676 Quotes About Duty

Likewise, as William James maintained, the virtues of a good citizen—a sense of duty and responsibility to the common good—are the “rock upon which states are built

remember you must always put your country first, your family second, and yourself third.

I wish I knew where this journey will take us, but I don't. All I know is that this is bigger than me, my self-doubt, or any crisis of conscience. I now truly realize how profoundly insignificant I am compared to all this. Why does that make me feel so much better?

It became my duty once the witch before me became too crippled to attend the Rites. Sometimes you do the thing you hate so others don’t have to, whether it’s from love, guilt, or blackmail.” She paused to level a condemning stare on him. “No other woman in Beroe is safe from fire. It would be wrong and cowardly of me to let them burn when I can go in their place and survive. It doesn’t mean I have to like it just because I’m willing to accept it.

The Hierarchic Qualm: The sword kills. But the arm moves the sword. Is the arm to blame for murder? No. The mind moves the arm. Is the mind to blame? No. The mind has sworn an oath to duty, and that duty moves the mind, as written by the Throne. So it is that a servant of the Throne is blameless.

As much as I had always longed to be freed of my duties and obligations, being released from such bonds was as much a severing as an emancipation.

Every duty that is bidden to wait comes back with seven fresh duties at its back.

Postponing duties, especially when those duties are painful ones, is also a temporary way of surviving.

Duty is a good thing, a calling without which no civilization can survive, but it is also a weight and chain that sometimes seems sure to sink you to the airless bottom of a dark pool