“
With Kant, we could say that telltales act in accordance with the categorical imperative, fulfilling a moral duty. They choose to expose the truth for the sake of a higher ethical principle, even if it comes at great personal cost. ("Alert. High noon.")
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.
”
”
Robert Bolt (A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts)
“
We are a people. A people do not throw their geniuses away. And if they are thrown away, it is our duty as artists and as witnesses for the future to collect them again for the sake of our children, and, if necessary, bone by bone.
”
”
Alice Walker (In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Prose)
“
Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for YOUR sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades," cried Squealer almost pleadingly
”
”
George Orwell (Animal Farm)
“
And what is true education? It is awakening a love for truth; giving a just sense of duty; opening the eyes of the soul to the great purpose and end of life. It is not so much giving words, as thoughts; or mere maxims, as living principles. It is not teaching to be honest, because 'honesty is the best policy'; but because it is right. It is teaching the individual to love the good, for the sake of the good; to be virtuous in action because one is so in heart; to love and serve God supremely, not from fear, but from delight in his perfect character.
”
”
David O. McKay (Gospel Ideals: Selections from the Discourses of David O. McKay)
“
No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let's choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?
”
”
William Shakespeare (Richard II)
“
Don’t let yourself be regimented by dogma, by uniforms, by doctrines, don’t let yourselves be fooled by those who command you, by those who promise, who frighten, by those who want to replace one master with another, don’t be flock of sheep, for heaven’s sake, don’t hide under the umbrella of other people’s guilt, think with your own brains, remember that each of you is somebody, a valuable individual, a responsible, his own maker, defend your being, the kernel of all freedom, freedom is a duty, a duty even more than right
”
”
Oriana Fallaci (A Man)
“
One afternoon Clairaut came over to me with a book in his hand: “Mademoiselle de Beauvoir,” he began, in an inquisitorial tone, “what do you make of Brochard who is of the opinion that Aristotle’s God would be able to experience sexual pleasure?” Herbaud cast him a disdainful look: “I should hope so, for his sake,” he haughtily replied.
”
”
Simone de Beauvoir (Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter)
“
MY BETH.
Sitting patient in the shadow
Till the blessed light shall come,
A serene and saintly presence
Sanctifies our troubled home.
Earthly joys and hopes and sorrows
Break like ripples on the strand
Of the deep and solemn river
Where her willing feet now stand.
O my sister, passing from me,
Out of human care and strife,
Leave me, as a gift, those virtues
Which have beautified your life.
Dear, bequeath me that great patience
Which has power to sustain
A cheerful, uncomplaining spirit
In its prison-house of pain.
Give me, for I need it sorely,
Of that courage, wise and sweet,
Which has made the path of duty
Green beneath your willing feet.
Give me that unselfish nature,
That with charity divine
Can pardon wrong for love's dear sake—
Meek heart, forgive me mine!
Thus our parting daily loseth
Something of its bitter pain,
And while learning this hard lesson,
My great loss becomes my gain.
For the touch of grief will render
My wild nature more serene,
Give to life new aspirations,
A new trust in the unseen.
Henceforth, safe across the river,
I shall see for evermore
A beloved, household spirit
Waiting for me on the shore.
Hope and faith, born of my sorrow,
Guardian angels shall become,
And the sister gone before me
By their hands shall lead me home.
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Good Wives)
“
Desires to which we cling closely can easily prevent us from being what we ought to be and can be; and on the other hand, desires repeatedly mastered for the sake of present duty make us richer.Lack of desire is poverty.
”
”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“
She could hear his words ringing in her ears like an air raid siren. “Father’s asked me to accompany a sick soldier home. I would leave tomorrow but be back by Christmas.” Who was this Airman Ralph Jacobs? And why now? Why Dick, for heaven’s sakes? The man was shot down in Italy. Wasn’t that Sly and Bobby’s territory? Wasn’t it Harry’s? Maybe that’s what Annie had heard. So instead of using Sly, they dumped the duty onto Dick.
”
”
Cece Whittaker (Glorious Christmas (The Serve, #7))
“
[Jesus] stands between us and God, and for that very reason he stands between us and all other men and things. He is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality. Since the whole world was created through him and unto him (John 1:3; 1st Cor. 8:6; Heb. 1:2), he is the sole Mediator in the world...
The call of Jesus teaches us that our relation to the world has been built on an illusion. All the time we thought we had enjoyed a direct relation with men and things. This is what had hindered us from faith and obedience. Now we learn that in the most intimate relationships of life, in our kinship with father and mother, bothers and sisters, in married love, and in our duty to the community, direct relationships are impossible. Since the coming of Christ, his followers have no more immediate realities of their own, not in their family relationships nor in the ties with their nation nor in the relationships formed in the process of living. Between father and son, husband and wife, the individual and the nation, stands Christ the Mediator, whether they are able to recognize him or not. We cannot establish direct contact outside ourselves except through him, through his word, and through our following of him. To think otherwise is to deceive ourselves.
But since we are bound to abhor any deception which hides the truth from our sight, we must of necessity repudiate any direct relationship with the things of this world--and that for the sake of Christ. Wherever a group, be it large or small, prevents us from standing alone before Christ, wherever such a group raises a claim of immediacy it must be hated for the sake of Christ. For every immediacy, whether we realize it or not, means hatred of Christ, and this is especially true where such relationships claim the sanctions of Christian principles.,,
There is no way from one person to another. However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however sound our psychology, however frank and open our behavior, we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for there are no direct relationships, not even between soul and soul. Christ stands between us, and we can only get into touch with our neighbors through him. That is why intercession is the most promising way to reach our neighbors, and corporate prayer, offered in the name of Christ, the purest form of fellowship.
”
”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship)
“
It cannot be repeated too often that this transformation does not alienate him from the world. He will in no way be estranged from his daily tasks and duties, for he comes to realize that the most insignificant action he has to accomplish, the most insignificant experience which offers itself to him, stands in connection with cosmic beings and cosmic events. When once this connection is revealed to him in his moments of contemplation, he comes to his daily activities with a new, fuller power. For now he knows that his labor and his suffering are given and endured for the sake of a great, spiritual, cosmic whole. Not weariness, but strength to live springs from meditation.
”
”
Rudolf Steiner (How to Know Higher Worlds)
“
I remembered only the good and loveable things about him, not the wretchedness he caused me, and the dope, and the resentments and silence and the half-crazy outbursts. I remembered his smell and the colour of his eyes and his head thrown back to laugh; these things were a second away, in time, but the others I dredged up dutifully, knowing that I must, for the sake of truth and sanity, try to keep a balance.
”
”
Helen Garner (Monkey Grip)
“
The theology she taught was unsophisticated, but it provided a message I needed to hear. To coast through life was to squander my God-given talent, so I had to work hard. I had to take care of my family because Christian duty demanded it. I needed to forgive, not just for my mother’s sake but for my own. I should never despair, for God had a plan. Mamaw
”
”
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
“
Only what is done as duty for duty’s sake ... can scatter the bondage of Karma
”
”
Vivekananda (Lectures on Bhagavad Gita)
“
Just think of me as your friendly neighborhood cuddler.” He’s quiet again before another question bursts from him. “Are you telling me you’d do this for anyone?” I snuggle down. “No. That you’re insanely hot is a huge factor. I get to cop a feel under the guise of civic duty.” “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” A smile pulls at my lips. “Can it with the outrage. I know for a fact that most people would rather snuggle up to a hot dude. If it makes me shallow for admitting that, so be it.” He
”
”
Kristen Callihan (Managed (VIP, #2))
“
You do not carry the cross. Instead you are all crucified on the timber of your sufficiency, which is given to you, the more you insist, the more you bleed: it suits you to say you carry the cross like a sacred duty, whereas you are heavy with the weight of your necessities. Have the courage not to admit those necessities and lift yourselves up for your own sakes.
