Quotes About Duty

Standing to leave, he looked at her one last time, hating her and loving her just the same. She was yet another thing tying him to the city, his duty to her like a straitjacket holding him against his will. A locked box he couldn't find a way out of.

If you fail at your job, you do not blame some outside force. You look right in the mirror and take responsibility. That was the problem with the world. No one took responsibility.

There are rules you follow here not because you want to, but because you have to

Can't wait for tomorrow when I get to exercise my patriotic duty as an American: Complaining about how long it's taking to VOTE.

I am reminded of the words of that great American patriot Thomas Paine: 'If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.

These men were born to drill and die.             Point for them the virtue of the slaughter,             Make plain to them the excellence of killing             And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

He suddenly lost concern for himself, and forgot to look at a menacing fate. He became not a man but a member. He felt that something of which he was a part—a regiment, an army, a cause, or a country—was in a crisis. He was welded into a common personality which was dominated by a single desire. For some moments he could not flee no more than a little finger can commit a revolution from a hand.

And there were iron laws of tradition and law on four sides. He was in a moving box. As he perceived this fact it occurred to him that he had never wished to come to the war. He had not enlisted of his free will. He had been dragged by the merciless government. And now they were taking him out to be slaughtered.

Daddy, were you a hero? And he answered, No, but I served with heroes.

No wrong will ever be done you by our nation."3

discipline relies on punishment, and there is no punishment the Army can inflict on a front-line soldier worse than putting him into the front line.3

They knew they were going into great danger. They knew they would be doing more than their part. They resented having to sacrifice years of their youth to a war they never made. They wanted to throw baseballs, not grenades, shoot a .22 rifle, not an M-1. But having been caught up in the war, they decided to be as positive as possible in their Army careers.

May works be the test of patriotism as they ought, of right, to be of religion.

In my interviews with World War II veterans, they sometimes tell me that the reason they fought was they had learned as children the difference between right and wrong and they didn't want to live in a world in which wrong prevailed, so they fought.

Theirs not to reason why/Theirs but to do and die," even if the soldiers did not know the source. Those on Omaha Beach who had committed the poem to memory surely muttered to themselves, "Some one had blunder'd.")

His heart lifted to a state approaching something like happiness, however, when he heard, unexpectedly, the sound of Rhea's low sweet voice humming gently to herself as she came up the slope towards the mountaintop. Loveliest sister and dearest wife! It was quite natural that she had been a little upset by his consumption of their six children, but she surely understood that he had had no choice. She was a Titan, she knew about duty and destiny.

It can be foolish as all get-out, yes, ma'am. It doesn't make much sense. But I was just taught to hurt no man except the man who hurt me and mine. I have no other star to steer by. That and to do my duty as I understand it. If I followed those two rules, I'd be okay.

Thousands of people sleep secure in their beds each night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

If you did 'Nam, brother, no payment at all. You already paid up in full." —

Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.

On the day of my judgment, when I stand before God, and He asks me why did I kill one of his true miracles, what am I gonna say? That it was my job? My job?

My friend wants to get moving and so do I,' Eddie said. 'We've got miles to go yet.' I know that. It's on your face, son. Like a scar.' Eddie was fascinated by the idea of duty and ka as something that left a mark, something that might look like decoration to one eye and disfigurement to another. Outside, thunder cracked and lightning flashed.

Roland of Gilead responded as he ever had and ever would when such useless, mystifying questions were raised: 'Ka.

Paul Edgecomb: What do you want me to do John? I'll do it. You want me to let you walk out of here and see how far you get? John Coffey: Now why would you want to do a foolish thing like that? Paul Edgecomb: When I die and I stand before God awaiting judgment and he asks me why I let one of HIS miracles die, what am I gonna say, that it was my job?