Ursula K. Le Guin Quotes

Charity is to will and do what is just and right in every transaction.

We all have the duty to do good.

I try to persuade people to act in ways that are not only in their own interest, but in the interest of society at large.

I suppose that is my central obsession. What we owe to society, what we owe to ourselves.

If there is any God, there is only one way to please him, and that is by a conscientious discharge of your obligations to your fellow men.

Wherefore for the public interest and benefit of human society it is requisite that the highest obligations possible should be laid upon the consciences of men.

While some misuse their freedom to perpetrate evil, millions respond by feeling compelled to use their freedom to do good.

For, quite literally, the whole world today is looking for us to take the lead in carrying out those obligations imposed on the American people as a whole by the beautiful, compassionate and courageous principle of noblesse oblige.

Duty, recognizing an individual's subordination to community welfare, is as important as rights ...

It is the essence of responsibility to put the public good ahead of personal gain.

As actors, we do have certain powers. I want to use them for the right cause.

The duties are even more important than the rights; and in the long run I think that the reward is ampler and greater for duty well done, than for the insistence upon individual rights.

No man has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own ease the service due to his neighbor.

Nobody has ever given a reason why men should be their brother's keepers.

The true source of rights is duty.

I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try and save the world. You sent money to the Red Cross, you registered people to vote, you marched in rallies, stood in vigils, picked up litter.

Nothing is properly one's duty but what is also one's interest.

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders.

To be good, and do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words.

To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity.

It is the church's responsibility, the government's responsibility, and the personal responsibility of every one of us to love.

Though there is a benevolence due to all mankind, none can question but a superior degree of it is to be paid to a father, a wife, or child. In the same manner, though our love should reach to the whole species, a greater proportion of it should exert itself towards that community in which Providence has placed us. This is our proper sphere of action, the province allotted us for the exercise of our civil virtues, and in which alone we have opportunities of expressing our goodwill to mankind.

The interests of a nation, when well understood, will be found to coincide with their moral duties.

I learned from my illiterate but wise mother that all rights to be deserved and preserved came from duty well done. Thus the very right to live accrues to us only when we do the duty of citizenship of the world. From this one fundamental statement, perhaps it is easy enough to define the duties of Man and Woman and correlate every right to some corresponding duty to be first performed. Every other right can be shown to be a usurpation hardly worth fighting for.

We, as humans, have actually developed a sense of social responsibility. We have gone beyond our basic instincts.