”
”
Carlo Michelstaedter (Persuasion and Rhetoric)
“
He had neither companions nor friends, church nor creed. He lived his spiritual life without any communion with others, visiting his relatives at Christmas and escorting them to the cemetery when they died. He performed these two social duties for old dignity's sake but conceded nothing further to the conventions which regulate the civic life.
”
”
James Joyce (Dubliners)
“
We recognized only one thing as our duty and destiny: every one of us had to become himself, had to be true to and live for the sake of the seed of nature at work in himself, so completely that the uncertain future would find us ready for anything and everything it might bring.
”
”
Hermann Hesse (Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend)
“
Society has never regarded virtue as anything else than as a means to strength, power and order. The State [is] unmorality organized… the will to war, to conquest and revenge… Society is not entitled to exist for its own sake but only as a substructure and scaffolding, by means of which a select race of beings may elevate themselves to their higher duties… There is no such thing as the right to live, the right to work, or the right to be happy: in this respect man is no different from the meanest worm.”* And he exalted the superman as the beast of prey,
”
”
William L. Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany)
“
At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition of a man to keep a faithful record of his performances in a book; and he dashes at this work with an enthusiasm that imposes on him the notion that keeping a journal is the veriest pastime in the world, and the pleasantest. But, if he only lives twenty-one days, he will find out that only those rare natures that are made up of pluck, endurance, devotion to duty for duty's sake, and invincible determination, may hope to venture upon so tremendous an enterprise as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a shameful defeat.
”
”
Mark Twain
“
As is perhaps obvious, Morris Zapp had no great esteem for his fellow-labourers in the vineyards of literature. They seemed to him vague, fickle, irresponsible creatures, who wallowed in relativism like hippopotami in mud, with their nostrils barely protruding into the air of common-sense. They happily tolerated the existence of opinions contrary to their own — they even, for God’s sake, sometimes changed their minds. Their pathetic attempts at profundity were qualified out of existence and largely interrogative in mode. They liked to begin a paper with some formula like, ‘I want to raise some questions about so-and-so’, and seemed to think they had done their intellectual duty by merely raising them. This manoeuvre drove Morris Zapp insane. Any damn fool, he maintained, could think of questions; it was answers that separated the men from the boys.
”
”
David Lodge
“
Altruism holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only moral justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty. The political expression of altruism is collectivism or statism, which holds that man's life and work belong to the state - to society, to the group, the gang, the race, the nation - and that the state may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good.
”
”
Ayn Rand (The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought (The Ayn Rand Library Vol. V))
“
There is something in human pride that can stand big troubles, but we need the supernatural grace and power of God to stand by us in the little things. The tiniest detail in which we obey has all the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. When we do our duty, not for duty’s sake, but because we believe that God is engineering our circumstances in that way, then at the very point of our obedience the whole superb grace of God is ours.
”
”
Oswald Chambers (Our Brilliant Heritage)
“
Feeling down? You know what I do. I step outside. I look at the birds, the cars, the trees, from a safe distance for everyone's sake. Soak it in! Look around. YOU ARE STILL HERE! You are healthy and take heart. YOU are doing your patriotic duty staying home! YOU got this!
”
”
Johnny Corn
“
He lived his spiritual life without any communion with others, visiting his relatives at Christmas and escorting them to the cemetery when they died. He performed these two social duties for old dignity's sake but conceded nothing further to the conventions which regulate the civic life.
”
”
James Joyce
“
It is a special blessing to belong among those who can and may devote their best energies to the contemplation and exploration of objective and timeless things. How happy and grateful I am for having been granted this blessing, which bestows upon one a large measure of independence from one's personal fate and from the attitude of one's contemporaries. Yet this independence must not inure us to the awareness of the duties that constantly bind us to the past, present and future of humankind at large.
Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here, involuntarily and uninvited, for a short stay, without knowing the why and the wherefore. In our daily lives we feel only that man is here for the sake of others, for those whom we love and for many other beings whose fate is connected with our own.
I am often troubled by the thought that my life is based to such a large extent on the work of my fellow human beings, and I am aware of my great indebtedness to them.
I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,' accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper.
I have never coveted affluence and luxury and even despise them a good deal. My passion for social justice has often brought me into conflict with people, as has my aversion to any obligation and dependence I did not regard as absolutely necessary.
[Part 2]
I have a high regard for the individual and an insuperable distaste for violence and fanaticism. All these motives have made me a passionate pacifist and antimilitarist. I am against any chauvinism, even in the guise of mere patriotism.
Privileges based on position and property have always seemed to me unjust and pernicious, as does any exaggerated personality cult. I am an adherent of the ideal of democracy, although I know well the weaknesses of the democratic form of government. Social equality and economic protection of the individual have always seemed to me the important communal aims of the state.
Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice keeps me from feeling isolated.
The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as of all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all there is.
”
”
Albert Einstein
“
Another sign of those with an “elder brother” spirit is joyless, fear-based compliance. The older son boasts of his obedience to his father, but lets his underlying motivation and attitude slip out when he says, “All these years I’ve been slaving for you.” To be sure, being faithful to any commitment involves a certain amount of dutifulness. Often we don’t feel like doing what we ought to do, but we do it anyway, for the sake of integrity. But the elder brother shows that his obedience to his father is nothing but duty all the way down. There is no joy or love, no reward in just seeing his father pleased. In the same way, elder brothers are fastidious in their compliance to ethical norms, and in fulfillment of all traditional family, community, and civic responsibilities. But it is a slavish, joyless drudgery. The word “slave” has strong overtones of being forced or pushed rather than drawn or attracted. A slave works out of fear—fear of consequences imposed by force. This gets to the root of what drives an elder brother. Ultimately, elder brothers live good lives out of fear, not out of joy and love.
”
”
Timothy J. Keller (The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith)
“
But you won’t abdicate."
Of course not. It’s my duty to go on, to maintain the line. I can’t possibly fail in that. It’s as if you and I were throwing a ball back and forth to establish a record, and had been doing so for a millennium. You cannot drop a ball that has remained airborne through good effort for most of a thousand years. You cannot stop an unlikely heart that has been beating for so long. I would rather die than betray continuity, for its own sake if for nothing else. And Britain needs a king, just as it needs motormen and cooks and a prime minister. Just as it needs soldiers who will die for it if they must. It’s my job, or it will be, but you should know that I’ve never wanted it. I was only born to it, as if with a deformity, to which I hope I can respond with grace."
Fredericka had been running her finger over the carpet, tracing a pattern in the way children do when they have learnt something overwhelming and are moved, but cannot say so. Freddy expected her to look up, with tears, and that in this moment she might have begun the long and arduous process of becoming a queen. She was so beautiful. To embrace her now, with high emotion flowing from her physical majesty, was all he wanted in the world. Her finger stopped moving, and she turned her eyes to him.
Freddy?"
Yes?" he answered.
What’s raw egg? I read a recipe in She that called for a cup of raw egg. What is that?"
