Quotes About Duty

Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

We] believe, or assume to believe, that [we] satisfy [our] duty to [humanity] if [we] first provide fully for [our] own material wants and then pay [our] tribute to the universal provider by giving a little to the poor. But if [we] were scrupulously just there would be no poor to whom we could give alms and think that we had realized the merit of benevolence. Better than charity, better than giving of our surplus is conscientious and scrupulously fair conduct and a helping hand in need.

I should never act in such a way that I could not also will that my maxim should be a universal law.

An action done from duty has its moral worth, not in the purpose to be attained by it, but in the maxim according with which it is decided upon; it depends therefore, not on the realization of the object of action, but solely on the principle of volition in accordance with which, irrespective of all objects of the faculty of desire, the action has been performed.

There can be only one reason why we must do what duty demands, and that is that we demand it of ourselves.

T]he sublimity and intrinsic dignity of the command in duty are so much the more evident, the less the subjective impulses favor it and the more they oppose it, without being able in the slightest degree to weaken the obligation of the law or to diminish its validity.

R]eason of itself, independent on all experience, ordains what ought to take place, that accordingly actions of which perhaps the world has hitherto never given an example, the feasibility even if which might be very much doubted by one who founds everything on experience, are nevertheless inflexibly commanded by reason; that, for example, even though there might never yet have been a sincere friend, yet not a whit the less is pure sincerity in friendship required of every man...

If there is any science man really needs it is the one I teach, of how to occupy properly that place in creation that is assigned to man, and how to learn from it what one must be in order to be a man.

Act upon a maxim which, at the same time, involves its own universal validity for every rational being.

all duties depend as regards the kind of obligation (not the object of their action) upon the one principle.

The rights of men must be held sacred, however great the cost of sacrifice may be to those in power. Here one cannot go halfway, cooking up hybrid, pragmatically-conditioned rights (which are somewhere between the right and the expedient); instead, all politics must bend its knee before morality...

Jeg skal alltid handle slik at den regelen jeg handler etter kunne gjelde som allmenn lov.

if the unfortunate man, strong of soul, more indignant about his fate than despondent or dejected, wishes for death, and yet preserves his life, without loving it, not from inclination, or fear, but from duty; then his maxim has a moral content.

starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

Het is geheel en al onmogelijk om in de wereld en zelfs ook daarbuiten iets te bedenken wat zonder restrictie voor goed gehouden kan worden, behalve dan een GOEDE WIL.

Did not Socrates, all the while he unflinchingly refused to concede one iota of loyalty to his daemon, obey with equal fidelity and equanimity the command of his earthly master, the State? His conscience he followed, alive; his country he served, dying. Alack the day when a state grows so powerful as to demand of its citizens the dictates of their consciences!

A samurai was essentially a man of action.

When, when will the state finally recognize that it has no higher duty than to safeguard the happiness of the millions of ordinary people? When finally will the state forget about the ideals that ignore the needs of simple everyday life? And when will it understand that a small step, however difficult it may be, taken in the direction of peace for the individual, as for nations, is greater than victory in battle?

Madame, I am a soldier. Soldiers don't think. I'm told to go somewhere and I go. Told to fight, I fight. Told to get myself killed, I die. Thinking would make fighting more difficult and death more terrible." "But what about enthusiasm Ã¢â'¬Â¦Ã¢â'¬Â "Madame, forgive me, but that's a term a woman would use. A man does his duty even without enthusiasm. Perhaps that's the way you know he's a man, a real man.

don't let me hear you say again 'Fuck orders'! You're a corporal who's been assigned a duty, and if your superiors have chosen not to tell you the reason for it, then they have a reason for that too. Good Christ, you're an SS man; behave like one! 'My Honor Is Loyalty.' Those words were supposed to be engraved on your soul!

There are moments when, if one rejects the simple and obvious promptings of duty, one finds oneself in a labyrinth of complexities of some quite new kind.

Rents bir keresinde, polisin ve yarg?çlar?n görev duygusunu tetiklemek için esmer bi tenden daha iyisi yoktur, demiÅŸti; çok doÄŸru.

There's no fear or regret but no elation or sense of triumph either. It's just a job that had to be done.

He was a victim of his own integrity, which forced him to do his best, even when he would have preferred to do nothing at all.