Neglect of duty

“ Unbefitting, or contrary to duty, are all acts that reason deprecates, e.g. to neglect one's parents, to be indifferent to one's brothers, not to agree with friends, to disregard the interests of one's country, and so forth. 109. Acts which fall under neither of the foregoing classes are those which reason neither urges us to do nor forbids, such as picking up a twig, holding a style or a scraper, and the like. ”

“ And, in like manner, another side of this thought is, be true to your convictions. There is no such barrier to a larger and wholesomer view of our duty as the neglect of anything that plainly is our duty. ”

“ If parents or superiors neglect their duty or abuse their authority in any particular, should we follow their direction and example in that particular? A. If parents or superiors neglect their duty or abuse their authority in any particular we should not follow their direction or example in that particular, but follow the dictates of our conscience in the performance of our duty. ”

“ Narrow, too, as might be the views of the members of these communities about the conduct of life, there was ever before the minds of the best of them an ideal of devotion to duty, an earnest all-pervading moral purpose which implanted the feeling that neither personal success nor pleasure of any sort could ever afford even remotely compensation for the neglect of the least obligation which their situation imposed. ”

“ I feel it is in vain to think that I shall ever be fit for the discharge of any duty in this life. I shall hold a place in the creation to which I am a dishonour. I shall become a burthen to the few who are obliged to feel an interest in my welfare. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ What obstacles arise in the way?
Have I not youth, health, knowledge, talents? Twenty professional roads are open before me, and solicit me to enter them; but no. I shall never enter any of them. Be all earthly powers combined to force me into the right path,--the path of duty, honour, and interest: they strive in vain.
And whence this incurable folly?--this rooted incapacity of acting as every motive, generous and selfish, combine to recommend? Constitution; habit; insanity; the dominion of some evil spirit, who insinuates his baneful power between the will and the act. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No suitable provision is made for the helplessness and infirmity of human nature. Subject as we are to so many weaknesses and imperfections, in every stage of life, with the best of rules to regulate our practice, the noblest example, motives and sanctions to guide, warm, and impress our hearts, yet we should fail lamentably in duty without help from above. ”

“ What men will stand under the shadow of a great danger from a sense of imminent duty, they will furiously chafe at when that danger and sense of duty are no more. The duty will then be to their families and to themselves. ”

“ Can I leave them to vice, to suffering, to crime, and yet be innocent? Will not their souls be required at my hands, now that God shows me their condition? I feel the pressure of a responsibility scarcely thought of an hour ago. ”

“ They then seek a wretched relief for their minds, by persuading themselves, that to yield their obedience, is to discharge their duty. The deplorable poverty of spirit, that prostrates all the dignity bestowed by divine providence on our nature---of course succeeds. ”

“ Among the former belong those who recognise the particular moral commandments, but fail to recognise the unifying principle from which they flow; who see the satisfactions of which morality deprives them and the pains which it imposes, but fail to see the superior satisfactions to which obedience opens the way, and the ineffable peace that comes after the pain. Duty is a burden and a bondage to those who{70} fix their attention only upon the negative aspect of it. ”

“ Duties incurred, no matter how unworthy of us, must be discharged; and although we may be conscious that our merit or our birth entitles us to a different station from the one we fill, yet a noble mind will not cease to perform its duty, even in poverty and disgrace. ”

“ This innoxious and ineffectual character, that seems formed upon a plan of apology and disculpation, falls miserably short of the mark of public duty. That duty demands and requires, that what is right should not only be made known, but made prevalent; that what is evil should not only be detected, but defeated. ”

“ But our people, with a dignity which reminds the world of a greater and more painful example of suffering, have borne in silence the taunts and derision of their opponents; indeed, they elected out of a sense of duty to remedy the faults and abuses which had crept into their public administration during moments of relaxed vigilance. ”

“ Yes; for the task before you requires a daring spirit, and a most stoical indifference to privation, to suffering, and to death, as you will have to bear a voluntary part in every dangerous or arduous enterprise, on every desperate duty; and have to volunteer for every forlorn hope and reckless adventure. ”

“ He put himself under obligation--in moments of supreme need--to dangerous persons, and suffered from the familiarity and perhaps the contempt of some who were his inferiors in breeding, in heart, and in soul. ”

“ There is no duty but what now costs us something; no precept in the law but combats some of our passions; no step in the paths of God against which our heart does not revolt.
To this load of corruption, which renders duty so difficult and irksome, and iniquity so natural, add the snares which surround us, the examples which entice us, the objects which effeminate us, the occasions which surprise us, the compliances which weaken us, the afflictions which discourage us, the properties which corrupt us, the situations which blind us, and the contradictions which we experience ”

“ A more psychological consideration leads us still to the futility of duty for duty’s sake. A will which does not act is no will, and every act is a particular event: an act is this or that act, and an act in general is nonsense. ”

“ Not regardless of consequences, we must yet meet consequences; seeing the hazards which surround the discharge of public duty, it must yet be discharged. For myself, Sir, I shun no responsibility justly devolving on me, here or elsewhere, in attempting to maintain the cause. ”