After a long silence, Freddy asked, "Which part of the formulation escapes you? Egg? Raw? The link between the two?"
The two what?"
Fredericka?"
Yes, Freddy?"
Would you like to go dancing?"
Oh, yes Freddy!"
Come then. We will.
”
”
Mark Helprin (Freddy and Fredericka)
“
My dear Gorgas,
Instead of being simply satisfied to make friends and draw your pay, it is worth doing your duty, to the best of your ability, for duty’s sake; and in doing this, while the indolent sleep, you may accomplish something that will be of real value to humanity.
Your good friend, Reed
Dr. Walter Reed encouraging Dr. William Gorgas who went on to make history eradicating Yellow Fever in Havana, 1902 and Panama, 1906, liberating the entire North American continent from centuries of Yellow Fever epidemics.
”
”
William Crawford Gorgas (Sanitation in Panama (Classic Reprint))
“
Do you think for a moment I forgot? Did you think I wasn’t even man enough to care? Think me a coward who would dishonor my family and ancestors for the sake of staying alive like this? I may have lost everything important to a man, I may live in shame. But I am still a son. I will do my filial duty; I will avenge my brothers and uncles and cousins who died at the hands of your family; I will avenge my father’s death.
”
”
Shelley Parker-Chan (She Who Became the Sun (The Radiant Emperor, #1))
“
When Rin Tin Tin first became famous, most dogs in the world would not sit down when asked. Dogs performed duties: they herded sheep, they barked at strangers, they did what dogs do naturally, and people learned to interpret and make use of how they behaved. The idea of a dog's being obedient for the sake of good manners was unheard of. When dogs lived outside, as they usually did on farms and ranches, the etiquette required of them was minimal. But by the 1930s, Americans were leaving farms and moving into urban and suburban areas, bringing dogs along as pets and sharing living quarters with them. At the time, the principles of behavior were still mostly a mystery -- Ivan Pavlov's explication of conditional reflexes, on which much training is based, wasn't even published in an English translation until 1927. If dogs needed to be taught how to behave, people had to be trained to train their dogs. The idea that an ordinary person -- not a dog professional -- could train his own pet was a new idea, which is partly why Rin Tin Tin's performances in movies and onstage were looked upon as extraordinary.
”
”
Susan Orlean (Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend)
“
he would not neglect what he considered his duty for the sake of being liked.
”
”
Naomi Novik (His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire, #1))
“
I would consider it a great blessing, but some of us are cursed to love unwisely and do so until death.
”
”
Lucy Monroe (For Duty's Sake (Royal Brides, #9))
“
So long as people do not consider all men as their brothers and do not consider human life as the most sacred thing, which rather than destroy they must consider it their first and foremost duty to support; that is so long as people do not behave towards one another in a religious manner, they will always ruin one another’s lives for the sake of personal gain.
”
”
Leo Tolstoy (A Confession and Other Religious Writings)
“
As for my division of people into ordinary and extraordinary, I acknowledge that it’s somewhat arbitrary, but I don’t insist upon exact numbers. I only believe in my leading idea that men are in general divided by a law of nature into two categories, inferior (ordinary), that is, so to say, material that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men who have the gift or the talent to utter a new word. There are, of course, innumerable sub- divisions, but the distinguishing features of both categories are fairly well marked. The first category, generally speaking, are men conservative in temperament and law-abiding; they live under control and love to be controlled. To my thinking it is their duty to be controlled, because that’s their vocation, and there is nothing humiliating in it for them. The second category all transgress the law; they are destroyers or disposed to destruction according to their capacities. The crimes of these men are of course relative and varied; for the most part they seek in very varied ways the destruction of the present for the sake of the better. But if such a one is forced for the sake of his idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I maintain, find within himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading through blood—that depends on the idea and its dimensions, note that. It’s only in that sense I speak of their right to crime in my article (you remember it began with the legal question). There’s no need for such anxiety, however; the masses will scarcely ever admit this right, they punish them or hang them (more or less), and in doing so fulfil quite justly their conservative vocation. But the same masses set these criminals on a pedestal in the next generation and worship them (more or less). The first category is always the man of the present, the second the man of the future. The first preserve the world and people it, the second move the world and lead it to its goal. Each class has an equal right to exist. In fact, all have equal rights with me—and vive la guerre éternelle—till the New Jerusalem, of course!
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
I shall expect you and the Slytherins in the Great Hall in twenty minutes, also,” said Professor McGonagall. “If you wish to leave with your students, we shall not stop you. But if any of you attempt to sabotage our resistance or take up arms against us within this castle, then, Horace, we duel to kill.”
“Minerva!” he said, aghast.
“The time has come for Slytherin House to decide upon its loyalties,” interrupted Professor McGonagall. “Go and wake your students, Horace.”
Harry did not stay to watch Slughorn splutter: He and Luna ran after Professor McGonagall, who had taken up a position in the middle of the corridor and raised her wand.
“Piertotum--oh, for heaven’s sake, Filch, not now--”
The aged caretaker had just come hobbling into view, shouting, “Students out of bed! Students in the corridors!”
“They’re supposed to be, you blithering idiot!” shouted McGonagall. “Now go and do something constructive! Find Peeves!”
“P-Peeves?” stammered Filch as though he had never heard the name before.
“Yes, Peeves, you fool, Peeves! Haven’t you been complaining about him for a quarter of a century? Go and fetch him, at once!”
Filch evidently thought Professor McGonagall had taken leave of her senses, but hobbled away, hunch-shouldered, muttering under his breath.
“And now--Piertotum Locomotor!” cried Professor McGonagall.
And all along the corridor the statues and suits of armor jumped down from their plinths, and from the echoing crashes from the floors above and below, Harry knew that their fellows throughout the castle had done the same.
“Hogwarts is threatened!” shouted Professor McGonagall. “Man the boundaries, protect us, do your duty to our school!
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7))
“
You and I know what bad mothers are like, but Nathaniel doesn’t— he always loved his mother, and still finds it difficult to comprehend that not all mothers will remain mothers out of a sake of duty, much less affection.
”
”
Hanya Yanagihara (To Paradise)
“
My husband. No! A moment!" He was tearing himself apart from her. "We shall not be separated long. I feel that this will break my heart by-and-bye; but I will do my duty while I can, and when I leave her, God will raise up friends for her, as He did for me." Her father had followed her, and would have fallen on his knees to both of them, but that Darnay put out a hand and seized him, crying: "No, no! What have you done, what have you done, that you should kneel to us! We know now, what a struggle you made of old. We know, now what you underwent when you suspected my descent, and when you knew it. We know now, the natural antipathy you strove against, and conquered, for her dear sake. We thank you with all our hearts, and all our love and duty. Heaven be with you!" Her father's only answer was to draw his hands through his white hair, and wring them with a shriek of anguish.
”
”
Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)
“
girls their mothers' nature share. So be not thou. For pity's sake Accept the word the monarch spake. Thy husband's will, O Queen, obey, And be the people's hope and stay, O, do not, urged by folly, draw The king to tread on duty's law.
