Philip Pullman Quotes

What one has to do usually can be done.

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

It is a sin not to do what one is capable of doing.

McCabe's Law: Nobody has to do anything.

A man can do what he ought to do; and when he says he cannot, it is because he will not.

Everybody's got to do what they've got to do.

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

I feel it is an intensely disagreeable and unfortunate task which we cannot in honor shirk.

He has no right to his life when his duty calls him to resign it. Other men are bound ... to deprive him of life or liberty, if that should appear in any case to be indispensably necessary to prevent a greater evil.

A necessary act incurs no blame.

To a reluctant admission of the necessity for State action, we join a burning belief in duty.

A dream is better than obligation.

An obligation is something which constrains or induces us to act.

Duty is what no-one else will do at the moment.

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

It is not a matter of desire, but of coercion and duty.

Responsibility is the possibility of opportunity culminating in inevitable fulfillment.

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

I'm here, got no choice. But you, you should be telling people.

If you believe in peace it is possible. If it is possible it is a duty.

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

If you have the ability to do something, you should do it.

Does not the possibility or the power to do something about the situation at hand confer on one the responsibility to do it?

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

Without duty, life is soft and boneless.