Duty (customs)

“ Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that ‘Doubt of any sort cannot be removed except by Action.’ On which ground, too, let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other precept well to heart, which to me was of invaluable service: ‘Do the Duty which lies nearest thee,’ which thou knowest to be a Duty! ”

“ If we would perform our quota of the great whole, we must, each in his place, fulfil the duties that lie around us; and we must beware how we go out of our way in pursuit of duty, unless we are confident that we are not neglecting, or perhaps trampling upon, a duty that lies directly in our path. ”

“ Duty is above all consequences, and often, at a crisis of difficulty, commands us to throw them overboard. It commands us to look neither to the right nor to the left, but straight forward. Every signal act of duty is an act of faith. ”

“ We must address ourselves to duty as those that are resolved not to take state, but to take pains; we must divest ourselves of every thing that would either feed our pride or hang in our way and hinder us in what we have to do, must gird up the loins of our mind, as those that in earnest buckle to business. ”

“ It is always imposed from outside. The authority of parents, the authority of the law of the land, and the authority of God are all alike in this, that the seat of the authority is external to the agent himself. Now a duty is a moral duty only when it is self-imposed. A duty is my duty only when I recognise that, whatever external sanctions it may possess, it is laid upon me by myself. My conscience acknowledges that it is a duty for me, and my will imposes it upon me as a line of action that ought to be carried out. The duty is an obligation laid upon the self by the self. ”

“ Let us spring forth when the word is given to perform any and every duty we are called upon to perform. Let us present a firm and unbroken phalanx of strength against evil of every description, and be united in frowning it down. ”

“ If you find that duty onerous, there is a sure and honourable means of escaping from it; do your duty so honestly that it will not long be left in your hands. Moreover, you need not fear the difficulties of such a test; while there are men of our own time, they will not summon you to serve the state. ”

“ As we learn through our appetites that we are intended to eat and drink, so a higher faculty informs us that we are to govern our appetites, and the whole of our being, by the supreme principles we call duty. Every time we have a consciousness that our conduct is right or wrong, every time we condemn or applaud the vice and virtue of our fellow men, every time the law enforces justice and punishes injustice, we confess that duty is in accordance with nature. ”

“ In your hands are life and death! The hangman is your instrument; the judge upon the bench is but your assistant. Seek not to shirk your liability; do not trust to others to shield you. On the way in which you discharge your duty to-day depends the most solemn and awful of all considerations—a human life. ”

“ Duty, be it in a small matter or a great, is duty still; the command of Heaven; the eldest voice of God. And it is only they who are faithful in a few things who will be faithful over many things; only they who do their duty in everyday and trivial matters who will fulfil them on great occasions. ”

“ Whatever be our personal infirmities, He whom we serve can overrule or supersede them. An act of duty must always be right; and will be accepted, whatever be its success, because done in obedience to His will. ”

“ But you have neglected a plain and positive duty—a duty which is engraven on your heart and wound into your nature: and a duty neglected is sure, sooner or later, to come back again as an avenger to punish ”

“ And now, in conclusion, what are the considerations by which I can best urge you to discharge the duties that have been so imperfectly pointed out? Some helps you feel that you require, for he knows little of himself who has not learnt by sad experience that man's moral weakness is so great, that, without some powerful aid, the clearest demonstration of what duty is, goes but a little way towards securing that duty shall be done. ”

“ Transformation of duties.—When duty ceases to be a burden, when, after long practice, it becomes a delight and a necessity, then the rights of others to whom our duties, now our inclinations, refer, change into occasions for pleasant sensations. ”

“ All duty should be regarded as sacred, and its faithful and unselfish performance one of the leading rules of conduct. All personal and selfish considerations should be extracted and cast away from the doing of one's duty, and when this is done, Duty ceases to be irksome, and becomes joyful. ”

“ That which is needful for any faithful discharge of any servant's duty is most of all needful for the discharge of the highest duty and the noblest service to the Master who has the right to command all our service. ”

“ Those which do depend on circumstances, are the mutilation of one’s members, the sacrificing of one’s property, and so on. And the case of those actions which are contrary to duty, is similar. Again, of duties, some are always such, and some are not always. What is always a duty, is to live in accordance with virtue; but to ask questions, to give answers, to walk, and the like, are not always duties. And the same statement holds good with respect to acts contrary to duty. ”

“ We have duties which will occupy all of our time while we live upon the earth, if they are properly performed, and they consist in duties which we owe to ourselves, to our fellow beings, and to our God. ”

“ Should we not put forth our best endeavors in the channel of our duty? Should we not be honest, faithful and true with that which is committed to our trust, and diligent in the performance of every duty? ”

“ I felt it was my duty, in a very alarming crisis, to come out; to go for my country, and my whole country; and to exert any power I had to keep that country together. I cared for nothing, I was afraid of nothing, but I meant to do my duty. Duty performed makes a man happy; duty neglected makes a man unhappy. ”

“ But even in view of the cases where no apparent compensation comes to the individual, the ideals of justice and chivalry, like the more general concept of duty, are among the most valuable possessions of man's fashioning. Cross our inclinations as they often do, cost dearly as they sometimes will, the habit of unquestioning allegiance to them is one of the greatest of all gains as means to the attainment by mankind of a stable and assured happiness. ”

“ Duty is a power which rises with us in the morning and goes to rest with us at night. It is coextensive with the action of our intelligence. It is the shadow which cleaves to us, go where we will, and which only leaves us when we leave the light of life.—Gladstone.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.—Bible.
The idea of duty, that recognition of something to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of self, is to the moral life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal life.—George Eliot. ”

“ The sense of duty presents itself less and less as a vivid 339sympathetic impulse, and more and more as a sense of the economy and restfulness of a definite standard of conduct. When one has come to accept a certain course as duty he has a pleasant sense of relief and of lifted responsibility, even if the course involves pain and renunciation. ”