”
”
Vālmīki (The Rámáyan of Válmíki)
“
Care and concern imply another aspect of love; that of responsibility. Today responsibility is often meant to denote duty, something imposed upon one from the outside. But responsibility, in its true sense, is an entirely voluntary act; it is my response to the needs, expressed or unexpressed, of another human being. To be “responsible” means to be able and ready to “respond.” Jonah did not feel responsible to the inhabitants of Nineveh. He, like Cain, could ask: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The loving person responds. The life of his brother is not his brother’s business alone, but his own. He feels responsible for his fellow men, as he feels responsible for himself. This responsibility, in the case of the mother and her infant, refers mainly to the care for physical needs. In the love between adults it refers mainly to the psychic needs of the other person. Responsibility could easily deteriorate into domination and possessiveness, were it not for a third component of love, respect. Respect is not fear and awe; it denotes, in accordance with the root of the word (respicere = to look at), the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his unique individuality. Respect means the concern that the other person should grow and unfold as he is. Respect, thus, implies the absence of exploitation. I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me. If I love the other person, I feel one with him or her, but with him as he is, not as I need him to be as an object for my use. It is clear that respect is possible only if I have achieved independence; if I can stand and walk without needing crutches, without having to dominate and exploit anyone else. Respect exists only on the basis of freedom: “l’amour est l’enfant de la liberté” as an old French song says; love is the child of freedom, never that of domination.
”
”
Erich Fromm (The Art of Loving)
“
A man," said he, "must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most agreeable fellow; I could not do such a thing. It is the greatest absurdity—Actually snowing at this moment!— The folly of not allowing people to be comfortable at home—and the folly of people’s not staying comfortably at home when they can! If we were obliged to go out such an evening as this, by any call of duty or business, what a hardship we should deem it;—and here are we, probably with rather thinner clothing than usual, setting forward voluntarily, without excuse, in defiance of the voice of nature, which tells man, in every thing given to his view or his feelings, to stay at home himself, and keep all under shelter that he can;— here are we setting forward to spend five dull hours in another man’s house, with nothing to say or to hear that was not said and heard yesterday, and may not be said and heard again to-morrow. Going in dismal weather, to return probably in worse;—four horses and four servants taken out for nothing but to convey five idle, shivering creatures into colder rooms and worse company than they might have had at home.
”
”
Jane Austen (Emma)
“
The idea of self-denial for the sake of posterity, of practicing present economy for the sake of debtors yet unborn, of planting forests that our descendants may live under their shade … never I suppose, efficiently takes place among publicly recognized motives of exertion. Yet these are not the less our duties; nor is our part fitly sustained upon the earth, unless the range of our intended and deliberate usefulness include, not only the companions but the successors of our pilgrimage. God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us … as to us; we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath.
”
”
John Ruskin (The Seven Lamps of Architecture (Dover Architecture))
“
They that have their eyes fixed on Heaven do not just do things that shall be remembered here on earth, but they also do things that touch the heart of Heaven such that when they get to Heaven, they are remembered for the things they did on earth for Heaven's sake!
”
”
Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
“
You don't have to worry in the least, because in Belgium you will be able to enjoy all the benefits with which I will shower you, choose your replacement carefully, and appoint him only with my approval, until then then you will remain on your post my faithful cloak. May God guide and support you in the missions I entrust to you for the sake of my subjects, I wish that all your duties have already been carried out, so that when you come to Belgium I can prove to you that I am a true friend my faithful cloak, I pray to God that he may protect you.
”
”
Leopold II
“
It was “the duty of every subject, for conscience’s sake, to submit to his authority, while he acts according to the law.” Should he imperil the natural right and liberties of his subjects, however, “he overthrows the very design of government, and the people are discharged from all obedience.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams)
“
What do I communicate to a man about the love of God by being willing to consider him an enemy? What do I say about personal responsibility by agreeing to consider him my enemy when it is only the hazard of birth that causes us to live under different flags? What do I say about forgiveness if I punish him for the sins of his rulers? How is it reconcilable with the gospel —good news—for the last word in my estimate of any man to be that, in a case of extreme conflict, it could be my duty to sacrifice his life for the sake of my nation, my security, or the political order which I prefer?
”
”
John Howard Yoder (The Original Revolution: Essays on Christian Pacifism (Christian Peace Shelf Series))
“
Like the Church the individual Christian will not be able to escape the deep ambiguities of this-wordly existence whether in its cultural, social, political or other aspects, and he too will inevitably be a mixture of good and evil, with a compromised life, so that he can only live eschatologically in the judgment and mercy of God, putting off the old man and putting on Christ anew each day, always aware that even when he has done all that it is his duty to do he remains an unprofitable servant, but summoned to look away from himself to Christ, remembering that he is dead through the cross of Christ but alive and risen in Him. His true being is hid with Christ in God.
The whole focus of his vision and the whole perspective of his life in Christ’s name will be directed to the unveiling of that reality of his new being at the parousia, but meantime he lives day by day out of the Word and Sacraments. As one baptized into Christ he is told by God’s Word that his sins are already forgiven and forgotten by God, that he has been justified once for all, and that he does not belong to himself but to Christ who loved him and gave Himself for him. As one summoned to the Holy Table he is commanded by the Word of God to live only in such a way that he feeds upon Christ, not in such a way that he feeds upon his own activities or lives out of his own capital of alleged spirituality. He lives from week to week, by drawing his life and strength from the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, nourished by the body and blood of Christ, and in the strength of that communion he must live and work until Christ comes again. As often as he partakes of the Eucharist he partakes of the self-consecration of Jesus Christ who sanctified Himself for our sakes that we might be sanctified in reality and be presented to the Father as those whom He has redeemed and perfected (or consecrated) together with Himself in one. Here He is called to lift up his heart to the ascended Lord, and to look forward to the day when the full reality of his new being in Christ will be unveiled, making Scripture and Sacrament no longer necessary.
”
”
Thomas F. Torrance (Space, time and resurrection)
“
You have reached the blind alley of the treason you committed when you agreed that you had no right to exist. Once, you believed it was "only a compromise": you conceded it was evil to live for yourself, but moral to live for the sake of your children. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your children, but moral to live for your community. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your community, but moral to live for your country. Now, you are letting this greatest of countries be devoured by any scum from any corner of the earth, while you concede that it is selfish to live for your country and that your moral duty is to live for the globe.
”
”
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
“
It is essential for the Church to exercise it, for the sake of holiness, for the sake of the sinner and for its own sake. If the Church is to walk worthily of the gospel, part of its duty will be to maintain ecclesiastical discipline. Sanctification means driving out the world from the Church as well as separating the Church from the world.
”
”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship (SCM Classics))
“
When men are tired of hearing and meditating upon the things of God, the fault lies within; in the background there is greed, and behind that sacrilege, and behind that again profanity. Let us search our hearts, and find whether the things of God have become merely a duty, a weariness, that we would relinquish if we dare, and to which we only hold for the sake of appearances.
”
”
G. Campbell Morgan (The Works of G. Campbell Morgan (25-in-1). Discipleship, Hidden Years, Life Problems, Evangelism, Parables of the Kingdom, Crises of Christ and more!)
“
In a general view, there are few conquests that repay the charge of making them, and mankind are pretty well convinced that it can never be worth their while to go to war for profit's sake. If they are made war upon, their country invaded, or their existence at stake, it is their duty to defend and preserve themselves, but in every other light, and from every other cause, is war inglorious and detestable.
”
”
Thomas Paine
“
The struggle with me has been a very painful one; I cannot enter on the how and wherefore at this moment. I had expected more help than I have found, and am left to myself, and thrown so on my own sense of duty as to feel it right, for the sake of future years, to make an effort to stand by myself as I best can. At the same time, I will not tell you that at the last hour something may not happen to keep me at home.
