Samuel Smiles Quotes

I did only what my duty demanded. I could have taken no other course without dishonor.

Fear guides more to their duty than gratitude; for one man who is virtuous from the love of virtue, from the obligation he thinks he lies under to the Giver of all, there are ten thousand who are good only from their apprehension of punishment.

There is no such thing as duty. If you know that a thing is right, you want to do it. If you don't want to do it - it isn't right. If it's right and you don't want to do it - you don't know what right is and you're not a man.

Without duty, life is soft and boneless.

To an honest man, it is an honor to have remembered his duty.

One of the most destructive anti-concepts in the history of moral philosophy is the term 'duty.

If a sense of duty tortures a man, it also enables him to achieve prodigies.

An action, to have moral worth, must be done from duty.

Moral obligation is to me so very strong a Stimulant, that in 9 cases out of ten it acts as a Narcotic. The Blow that should rouse, stuns me.

Duty does not consist in suffering everything, but in suffering everything for duty. Sometimes, indeed, it is our duty not to suffer.

For duty, duty must be done; The rule applies to everyone.

Duty is seldom liked either by the doer or the object ... And why should it be? It is not often of advantage to either.

The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft.

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.

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

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

Duty is but a pot. It holds whatever is put in it, from the greatest evil to the greatest good.

Duty is what goes most against the grain, because in doing that we do only what we are strictly obliged to, and are seldom much praised for it.

In duty the individual acquires his substantive freedom

Duty is a better guide than stars or statutes.

Obligation may be stretched till it is no better than a brand of slavery stamped on us when we were too young to know its meaning.

There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution. - Mr. Knightley

Responsibility is the possibility of opportunity culminating in inevitable fulfillment.

Stern daughter of the voice of God! O Duty! if that name thou love Who art a light to guide, a rod To check the erring and reprove.

My obligation is to do the right thing. The rest is in God's hands.