Penelope Fitzgerald Quotes

The only immorality is not to do what one has to do when one has to do it.

If you can, you must.

Responsibility is the possibility of opportunity culminating in inevitable fulfillment.

Duty is the demand of the hour.

Duty doesn't need to call; it only needs to whisper. And if you heed the call, no matter what happens, you have no need for regret." Odd Thomas

I urge you by all this is dear, by all that is honorable, by all that is sacred, not only that you pray but also that you act!

England expects that every man will do his duty.

What one has to do usually can be done.

Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires but according to our powers.

For 25 years, I did take my responsibilities as a pleaser of others sufficiently seriously.

Never mind your happiness; do your duty.

The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else.

It's the sense of duty that keeps you going sometimes when things get very, very rough. Somebody's got to do it. And if you don't, who will?

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.

It is thy duty often times to do what thou wouldst not; thy duty too, to leave undone that thou wouldst do.

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

A person less fortunate than yourself deserves the best you can give. Because of duty, and honor, and service. You understand those words? You should do your job right, and you should do it well, simply because you can, without looking for notice or reward.

People need responsibility. They resist assuming it, but they cannot get along without it.

Without duty, life is soft and boneless.

Duty is heavier than a mountain, Dai Shan.' That time, Lan did flinch. How long had it been since someone had been able to do that to him with mere words? He remembered teaching that same concept to a youth out of the Two Rivers. A sheepherder, innocent of the world, fearful of the fate laid out before him by the Pattern.

When duty calls, that is when character counts.

duty, the most indecent of all obsessions, was only another name for love.

Never mind your happiness; do your duty.

The one word you use in military flying is duty. It's your duty. You have no control over outcome, no control over pick-and-choose. It's duty.

Consult duty not events.