Elizabeth Bowen 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.

A man can give up a right, but he may not give up a duty without being guilty of a grave dereliction.

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

I didn't volunteer; they asked me. I felt a duty to testify.

A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Diety.

Must we always do our duty? If so, how are we always to know what is our duty?

Mine was a trained Presbyterian conscience and knew but the one duty - to hunt and harry its slave upon all pretexts and on all occasions, particularly when there was no sense nor reason in it.

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

Duty is a better guide than stars or statutes.

The mind must have for ballast the clear conception of duty, if it is not to fluctuate between levity and despair.

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

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.

Yes, it is difficult for man to cross beyond the idea of duty.

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

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

A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us.

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

The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.

Justice is the sum of all moral duty.

But I felt all the more bound to make this proposal, because it at once turns to a reproach.

There is no truth without responsibility following in its wake.

My grandfather was a man, when he talked about freedom, his attitude was really interesting. His view was that you had obligations or you had responsibilities, and when you fulfilled those obligations or responsibilities, that then gave you the liberty to do other things.

We're all given something to do. And when we don't follow what we're supposed to do, we always know when we're off track.

Perhaps it's a curse, but when you are a Lutheran, you have a sense of responsibility.