“ Duty never ends. The eternal persistence through life of the obligation to service is what is taught us here, as being inherent in the very relation between the Lord and Owner of us all and us His slaves. Moralists and irreligious teachers say grand things about the eternal sweep of the great law of duty. The Christian thought is the higher one, 'Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me,' and wherever I am I am under obligation to serve Thee, and no past record of work absolves me from the work of the present. ”

“ Why, on this principle,—because we protect those things which are external with those duties which arise from their respective kinds of virtue. For the cultivation of the regard of a friend or a parent, which is the discharge of a duty, is advantageous in the actual fact of its being such, inasmuch as to discharge a duty is a good action; and good actions spring from virtues; and wise men attend to them, using nature as a kind of guide. ”

“ Above all, the steady formation of virtuous habits, the subjection of all actions to principles rather than to policy, the firm and unyielding adherence to duty, as far as it is known, are the best safeguards against mistakes in life. ”

“ Everywhere we are commencing to hear of "social duty," of obligation to the lesser and unfortunate, of the responsibility of the leaders to the led, of the well to the sick, of the law-abiding to the criminal. ”

“ One way of conduct toward these objects, which we have called duty; one attitude of mind and will toward them which we have called virtue, leads to those completions and fulfillments of ourselves which we have called rewards. Duty then to self; duty in its most comprehensive aspect, is the obligation which the existence of capacity within and material without imposes on us to bring the two together in harmonious relations, so as to realize the capacities and powers of ourselves and of others, and promote society's well being. ”

“ And duty—zeal and duty are not slow,
But on Occasion’s forelock watchful wait:
They themselves rather are occasion best—
Zeal of thy Father’s house, duty to free
Thy country from her heathen servitude. ”

“ But whether he be right or I, one thing stands out clear in my mind—that we should prepare ourselves to do our duty. At whatever cost to our country or to ourselves, as individuals, this duty is laid upon us. ”

“ The worship of this blessed trinity is called Duty. By the unpremeditated and involuntary act of being born we are supposed to have incurred a three-fold obligation: our duty to God, our duty to man, and our duty to ourselves—named in the order of their importance. Preacher, teacher, poet and sage alike speak to us of Duty. The world's literature is full of beautiful tributes to Duty, and stirring exhortations of Conscience—a spiritual faculty the function of which is to admonish us of Duty. Conscience is the voice of God in the soul, say the religious. ”

“ Now, go to the poor and unhappy, and ask them what prevents them from quickly slipping downhill into crime, and you will find in their mouths the expression, naïve, but strong, of the idea of duty; and this idea of duty you will find precisely and clearly only in that of submission to an absolute, incontestable, unconditioned authority, that of God. ”

“ IV. Be more careful about your duty to your masters, than about their duty or carriage to you. Be much more careful what to do, than what to receive; and to be good servants, than to be used as good servants. Not but you may modestly expect your due, and to be used as servants should be used; but your duty is much more to be regarded; for if your master wrong you, that is his sin, and none of yours: God will not be offended with you for another's faults, but for your own ”

“ The duty is an obligation in the strongest sense of the word, and not in the remotest degree a mere matter of equity or of humanity or of favor. For why does this individual have, at the price of his freedom, his honor, his social position, his power to make money, his health and ability to work, of pain and care, and perhaps of misery to his family, to appear and make a sacrifice of himself that the judicial department of the state may exercise its function? ”

“ All this is sure to be the reward of him who knows his duty and does it, regardless as to what others say or as to the immediate results flowing from thence.
We all have good and bad in us. The good would do what it ought to do; the bad does what it {523} can. The good dwells in the kingdom of duty; the bad sits on the throne of might. Duty is a loyal subject ”

“ Duty is with us ever; and evermore forbids us to be idle. To work with the hands or brain, according to our requirements and our capacities, to do that which lies before us to do, is more honorable than rank and title. ”

“ The second remark is, that, when a rule of duty is discovered, we are bound to aim at it, and to fulfil it, just so far as we can. We have no right to throw it aside, because we shall find some difficult cases, when we come to apply it. ”

“ Will those who think that duty is generally the first, and love of praise the second, motive, hold up their hands? (One hand reported to have been held up behind the lecturer.) Very good: I see you are with me, and that you think I have not begun too near the ground. Now, without teasing you by putting farther question, I venture to assume that you will admit duty as at least a secondary or tertiary motive. You think that the desire of doing something useful, or obtaining some real good, is indeed an existent collateral idea, though a secondary one, in most men’s desire of advancement. ”

“ The command of a great duty, which was, to do all he could for the salvation of those about him, to snatch them as brands out of the fire. Note, Those who through grace are themselves delivered out of a sinful state, should do what they can for the deliverance of others, especially their relations. ”

“ This duty is constantly, and often enjoined [93] by God in his Holy Word. “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake.” “Obey those that have rule over you.” “Render therefore to all their dues, fear to whom fear, and honour to whom honour is due.”
It is because the duties of subordination are so important to the happiness of those who are to be controlled, as well as to society at large, that God so often and so earnestly urges these duties in the Bible. ”

“ Neither the few nor the many have a right to act merely by their will, in any matter connected with duty, trust, engagement, or obligation. ”

“ Duty is ours, events are God's; and we do not trust God, but tempt him, when we say, "We put ourselves under his protection," and do not use proper means, such as are within our power, for our own preservation. ”

“ All these are inferior considerations which do not avail to determine duty and do not go deep enough to constitute the real foundation of our obligation. They are considerations which can scarcely be shut out, and should be taken in determining the weight of our obligation, in shaping the selection of our duties, in stimulating the zeal and sedulousness with which we do what we know to be right. ”