Duty

For this is our most perfect duty and yet least known to us by nature: Whatever we conceive or will should be joined with the good of our neighbor.
~ William Ames, Medulla Theologica (The Marrow of Theology) (1629).

In the time we have it is surely our duty to do all the good we can to all the people we can in all the ways we can.
~ William Barclay, Letter to the Hebrews (1955).

One of the highest of human duties is that of encouragement.
~ William Barclay, Letter to the Hebrews (1955).

Teaching children about morality -- making meaningful concepts like right and wrong, good and evil -- is imperative. It also is a duty that we have shirked all too often in the past 40 years.
~ William John Bennett, The Chicago Tribune Capitalism and a moral education (28 July 2002)

The duty I owe to the slave, to truth, and to God, demands that I should use my pen and tongue so long as life and health are vouchsafed to me to employ them, or until the last chain shall fall from the limbs of the last slave in America and the world.
~ William Wells Brown, in The Liberator (14 December 1849).

I've watched my duty, straight an' true,
An' tried to do it well;
Part of the time kept heaven in view,
An' part steered clear of hell.
~ William McKendree ("Will") Carleton, The New Church Doctrine

From a very early age I had imbibed the opinion that it was every man's duty to do all that lay in his power to leave his country as good as he had found it.
~ William Cobbett, Essay in The Political Register (22 December 1832).

I said to a guy, "Tell me, what is it about cocaine that makes it so wonderful," and he said, "Because it intensifies your personality." I said, "Yes, but what if you're an asshole?"
~ Bill Cosby, from Bill Cosby: Himself (1983 film, at the Hamilton Place Theatre in Hamilton, Ontario).

Drink, and be mad then;
'Tis your country bids!
Gloriously drunk, obey the important call!
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book IV. The Winter Evening

Never mind your happiness; do your duty.
~ William James "Will" Durant

Our feelings we with difficulty smother
When constabulary duty's to be done,
Ah, take one consideration with another
A policeman's lot is not a happy one.
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, Pirates of Penzance. Act II (1880 opera). A Policeman's Lot is Not a Happy One

Duty is a power that rises with us in the morning, and goes to rest with us at night. It is coextensive with the action of our intelligence. It is the shadow that cleaves to us, go where we will.
~ William Ewart Gladstone

It is the duty of a government to make it easy for the people to do right and difficult for the people to do wrong.
~ William Ewart Gladstone

They held it their duty to live but for their country.
~ William Godwin, Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries (1831). Essay VI: Of Self-Love and Benevolence

In duty the individual finds his liberation; liberation from dependence on mere natural impulse.
~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (G.W.F.) Hegel, The Philosophy of Right (1821).

Straight is the line of Duty,
Curved is the line of Beauty,
Follow the straight line, thou hall see
The curved line ever follow thee.
~ William Maccall, (c. 1830).

Loyalty, if it requires anything, requires the giving of one's best judgment at all times.
~ William B. Macomber, The Angel's Game: A Handbook of Modern Diplomacy (1975).

Duty is dictated by law, by public opinion, and by conscience. Each by itself may have no great power, but the three together are probably irresistible.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, from A Writer's Notebook (1949). 1901 entry

[E]very man's fust duty is ter get as many children as 'e bloomin' well can.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Liza of Lambeth (1897).

The lark is up to meet the sun,
The bee is on the wing;
The ant its labor has begun,
The woods with music ring.
Shall birds, and bees, and ants, be wise,
While I my moments waste?
O let me with the morning rise,
And to my duty haste.
~ William Holmes McGuffey

What is possible is our highest duty.
~ William E. Mclaren, Practice of the Interior Life (1897)

I will do my duty unawed. What am I to fear?
~ William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, stated in the Wilkes' Case (1768).

It is one of the worst of errors, to suppose that there is any other path of safety except that of duty.
~ William Nevins

Be conscientious in the performance of every duty.
~ William S. Plumer, Vital Godliness: A Treatise on Experimental and Practical Piety (1864). Spiritual Darkness

Duty is never uncertain at first. It is only after we have got involved in the mazes and sophistries of wishing that things were otherwise than they are, that it seems indistinct. Considering a duty is often only explaining it away.
~ Frederick William (F.W.) Robertson

I am the Unknown Soldier
And maybe I died in vain,
But if I were alive and my country called,
I'd do it all over again.
~ Billy Rose, The Unknown Soldier

A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (1930).

A sense of duty is moral glue, constantly subject to stress.
~ William L. Safire, in The New York Times (23 May 1986).

I do perceive here a divided duty.
~ William Shakespeare, Othello

I owe him little duty and less love.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part I

Such duty as the subject owes the prince, even such a woman oweth to her husband.
~ William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

Let everyone regulate his conduct . . . by the golden rule of doing to others as in similar circumstances we would have them do to us, and the path of duty will be clear before him.
~ William Wilberforce

Recruits! Before the altar and the servant of God you have given me your oath of allegiance. . . . You have sworn fidelity to me, you are the children of my guard, you are my soldiers, you have surrendered yourself to me, body and soul.
~ Kaiser Wilhelm II, Speech (1891)

All these questions about do you want to be king? It's not a question of wanting to be, it's something I was born into and it's my duty. . . . Wanting is not the right word. But those stories about me not wanting to be king are all wrong.
~ Prince William, 21st birthday interview with the Press Association (PA), St James's Palace (21 June 2003).

Patriotism kills.
~ Betty Williams, PeaceJam Foundation (4 July 1995). An Interview with Betty Williams

If I am asked . . . how do you know that you ought to do that, of which your conscience enjoins the performance? I can only say that such is my duty. Here investigation must stop; reasoning can go no farther.
~ James Wilson, Lectures on Law, Delivered in the College of Philadelphia (1790-91). Of the Law of Nature

A light of duty shines on every day
For all; and yet how few are warmed or cheered!
~ William Wordsworth, The Excursion (1814). Book V: The Pastor

Resolved that nothing e'er should press
Upon my present happiness,
I shoved unwelcome tasks away;
But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.
~ William Wordsworth, from Poems, in Two Volumes, Vol 1. (1807). Ode to Duty (1805)

To humbler functions, awful Power!
I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh, let my weakness have an end!
~ William Wordsworth, from Poems, in Two Volumes, Vol 1. (1807). Ode to Duty (1805)