”
”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
“
I fancy my father thought me an odd child, and had little fondness for me; though he was very careful in fulfilling what he regarded as a parent's duties. But he was already past the middle of life, and I was not his only son. My mother had been his second wife, and he was five-and-forty when he married her. He was a firm, unbending, intensely orderly man, in root and stem a banker, but with a flourishing graft of the active landholder, aspiring to county influence: one of those people who are always like themselves from day to day, who are uninfluenced by the weather, and neither know melancholy nor high spirits. I held him in great awe, and appeared more timid and sensitive in his presence than at other times; a circumstance which, perhaps, helped to confirm him in the intention to educate me on a different plan from the prescriptive one with which he had complied in the case of my elder brother, already a tall youth at Eton. My brother was to be his representative and successor; he must go to Eton and Oxford, for the sake of making connexions, of course: my father was not a man to underrate the bearing of Latin satirists or Greek dramatists on the attainment of an aristocratic position. But intrinsically, he had slight esteem for "those dead but sceptred spirits"; having qualified himself for forming an independent opinion by reading Potter's Aeschylus, and dipping into Francis's Horace. To this negative view he added a positive one, derived from a recent connexion with mining speculations; namely, that scientific education was the really useful training for a younger son. Moreover, it was clear that a shy, sensitive boy like me was not fit to encounter the rough experience of a public school. Mr. Letherall had said so very decidedly. Mr. Letherall was a large man in spectacles, who one day took my small head between his large hands, and pressed it here and there in an exploratory, suspicious manner - then placed each of his great thumbs on my temples, and pushed me a little way from him, and stared at me with glittering spectacles. The contemplation appeared to displease him, for he frowned sternly, and said to my father, drawing his thumbs across my eyebrows -
'The deficiency is there, sir-there; and here,' he added, touching the upper sides of my head, 'here is the excess. That must be brought out, sir, and this must be laid to sleep.'
I was in a state of tremor, partly at the vague idea that I was the object of reprobation, partly in the agitation of my first hatred - hatred of this big, spectacled man, who pulled my head about as if he wanted to buy and cheapen it. ("The Lifted Veil")
”
”
George Eliot (The Lifted Veil (Fantasy and Horror Classics))
“
If I thought I could ever grow as hard and different to the abject entreaties of a criminal as my father has been this morning–one whom he has helped to make, too–I would go off to Australia at once. Indeed, Maggie, I think it would be the best thing we could do. My heart aches about the mysterious corruptions and evils of an old state of society such as we have in England.–What do you say Maggie? Would you go?” She was silent–thinking. “I would go with you directly, if it were right,” said she, at last. “But would it be? I think it would be rather cowardly. I feel what you say; but don’t you think it would be braver to stay, and endure much depression and anxiety of mind, for the sake of the good those always can do who see evils clearly. I am speaking all this time as if neither you nor I had any home duties, but were free to do as me liked.” “What can you or I do? We are less than drops in the ocean, as far as our influence can go to model a nation?” “As
”
”
Elizabeth Gaskell (The Moorland Cottage)
“
Most Russian girls usually only go in for Platonic attachments with never a thought of marriage. And Platonic love is the most troublesome sort. The princess, I fancy, is one of those women
who want to be amused, and two dull minutes with you will finish you for good. Your silence must rouse her curiosity, on conversation must leave her wanting more. You've got to play on her feelings all the time. She'll scorn public opinion a dozen times for your sake and call it a sacrifice, but she'll get her own back by
tormenting you, and then later simply declare that she can't stand you. If you don't get the upper hand, her first kiss won't give you the right to expect a second. She'll play with you till she's tired of it, then a couple of years later she'll marry some brute out of duty to Mama and persuade herself she's unhappy, because it was not heaven's will to unite her with the only man she ever loved (you that is) on account of his private's greatcoat, though under that thick grey coat there beat an ardent, noble heart..
”
”
Mikhail Lermontov (A Hero of Our Time)
“
Until the thunders of the siege began, he had never known anything but a happy, placid, quiet life. Even though his mother paid him little attention, he had known nothing but petting and kind words until the night when he was jerked from slumber to find the sky aflame and the air deafening with explosions. In that night and the day which followed, he had been slapped by his mother for the first time and had heard her voice raised at him in harsh words. Life in the pleasant brick house on Peachtree Street, the only life he knew, had vanished that night and he would never recover from its loss. In the flight from Atlanta, he had understood nothing except that the Yankees were after him and now he still lived in fear that the Yankees would catch him and cut him to pieces. Whenever Scarlett raised her voice in reproof, he went weak with fright as his vague childish memory brought up the horrors of that first time she had ever done it. Now, Yankees and a cross voice were linked forever in his mind and he was afraid of his mother. Scarlett could not help noticing that the child was beginning to avoid her and, in the rare moments when her unending duties gave her time to think about it, it bothered her a great deal. It was even worse than having him at her skirts all the time and she was offended that his refuge was Melanie’s bed where he played quietly at games Melanie suggested or listened to stories she told. Wade adored “Auntee” who had a gentle voice, who always smiled and who never said: “Hush, Wade! You give me a headache” or “Stop fidgeting, Wade, for Heaven’s sake!
”
”
Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind)
“
Yes, to do good, to be virtuous, to preserve chastity, to sacrifice oneself for the sake of duty are no easy matters. All who attempt these things must suffer to achieve them, and if we are to brave such suffering, somewhere must lurk the promise of a pleasure great enough to defeat the pain. Painting, poetry, drama—these are simply different names for the pleasure within this anguish. When we once grasp this truth, we will at last act with courage and grace; we will overcome all adversity and be in a position to satisfy the supreme aesthetic urges of our heart.
”
”
Natsume Sōseki (The Three-Cornered World)
“
The duties, which a man performs as a friend or parent, do not seem merely owing to his benefactor or children; nor can he be wanting to these duties, without breaking through all the ties of nature and morality. A strong inclination may prompt him to the performance: A sentiment of order and moral obligation joins its force to these natural ties: And the whole man, if truly virtuous, is drawn to his duty, without any effort or endeavour. Even with regard to the virtues, which are more austere, and more founded on reflection, such as public spirit, filial duty, temperance, or integrity; the moral obligation, in our apprehension, removes all pretension to religious merit; and the virtuous conduct is deemed no more than what we owe to society and to ourselves. In all this, a superstitious man finds nothing, which he has properly performed for the sake of his deity, or which can peculiarly recommend him to the divine favor and protection. He considers not, that the most genuine method of serving the divinity is by promoting the happiness of his creatures. He still looks out for some immediate service of the supreme Being, in order to allay those terrors, with which he is haunted. And any practice, recommended to him, which either serves to no purpose in life, or offers the strongest violence to his natural inclinations; that practice he will the more readily embrace, on account of those very circumstances, which should make him absolutely reject it. It seems the more purely religious, because it proceeds from no mixture of any other motive or consideration. And if, for its sake, he sacrifices much of his ease and quiet, his claim of merit appears still to rise upon him, in proportion to the zeal and devotion, which he discovers. In restoring a loan, or paying a debt, his divinity is nowise beholden to him; because these acts of justice are what he was bound to perform, and what many would have performed, were there no god in the universe. But if he fast a day, or give himself a sound whipping; this has a direct reference, in his opinion, to the service of God. No other motive could engage him to such austerities. By these distinguished marks of devotion, he has now acquired the divine favor; and may expect, in recompense, protection, and safety in this world, and eternal happiness in the next.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever)
“
I’ve decided what I must do. I shall stay with you day and night, and do it cheerfully and willingly, for the sake of Baruch. I shall guide you to Lyra, if I can, and then I shall guide you both to Lord Ariel. I have lived thousands of years, and unless I am killed, I shall live many thousands of years more; but I never met a nature that made me so ardent to do good, or to be so kind, as Baruch’s did. I failed so many times, but each time his goodness was there to redeem me. Now it’s not, I shall have to try without it. Perhaps I shall fail from time to time, but I shall try all the same. -Balthamos
”
”
Philip Pullman
“
Love at first has nothing to do with unfolding, abandon and uniting with another person (for what would be the sense in a union of what is unrefined and unfinished, still second order?); for the individual it is a grand opportunity to mature, to become a world in himself for another's sake...Only in this sense, as a duty to work on themselves ('to hearken and to hammer day and night'), should young people use the love that is given the,. The unfolding, the abandon and any kind of togetherness is not for them. They are the culmination, and perhaps that for which a human life now is hardly sufficient.
