Duty (work)

“ Young reader, spurn the indulgence of a thought so unworthy of a human being! Remember, that happiness, worth the name, can never be gained unless in the discharge of duty, or under the sense of duty done. And work is duty—thy duty—the duty of all mankind. ”

“ Work and effort there must be; for such is the condition of life. And then there is Duty always, which we are justly told is “more than life.” What is life where duty fails? Companion with all is Hope, with too flickering sunshine. ”

“ The first topic to which I shall call your attention is your daily employment, and by that I mean the method by which you earn your livelihood. Or, supposing that, having some independent means of support, you are not compelled to labour for your daily bread, then I shall point out that special form of work, the doing of which Providence has plainly made to be your duty. ”

“ Mencius said, 'The path of duty lies in what is near, and men seek for it in what is remote. The work of duty lies in what is easy, and men seek for it in what is difficult. ”

“ Do not make riches, but usefulness, your first aim, and let your chief pride be that your daily occupation is in the line of progress and development; that your work, in whatever capacity it may be, is useful work, honestly conducted, and as such ennobles your life. ”

“ In this chapter we shall consider, first, some aspects of Christian obligation; and, second, the particular duties which arise therefrom in relation to the self, others, and God.
I ASPECTS OF DUTY 1. Duty and Vocation.—'While duty stands for a universal element there is a personal element in moral requirement which may be called vocation.' [2] As soon as the youth enters upon the larger world he has to make choice of a profession or life-work. Different principles may guide him in his selection. First of all, the circumstances {200} of life will help to decide the individual's career. ”

“ Pride and pleasure in work, the desire to excel, loyalty to duty, and the love of truth in its wide significance, are all subordinated, and gradually weakened, by the irresistible mastery of this new faculty. ”

“ We are ready to use great opportunities only when we have trained our powers by diligent performance of humble work. Carlyle says: “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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Duty rounds out the whole of life, from our entrance into it until our exit from it. There is the duty to superiors, to inferiors, to equals, to God and to man. Wherever there is power to use or to direct, there is a duty devolving upon us. ”

“ For, the sense of this obligation is an exceeding broad one,—like the law itself which it includes and enforces. The feeling of duty will not let us off, with the performance of only a part of our duty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I know, on the contrary, that you wish your workmen well; that you do much for them, and that you desire to do more for them, if you saw your way to such benevolence safely. I know that even all this wrong and misery are brought about by a warped sense of duty, each of you striving to do his best ”

“ This doctrine of duty is sub-divided into two parts; the common duty of every man as a MAN, or A MEMBER of A STATE, which is that part of the platform and exemplar of good, he has before reported as 'extant, and well laboured.' The other is the respective or special duty of every man in his PROFESSION, VOCATION and PLACE ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ We proceed, therefore, to consider other sources of happiness. And among these, we shall—perhaps to the surprise of some—assign the first place to a man's profession, his office, his regular occupation and work in the world. It is too common, at the present day, for men to consider the duties of their profession or regular occupation as a task, as drudgery, to be got through with and away from, as soon as possible. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 DUTIES OF MASTERS TOWARDS THEIR SERVANTS. If you would have good servants, see that you be good masters, and do your own duty, and then either your servants will do theirs, or else all their failings shall turn to your greater good. ”

“ We desire that duty be defined. We learn in answer that if men ever get perfect, the sense of obligation will vanish, so that nobody will question: What is duty? at all. This may be magnificent, but it is not ethics. ”

“ Encumbered with heavy responsibilities, with incessant calls of charity upon him, he must task to the utmost his best energies to preserve the even balance of his mind and continue in the strict path of duty. ”

“ Do not imagine that I am here talking professionally, or sliding unconsciously, by the force of habit, into the tone of the pulpit. The subject of duty belongs equally to all professions and all conditions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Just as the glory of duty consists, not in its immediate issue, but in its performance, so the main inspiration for responsibility comes not from external goads and spurs, but from the very thing which lies at our [Pg 124] feet, looking at first sight like a task given to mock rather than inspire, to denude of what little power we have rather than to equip, to undo the would-be doer rather than to be done by him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We ought not to be lukewarm or negligent in attending to our duties, but with all our might, strength and souls we should try to understand the spirit of our calling and nature of the work in which we are engaged. ”

“ That belongs to your every-day history. No one can answer that question but yourself. Your next duty is just to determine what your next duty is. Is there nothing you neglect? Is there nothing you know you ought not to do? ”

“ Plenty, honor, and security in the enjoyment of temporal blessings, are annexed to a religious performance of the duty; he will bless the honest labors of those who faithfully serve him, on the six days of the week, which he has appointed for secular employments. ”

“ The function and the duty are the things which the human being has to observe:--the seeing clearly, for instance, with the eyes, and bearing distinctly with the ears; the maintenance of righteousness between ruler and minister, and of affection between parent and child. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These employments of the angels are their general employments, but every one has his own particular duty; for every general use is composed of innumerable others, which are called mediate, ministering, and subservient uses. ”

“ What if you think another way best, or another work best, or another time best; are you to govern or obey? If the work be not yours, but another's, let his will and not yours be fulfilled, and do his service in his own way. ”

“ Such then, gentlemen, are the duties arising from your present position that I would exhort you to discharge:—to labour for the acquisition of knowledge and of wisdom, in order that your intellectual being may grow into the glorious thing it is fitted to become; then to see to it that you employ in the service of men and for their good, all the skill and all the influence that through your own development you thus will gain. ”

“ No matter in what direction or under what circumstances they found a human creature in need of any service they could render,—whether of a material or spiritual nature,—they must exercise their power, and perform that work. ”

“ The duty is so obvious, the means of performing it are so simple, and are now so easily placed within the reach of all men,—the arrangement is so eminently practical, rational, benevolent, and just,—it is, moreover, so calculated to increase every wise and prudent man's sense of self-respect, and to encourage him in the performance of all proper social duties,—that we cannot conceive of any possible objection that can be urged against it ”

“ Rust. “I consider the niggers can eat—mangoes.”
“I sometimes wonder,” said the gardener, “whether one has a duty to oneself. One feels as if one has, but I always—in theory—distrust a duty that pays.”
“Certainly one has a duty to oneself,” said Courtesy. “Duty begins at home. ”

“ You are to serve your masters with cheerfulness, reverence, and humility. You are to do your masters' service with good-will, doing it as the will of God from the heart, without any sauciness or answering again. How many of you do things quite otherwise, and, instead of going about your work with a good will and a good heart, dispute and grumble, give saucy answers, and behave in a surly manner! ”

“ To know where one is going and what one wishes—this is order; to keep one’s word and one’s engagements—again order; to have everything ready under one’s hand, to be able to dispose of all one’s forces, and to have all one’s means of whatever kind under command—still order; to discipline one’s habits, one’s effort, one’s wishes; to organize one’s life, to distribute one’s time, to take the measure of one’s duties and make one’s rights respected; to employ one’s capital and resources, one’s talent and one’s chances profitably—all this belongs to and is included in the word order. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ours is the solemn, the inescapable duty to labor faithfully and unremittingly to insure that no opportunity is being missed, that no avenues are left unexplored, that might, however indirectly, contribute to the furtherance of those tasks that claim so insistently our immediate attention. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the same way that we are fond of laying the neglect, and the duty, of exertion upon p. 255some class, even on our own, rather than on our especial selves, we are much given to look for something new which, in a magical manner, is to settle the whole difficulty. ”