Let men laugh when you sacrifice desire to duty, if they will. You have time and eternity to rejoice in.

  • Be not diverted from your duty by any idle reflections the silly world may make upon you, for their censures are not in your power, and consequently should not be any part of your concern.

  • It is thy duty oftentimes to do what thou wouldst not; thy duty, too, to leave undone that thou wouldst do.

  • There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from but the consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the utmost parts of the seas, duty performed, or duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their power, nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close, and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity which lies yet further onward we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to console us so far as God may have given us grace to perform it.

  • Duty is heavier than a mountain, death lighter than a feather

  • Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.

  • When I get to heaven, to St. Peter I will tell; One more Marine reporting sir, I've done my time in hell.
    • Unknown


  • For a right is never anything but the other aspect of a duty.

  • I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
    I woke, and found that life was Duty.

  • What's a man's first duty?
    The answer's brief: To be himself.
    • Henrick Ibsen, Peer Gynt, IV. i

  • Duty is everything: the greatest of joys, the deepest of sorrows.
    • Aribeth de Tylmarande, Neverwinter Nights
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