”
”
Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)
“
Wild horses wouldn't have made Daniel admit that his wife, Anna, would have lectured him for an hour if she'd known what he was up to.Daniel considered it basic strategy not to tell her until it was done. "Since she's been moping and sighing around here," he lied without qualm, "I thought I'd bury my pride and call you myself.It's time you took a weekend and came to see your mother."
Alan lifted a wry brow, knowing his father all too well. "I'd think she'd be all wrapped up in her first prospective granchild. How is Rena?"
"You can see for yourself this weekend," Daniel informed him. "I-that is, Rena and Justin have decided they want to spend a weekend with the family. Caine and Diana are coming too."
"You've been busy," Alan murmured.
"What was that? Don't mumble, boy."
"I said you'll be busy," Alan amended prudently.
"For your mother's sake, I can sacrifice my peace and quiet.She worries about all of you-you especially since you're still without wife and family.The firstborn," he added, working himself up, "and both your brother and sister settled before you. The eldest son,my own father's namesake, and too busy flitting around to do his duty to the MacGregor line."
Alan thought about his grueling morning and nearly smiled. "The MacGregor line seems to be moving along nicely. Maybe Rena'll have twins.
”
”
Nora Roberts (The MacGregors: Alan & Grant (The MacGregors, #3-4))
“
Aren’t you the one who keeps telling everyone it’s their first duty to help Harry?” said Ron. “In that magazine of yours?”
Xenophilius glanced behind him at the concealed printing press, still banging and clattering beneath the tablecloth.
“Er--yes, I have expressed that view. However--”
“That’s for everyone else to do, not you personally?” said Ron.
Xenophilius did not answer. He kept swallowing, his eyes darting between the three of them. Harry had the impression that he was undergoing some painful internal struggle.
“Where’s Luna?” asked Hermione. “Let’s see what she thinks.”
Xenophilius gulped. He seemed to be steeling himself. Finally he said in a shaky voice difficult to hear over the noise of the printing press, “Luna is down at the stream, fishing for Freshwater Plimpies. She…she will like to see you. I’ll go and call her and then--yes, very well. I shall try to help you.”
He disappeared down the spiral staircase and they heard the front door open and close. They looked at each other.
“Cowardly old wart,” said Ron. “Luna’s got ten times his guts.”
“He’s probably worried about what’ll happen to them if the Death Eaters find out I was here,” said Harry.
“Well, I agree with Ron,” said Hermione. “Awful old hypocrite, telling everyone else to help you and trying to worm out of it himself. And for heaven’s sake keep away from that horn.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7))
“
But let us be generous. We will not shoot them. We will not pour salt water into them, nor bury them in bedbugs, nor bridle them into a “swan dive,” nor keep them on sleepless “stand-up” for a week, nor kick them with jackboots, nor beat them with rubber truncheons, nor squeeze their skulls in iron rings, nor push them into a cell so that they lie atop one another like pieces of baggage—we will not do any of the things they did! But for the sake of our country and our children we have the duty to seek them all out and bring them all to trial! Not to put them on trial so much as their crimes. And to compel each one of them to announce loudly: “Yes, I was an executioner and a murderer.
”
”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation)
“
Gregori’s silver eyes moved over both women, then settled on Shea. “The child must be protected. It is no use appealing to Raven for logic, as she has none, and Mikhail is so besotted with her that he does not see his first duty, so it is up to you. For the sake of all of us, you must protect this child. Do you understand?”
She felt ensnared by those molten eyes. She might not fully comprehend his reasons, but she felt his genuine urgency. She nodded. “I’ll watch over her, healer.”
“It is not for my sake only, but for humans and Carpathians alike. This child must live, Shea,” he reiterated. “She must.”
She felt clearly the warning, the plea from his otherwise damned soul. This child was his only hope.
“Gregori,” Mikhail reminded him softly, “if the child is your lifemate, and you do something careless, you are condemning her to death. Keep that in mind when you enter this place of madness.”
Gregori’s eyes flashed at his old friend. “Do you think I would chance harming her in any way? I have waited several lifetimes for her. These humans are nothing. They have persecuted our people for far too long. I mean it to stop.”
Mikhail nodded, his dark eyes, so like his brother's, black ice. "You are up to this, Jacques?"
Jacques' smile was a humorless promis of retaliation. "Have no worries about me. I am looking forward to this."
Mikhail sighed. "Two bloodthirsty savages thinking they are in the dark ages."
Jacques exchanged a humorless grin with Gregori. "The dark ages were not such a bad time. At least justice could be dispensed easily without worrying about what the women would think."
"You both have gone soft," Gregori snickered. "No wonder our people have such problems. The women are ruling, and you two besotted idiots just follow along."
Jacques' solid form wavered, became transparent. "We will see who proves to be the soft one, healer." His body completely disappeared from sight.
Mikhail glanced at Gregori, shrugged, then followed suit. None of this was to his liking. Gregori was a time bomb waiting to explode. And God only knew what Jacques was capable of.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Desire (Dark, #2))
“
I believed that one person owes a duty to another with no payment for it in return. I believed that it was my duty to love a woman who gave me nothing, who betrayed everything I lived for, who demanded her happiness at the price of mine. I believed that love is some static gift which, once granted, need no longer be deserved—just as they believe that wealth is a static possession which can be seized and held without further effort. I believed that love is a gratuity, not a reward to be earned just as they believe it is their right to demand an unearned wealth. And just as they believe that their need is a claim on my energy, so I believed that her unhappiness was a claim on my life. For the sake of pity, not justice, I
”
”
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
“
[Love, basically, is love of God]: a delightful and affectionate sense of the divine perfections, which makes the soul resign and sacrifice itself wholly unto him, desiring above all things to please him, and delighting in nothing so much as in fellowship and communion with him, and being ready to do or suffer anything for his sake, or at his pleasure ... A soul thus possessed with divine love must needs be enlarged towards all mankind ... this is ... charity ... under which all parts of justice, all the duties we owe to our neighbour, are eminently comprehended; for he who doth truly love all the world ... so far from wrongdoing or injuring any person ... will resent any evil that befalls others, as if it happened to himself.
