I saw that this was how we would live out the next decades, dragging ourselves from one expected action to the next, hoping by meticulous duty to bring each other some small measure of happiness. But the comfort that duty offers is lukewarm at best. Happiness, like a mischievous bird that hops from branch to branch, would continue to elude us.
God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right, even though I think it is hopeless.
Putting your time in at the office; dutifully spawning your two point five; smiling politely at your retirement party; then chewing on your bedsheet and choking on your canned peaches at the nursing home. It was better never to have been born-never to have wanted anything, never to have hoped for anything.
Islam expect every Muslim to do this duty, and if we realise our responsibility time will come soon when we shall justify ourselves worthy of a glorious past.
Duty performed gives clearness and firmness to faith, and faith thus strengthened through duty becomes the more assured and satisfying to the soul.
We are the Good Guys. It is our job to set the example.
When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual.
Now if we only knew what it means to know, we would be conscious.
If we allow the consideration of heathen morality and heathen religion to absolve us from the duty of preaching the gospel we are really deposing Christ from His throne in our own souls.
It is the duty of every thoughtful Indian not to marry. In case he is helpless in regard to marriage, he should abstain from sexual intercourse with his wife.
In those days, reserve duty lasted for six years, which, I might add, was three times as long as service in the regular army, although to be perfectly honest, I was unable to fulfill my entire obligation because I was taking acting classes and they said I could skip my last year.
My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty... it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.
Every state has not only the right but the duty to make adequate provision for its own defense in the way it thinks best, providing it does not do so at the expense of any other state.
For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.
No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.
When any practice is proposed and enforced as a binding duty, we have a right to examine the grounds of the alleged obligation.
As God has not made anything useless in this world, as all beings fulfill obligations or a role in the sublime drama of Creation, I cannot exempt from this duty, and small though it be, I too have a mission to fill, as for example: alleviating the sufferings of my fellowmen.
The duty of man is the same in respect to his own nature as in respect to the nature of all other things, namely not to follow it but to amend it.
The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted.
The duty of comedy is to correct men by amusing them.