Quotes about Obligation

You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd.  You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation.  It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced.  In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers.  That's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world. 

If you as parents cut corners, your children will too. If you lie, they will too. If you spend all your money on yourselves and tithe no portion of it for charities, colleges, churches, synagogues, and civic causes, your children won't either. And if parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out.

Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.

'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, To give these mourning duties to your father: But, you must know, your father lost a father; That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound In filial obligation for some term To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever In obstinate condolement is a course Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief; It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, A heart unfortified, a mind impatient, An understanding simple and unschool'd: For what we know must be and is as common As any the most vulgar thing to sense, Why should we in our peevish opposition Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven, A fault against the dead, a fault to nature, To reason most absurd: whose common theme Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried, From the first corse till he that died to-day, 'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth This unprevailing woe, and think of us As of a father: for let the world take note, You are the most immediate to our throne; And with no less nobility of love Than that which dearest father bears his son, Do I impart toward you.

If an individual is born with the obligation to obey, who is born with the right to command?

How to forgive is something we have to learn, not as a duty or an obligation but as an experience akin to the experience of love; it must come into being spontaneously.

We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.

It is evident that most attorneys and legal scholars feel that their ethical obligation to put forth their best defense of a client is the highest principle in law. Agreed, it is a high principle. However, should it be a higher principle than what the system is supposed to achieve - namely, justice? Of course not. If the ethic of a good defense insists on obscuring or hiding truth, it needs to be re-evaluated, because it is then immoral.

Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is . . . impossible.

Statement after losing his first fight to Ken Norton, March 31, 1973: I never thought of losing, but now that it's happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.

The search of knowledge is an obligation laid on every Muslim.

. . . there is nevertheless a certain respect, a general duty to humanity, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants. We owe justice to men, and graciousness and benignity to other creatures . . . there is a certain commerce and mutual obligation betwixt them and us.

Twelve Priceless Qualities of Success: 1. The value of time. 2. The success of perseverance. 3. The pleasure of working. 4. The dignity of simplicity. 5. The worth of character. 6. The power of kindness. 7. The influence of example. 8. The obligation of duty. 9. The wisdom of economy. 10. The virtue of patience. 11. The improvement of talent. 12. The joy of originating.

When some men discharge an obligation, you can hear the report for miles around.

It is not a government's obligation to provide services, but to see that they are provided.

If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.

If this bill [for the admission of Orleans Territory as a State] passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union; that it will free the States from their moral obligation; and, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation, - amicably if they can, violently if they must.

Man always travels along precipices. His truest obligation is to keep his balance.

As though there were a tie And obligation to posterity. We get them, bear them, breed, and nurse: What has posterity done for us. That we, lest they their rights should lose, Should trust our necks to gripe of noose?

The obligation to endure gives us the right to know.

I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation, every possession, a duty.

I hope to make people realize how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must that we will be kind and take care of their needs ...[They] are an obligation put on us, a responsibility we have no right to neglect, nor to violate by cruelty.

Politics is the art of putting people under obligation to you.

God is not limited to the manner in which He is epiphanized for you and makes Himself adequate to your dimension {to receive Him}. And that is why other creatures are under no obligation to obey the God who demands your worship, because their theophanies take other forms. The form in which He is epiphanized to you is different from that in which He is epiphanized to others. God as such transcends (munazzah) all intelligible, imaginable, or sensible forms, but considered in His Names and Attributes, that is, His theophanies, He is, on the contrary, inseparable from these forms, that is, from a certain figure and a certain situs in space and time.

IBM'S Basic BELIEFS AND FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES Our beliefs, which should be well known to every IBMer, are: 1. Respect for the individual. 2. A desire to have the best customer service of any company in the world. 3. The conviction that an organization should pursue all tasks with the idea that they can be accomplished in a superior manner. In addition to these, there is a set of fundamental principles which guide IBM management in the conduct of the business. Each manager should consider them as a basis for his decisions. They are: 1. To provide intelligent, aggressive capable management. 2. To serve our customers as efficiently and effectively as possible. 3. To continually improve our products and our technology. 4. To provide a maximum degree of satisfaction on the part of our employees in their assigned tasks. 5. To recognize the obligation to our stockholders to provide an adequate return on their investment. 6. To play our part in furthering the progress of the communities in which our facilities are located.

It is well known to all great men, that by conferring an obligation they do not always procure a friend, but are certain of creating many enemies.

An obligation rests upon each one of us to analyze the intellectual problem of his time and to attempt to formulate his statement of its significance, for the impact of modern science affects the individual as well as society. Each one of us must answer to himself what place it will find in the mansions of his spirit.

Today a thousand doors of enterprise are open to you, inviting you to useful work. To live at this time is an inestimable privilege, and a sacred obligation devolves upon you to make right use of your opportunities. Today is the day in which to attempt and achieve something worthwhile.

Climbing is a unique sport, presenting mental and physical stress that you learn to overcome by operating close to your limits. Sometimes your limits are higher than you realize. "Of course, you recognize your limits in climbing by falling off the rock," says Alan Czenkusch [leader of Whistepig Climbing School of Del Norte, Colorado]. "However, you're safe because you're on belay." The belay anchor system is the crux of climbing. It allows falls with impunity - almost. The person running the rope does so to protect the climber. There is a great responsibility and obligation to this concept and Czenkusch explains it solemnly. The belayer protects himself by the use of pitons and other devices which give him fail-safe redundant protection. When the belayer calls out to the climber below "On Belay" it means he is set up correctly and has assumed a serious duty and would even give up his own life to protect the climber. Such dedication should allow the person below to ascent with no fear of falling. The mutual trust which allows belaying is part of the camaraderie, the intimacy, the mystique of mountaineering. Belaying has brought Czenkusch his best and worst moments in climbing. Czenkusch once fell from a high precipice, yanking out three mechanical supports and pulling his belayer off a ledge. He was stopped upside down 10 feet from the ground when his spread-eagled belayer arrested the fall with the strength of his outstretched arms. "Don saved my life," says Czenkusch. "How do you respond to a guy like that? Give him a used climbing rope for a Christmas present? No, you remember him. You always remember him."

Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual; you have an obligation to be one. You cannot make any useful contribution in life unless you do this.