”
”
Henry Scougal (The Life of God in the Soul of Man)
“
Morrow's rush of disgust, temporary as it might prove, had nothing to do with the truths-turned-insults flung out. No. What riled Morrow ran far deeper - was the sheer perversity of Chess's own nature, that unbreakable wilfulness he'd always revered in himself, as sign and source of his own freedom. His stark refusal ever to be bound, to obey aught but his own whim and want.
Because while he could walk free and hold a gun Chess Pargeter answered to no man - no man, no law, no damn body, motherfucker. No ideal, no cause, no force but sheer chaos, bound and determined to move unimpeded and burn for the sake of burning. To never submit himself to ghost or hex or priest or even God, 'less he damn well wanted to.
No man except Ash Rook, that was - for a time. And after this last betrayal, from now on... not even him.
'Course not, Morrow's anger spoke back, unimpressed by Chess's well-tuned inner litany. That's 'cause you're nothing but a brat who never grew up - a skillet-hopping little hot-pants who knows everything 'bout killing and nothing at all 'bout living. Who spits on friendship, duty and honour not 'cause he's above them, so much as 'cause he don't know what they even mean - same way you don't really grasp how anything's real, 'cept if you want it, or it hurts you. And that's why you ended up givin' everything you had to a man who skinned you alive, then left you stranded down in Hell - 'cause he was what you wanted, and Christ forbid Chess Pargeter ever admit what he wanted was a goddamn bad idea. You made it easy for him, Chess, you damn fool. 'Cause you couldn't believe you deserved anything better. And me? I'd never do that to you, or anyone. Never.
”
”
Gemma Files (A Book of Tongues (Hexslinger, #1))
“
Foch never for a moment thought about the easy ways of bringing his name before the public and the political world, or even about acquiring a reputation for military insight among the chiefs of the French army. He never posed as a central figure at public functions; he was never interviewed by the press; he made no use of the professional reviews to bring his name before military readers. Ile never published a line until his chiefs suggested the publication of his lectures at the Staff College. From the day when he received his first commission he was a hard-working student of war, patiently preparing himself to do his duty when the opportunity came, and meanwhile content to put all his energies into the work assigned to him. Success in the career of arms is not always associated with high personal character or with this modest pursuit of duty for its own sake.
”
”
Andrew Hilliard Atteridge (Marshal Ferdinand Foch, His Life and His Theory of Modern War [Illustrated Edition])
“
Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud—that an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality, where you become a pawn of their blindness, a slave of their non-thinking and their evasions, while their intelligence, their rationality, their perceptiveness become the enemies you have to dread and flee—that you do not care to live as a dependent, least of all a dependent on the stupidity of others, or as a fool whose source of values is the fools he succeeds in fooling—that honesty is not a social duty, not a sacrifice for the sake of others, but the most profoundly selfish virtue man can practice: his refusal to sacrifice the reality of his own existence to the deluded consciousness of others
”
”
Ayn Rand
“
If, then, you would deal wisely with your child, you must not leave him to the guidance of his own will. Think for him, judge for him, act for him, just as you would for one weak and blind; but for pity's sake, give him not up to his own wayward tastes and inclinations. It must not be his likings and wishes that are consulted. He knows not yet what is good for his mind and soul, any more than what is good for his body. You do not let him decide what he shall eat, and what he shall drink, and how he shall be clothed. Be consistent, and deal with his mind in like manner. Train him in the way that is scriptural and right, and not in the way that he fancies. If you cannot make up your mind to this first principle of Christian training, it is useless for you to read any further. Self-will is almost the first thing that appears in a child's mind; and it must be your first step to resist it.
”
”
Mark Hamby (The Duties of Parents)
“
Are you about to strike an enemy? No threat of bodily harm can hold you back. You? It is the death of your enemy that is you. You? It is the rescue of your child that is you. In that moment you exchange yourself against something else; and you have no feeling that you lost by the exchange. Your members? Tools. A tool snaps in your hand: how important is that tool? You exchange yourself against the death of your enemy, the rescue of your child, the recovery of your patient, the perfection of your theorem. Here is a pilot of my Group wounded and dying. A true citation in general orders would read: “Called out to his observer, ‘They’ve got me! Beat it! And for God’s sake don’t lose those notes!’” What matters is the notes, the child, the patient, the theorem. Your true significance becomes dazzlingly evident. Your true name is duty, hatred, love, child, theorem. There is no other you than this.
”
”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Flight To Arras)
“
I agreed to the trial only for the sake of Rama, not for my own.'
‘Don’t I know that.'
‘But again … will my decision haunt me forever?’
‘Till you take decisions for Rama’s sake and not yours, it will continue to pursue you, Sita. Look at yourself. You are enduring great pain. You think you are enduring it for the sake of someone else. You think that you have performed your duty for the sake of someone else. Your courage, your self-confidence … you have surrendered everything to others. What have you saved for yourself?’
‘What is “I”, sister? Who am I?’
Ahalya smiled.
‘The greatest of sages and philosophers have spent their lifetimes in search of an answer to this question. You means you, nothing else. You are not just the wife of Rama. There is something more in you, something that is your own. No one counsels women to find out what that something more is. If men’s pride is in wealth, or valour, or education, or caste–sect, for women it lies in fidelity, motherhood. No one advises women to transcend that pride. Most often, women don’t realize that they are part of the wider world. They limit themselves to an individual, to a household, to a family’s honour. Conquering the ego becomes the goal of spirituality for men. For women, to nourish that ego and to burn themselves to ashes in it becomes the goal. Sita, try to understand who you are, what the goal of your life is. It is not easy at all. But don’t give up. You will discover the truth in the end. You have that ability. You have saved Sri Ramachandra, can’t you save yourself? Don’t grieve over what has already happened. It is all for your own good, and is part of the process of self-realization. Be happy. Observe nature and the evolution of life. Notice the continual changes in them. The forest doesn’t comprise ashrams alone. There are also people of many races in it. Observe their lives. You belong to this whole world, not just to Rama.
”
”
Volga (The Liberation of Sita)
“
In the process of building an inspiring and attractive alternative government, Liberals will not follow in Lord Derby's oft-quoted advice, given in 1841, that 'the duty of an Opposition is to oppose everything, and propose nothing'. The British Tories did not win a parliamentary majority for the next thirty-three years, and if the Liberals adopted such a strategy, we too could be in the political wilderness for a long time. As Menzies once put it:
'The duty of an Opposition, if it has no ambition to be permanently on the left-hand side of the Speaker, is not to Oppose for Opposition's sake, but to oppose selectively. No Government is always wrong on everything, whatever the critics may say. The Opposition must choose the grounds on which to attack. To attack indiscriminately is to risk public opinion, which has a reserve of fairness not always understood'.
Indeed, simply opposing the government may create headlines, but to win an election you need to present an alternative.
”
”
Brendan Nelson
“
Grace paused. And while she did, the clouds scattered and let the moonlight through, and Dogville underwent another of those little changes of light.
lt was as if the light, previously so merciful and faint, finally refused to cover up for the town any longer.
Suddenly you could no longer imagine a berry that would appear one day on a gooseberry bush, but only see the thorn that was there right now.
The light now penetrated every unevenness and flaw in the buildings...
and in... the people!
And all of a sudden she knew the answer to her question all too well.
lf she had acted like them she could not have defended a single one of her actions and could not have condemned them harshly enough.
lt was as if her sorrow and pain had finally assumed their rightful place.
No. What they had done was not good enough. And if one had the power to put it to rights,
it was one's duty to do so.