“ 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, without this feeling of peace with God, the effort to do our duties only harasses and irritates our conscience: it produces weariness of heart, a constant feeling of unworthiness and failure, a constant sense of obligations and responsibilities which we do not and cannot fulfil. Duty is a weary task, a heavy burden; and our life is crushed down by constant anxiety and care. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Does the "charity which, seeking not her own," but denying self, and sacrificing inclination at the shrine of duty, or in the endeavour to bestow comfort upon the needy, require no effort in its practice? ”

“ But, on the contrary, every one guards and defends his life, like a precious pledge intrusted to him under heavy responsibility, under infinite cares and abundant misery, even under which life is tolerable. ”

“ To be a man of duty and to question one's route, grope in the dark, feel one's self torn between the contrary solicitations of conflicting calls, or again, to face a duty gigantic, overwhelming, beyond our strength—what is harder! ”

“ No doubt it was a mistaken sense of duty, which made such men bury themselves in these dark solitudes; for it is far nobler to encounter the world, and to overcome it, than to retire from the conflict—better amidst its corruptions and cares, its trials and temptations, to keep ourselves unspotted by it, than to seek an escape from its evils by deserting the sphere of our appointed duties. ”

“ The same disregard of consequences that hazarded all for all, in battle or for duty, broke through the barriers within which prudence, reputation, decency, or even weakness and cowardice, confine the actions of lesser men. ”

“ Well, it is the more necessary to do all we can whilst power lasts, never talking, but acting, and recollecting that a duty once divined binds one from that moment; while as for the abuse, public and private, received for anything attempted out of the ordinary groove, we ought ever to follow the simple advice of Sœur Rosalie, “Faites le bien, et laissez dire.” ”

“ It means that we shall fail in the duty that we owe ourselves. It means that we shall be open to constant attack to which we as constantly shall have to yield. Be under no misapprehension—run this time, and you will never make a stand again! ”

“ The sense of obligation, if continuing to recognize the nature of duty in things which could then no longer retain any such quality, otherwise than as looking to the most immediate and tangible benefit or harm, the lowest of moral calculations, would be reduced to a vulgar and reptile principle. ”

“ From infancy up to manhood, under parents, schoolmasters, inspectors, etc., our pleasures and pleasant self-chosen pursuits (self-chosen because pleasant, and not originally pleasant because self-chosen) have been forcibly interrupted, and dull, unintelligible rudiments, or painful tasks imposed upon us instead. Now all duty is felt as a command, and every command is of the nature of an offence. Duty, therefore, by the law of association being felt as a command from without, would naturally call up the sensation of the pain roused from the commands of parents and schoolmasters. ”

“ Should a public servant dare to propose a dishonorable application of it to your own wants or necessities, frown him into that contempt which every pander merits. If injury has accrued from former neglect, do all that you can to remedy the past and to guard the future. ”

“ Refuse that servant's duty because it is plain,—seek either to serve God, or know Him, in any other way: your service will become mockery of Him, and your knowledge darkness. Every day your virtues will be used by the evil spirits to conceal, or to make respectable, national crime; every day your felicities will become baits for the iniquity of others ”

“ There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from, but the consciousness of duty disregarded. ”

“ I have enough to occupy me where I find myself, and should certainly be oftener in doubt how to act, if I had bothered my brains how to think in circumstances foreign to me. In such thinking, duty is of necessity a comparatively feeble factor, being only duty imagined, not live duty, and the result is the more questionable. ”

“ And this mania about responsibility has been disastrous for you too—you know that perfectly well. It has spoiled your life by keeping you in a perpetual state of fuss and worry, and of dissatisfaction with your own conduct and everybody else's. ”

“ I am persuaded that we are weak and fallible creatures; but I cannot for an instant admit, that an all-wise and merciful Being has exacted any one duty, or enforced any one command, without having bestowed upon us the faculties and capacity for fulfilling our obligations. ”

“ Only the guilty are punished, and if an unavoidable mistake does sometimes occur, it is like a thunderbolt—an accident, or the will of God. You have but one responsibility: to fulfil your task courageously and to retain the power that is given to you. You wish the best for your people and God sees that. ”

“ All that it comes to is this (and it is, we must remember, a very important truth) , that you must never break a law of duty to please yourself, never for the sake of an end not duty, but only for the sake of a superior and overruling duty. Any breach of duty, as duty, and not as lower duty, is always and absolutely wrong; but it would be rash to say that any one act must be in all cases absolutely and unconditionally immoral. Circumstances decide, because circumstances determine the manner in which the overruling duty must be realized. ”

“ Of course, none of us can, by the most wilful disobedience, dispose events in any way but exactly that which his hand and his counsel have determined before the foundation of the world; [43] but when we go out of the narrow path of duty, we attempt, as far as in us lies, to reverse his unchangeable decrees, and we "have our reward;" we mar our own welfare, and that of others, when we make any effort to take the providing for it out of the hands of the Omnipotent. ”

“ 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. ”