Thomas a Kempis Quotes

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.

Duty, then is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more; you should never wish to do less.

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

To put a tempting face aside when duty demands every faculty is a lesson which takes most men longest to learn.

Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.

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

Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.

Let others laugh when you sacrifice desire to duty, if they will. You have time and eternity to rejoice in.

Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.

Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.

Anything which tends to bring a greater sense of responsibility to individuals should be encouraged.

There are things that are more important than my personal happiness.

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

Nothing, that is say no one, can be such an inexorable tour-conductor as one's own conscience or sense of duty, if one allows either the upper hand: the self-bullying that goes on in the name of sight-seeing is grievous.

Neither pleasure nor pain should enter as motives when one must do what must be done.

Would you live with ease, Do what you ought, and not what you please.

She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend - as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.

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

Duty is one and invariable; it requires no impossibilities, nor can it ever be disregarded with impunity.

We need to restore the full meaning of that old word, duty. It is the other side of rights.

We all know our duty better than we discharge it.

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

Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right to do what we ought.

Doing what you want to do is easy. Doing what you have to do is hard.

It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.