For the sake of the other towns.
For the sake of humanity.
And not least for the sake of the human being that was Grace herself.
”
”
Lars von Trier
“
Burke rejected the liberal idea of the social contract, as a deal agreed among living people. Society, he argued, does not contain the living only; it is an association between the dead, the living and the unborn. Its binding principle is not contract but something more akin to trusteeship. It is a shared inheritance for the sake of which we learn to circumscribe our demands, to see our own place in things as part of a continuous chain of giving and receiving, and to recognise that the good things we inherit are not ours to spoil but ours to safeguard for our dependents. There is a line of obligation that connects us to those who gave us what we have; and our concern for the future is an extension of that line. We take the future of our community into account not by fictitious cost-benefit calculations, but more concretely, by seeing ourselves as inheriting benefits and passing them on. Concern for future generations is a non-specific outgrowth of gratitude. It does not calculate, because it shouldn't and can't.
”
”
Roger Scruton (Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition)
“
Our ultimate example, of course, is Jesus. He willingly embarked on the most challenging journey in the history of the world for the sake of humanity. He walked the agonizing road to Golgotha fully aware of the excruciating physical and emotional torment that awaited Him. Being fully God and fully human, He could’ve stopped and called down a legion of angels to protect Him. He didn’t. He knew the weight of the world’s sin was heavy. He knew Roman crucifixion was torture. He knew the abandonment He would endure from His Father. Yet He pressed on. He went to the cross anyway. Not because it was a mere duty but because of an overwhelming love for you and me. Because we were worth it to Him. Jesus chose our best interests above all else. He took the hardest steps anyone could ever imagine, offering us redemption and eternal life. In that extraordinary act, Jesus exemplified the epitome of selflessness. As believers, one of our challenges is to die to ourselves and strive to be more like Jesus so the world can experience God’s love through us.
”
”
Demi-Leigh Tebow (A Crown that Lasts: You Are Not Your Label)
“
Oh cruel god's that govern this world, binding it with your cruel eternal decrees inscribed on sheets of adamantine steel, what is humankind to you? Do men mean more to you than sheep that cower in the fold? Men must die, too, like any beast in the field. Men also dwell in confinement and restraint. Men suffer great sickness and adversity, even when they are guilty of no sin. What glory can there be for you in treating humankind so ungenerously? What is the good of your foreknowledge, if it only torments the innocent and punishes the just? What is the purpose of your providence? One other matter, too, outrages me. Men must perform their duty and, for the sake of the gods, refrain from indulging their desires. They must uphold certain principles, for the salvation of their souls, whereas the silly sheep goes into the darkness of non-being. No beast suffers pain in the hereafter. But after death we all may still weep and wail, even though our life on earth was also one of suffering. Is this just? Is this commendable? I suppose I must leave the answer to theologians, but I know this for a fact. The world is full of grief.
”
”
Peter Ackroyd (The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling)
“
My Beth Sitting patient in the shadow Till the blessed light shall come, A serene and saintly presence Sanctifies our troubled home. Earthly joys and hopes and sorrows Break like ripples on the strand Of the deep and solemn river Where her willing feet now stand. O my sister, passing from me, Out of human care and strife, Leave me, as a gift, those virtues Which have beautified your life. Dear, bequeath me that great patience Which has power to sustain A cheerful, uncomplaining spirit In its prison-house of pain. Give me, for I need it sorely, Of that courage, wise and sweet, Which has made the path of duty Green beneath your willing feet. Give me that unselfish nature, That with charity devine Can pardon wrong for love’s dear sake — Meek heart, forgive me mine! Thus our parting daily loseth Something of its bitter pain, And while learning this hard lesson, My great loss becomes my gain. For the touch of grief will render My wild nature more serene, Give to life new aspirations, A new trust in the unseen. Henceforth, safe across the river, I shall see forever more A beloved, household spirit Waiting for me on the shore. Hope and faith, born of my sorrow, Guardian angels shall become, And the sister gone before me By their hands shall lead me home.
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
“
A man,” said he, “must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most agreeable fellow; I could not do such a thing. It is the greatest absurdity — Actually snowing at this moment! — The folly of not allowing people to be comfortable at home — and the folly of people’s not staying comfortably at home when they can! If we were obliged to go out such an evening as this, by any call of duty or business, what a hardship we should deem it — and here are we, probably with rather thinner clothing than usual, setting forward voluntarily, without excuse, in defiance of the voice of nature, which tells man, in every thing given to his view or his feelings, to stay at home himself, and keep all under shelter that he can — here are we setting forward to spend five dull hours in another man’s house, with nothing to say or to hear that was not said and heard yesterday, and may not be said and heard again to-morrow. Going in dismal weather, to return probably in worse — four horses and four servants taken out for nothing but to convey five idle, shivering creatures into colder rooms and worse company than they might have had at home.
”
”
Jane Austen (Emma)
“
Ione
III.
TO-DAY my skies are bare and ashen,
And bend on me without a beam.
Since love is held the master-passion,
Its loss must be the pain supreme —
And grinning Fate has wrecked my dream.
But pardon, dear departed Guest,
I will not rant, I will not rail;
For good the grain must feel the flail;
There are whom love has never blessed.
I had and have a younger brother,
One whom I loved and love to-day
As never fond and doting mother
Adored the babe who found its way
From heavenly scenes into her day.
Oh, he was full of youth's new wine, —
A man on life's ascending slope,
Flushed with ambition, full of hope;
And every wish of his was mine.
A kingly youth; the way before him
Was thronged with victories to be won;
so joyous, too, the heavens o'er him
Were bright with an unchanging sun, —
His days with rhyme were overrun.
Toil had not taught him Nature's prose,
Tears had not dimmed his brilliant eyes,
And sorrow had not made him wise;
His life was in the budding rose.
I know not how I came to waken,
Some instinct pricked my soul to sight;
My heart by some vague thrill was shaken, —
A thrill so true and yet so slight,
I hardly deemed I read aright.
As when a sleeper, ign'rant why,
Not knowing what mysterious hand
Has called him out of slumberland,
Starts up to find some danger nigh.
Love is a guest that comes, unbidden,
But, having come, asserts his right;
He will not be repressed nor hidden.
And so my brother's dawning plight
Became uncovered to my sight.
Some sound-mote in his passing tone
Caught in the meshes of my ear;
Some little glance, a shade too dear,
Betrayed the love he bore Ione.
What could I do? He was my brother,
And young, and full of hope and trust;
I could not, dared not try to smother
His flame, and turn his heart to dust.
I knew how oft life gives a crust
To starving men who cry for bread;
But he was young, so few his days,
He had not learned the great world's ways,
Nor Disappointment's volumes read.
However fair and rich the booty,
I could not make his loss my gain.
For love is dear, but dearer, duty,
And here my way was clear and plain.
I saw how I could save him pain.
And so, with all my day grown dim,
That this loved brother's sun might shine,
I joined his suit, gave over mine,
And sought Ione, to plead for him.
I found her in an eastern bower,
Where all day long the am'rous sun
Lay by to woo a timid flower.
This day his course was well-nigh run,
But still with lingering art he spun
Gold fancies on the shadowed wall.
The vines waved soft and green above,
And there where one might tell his love,
I told my griefs — I told her all!
I told her all, and as she hearkened,
A tear-drop fell upon her dress.
With grief her flushing brow was darkened;
One sob that she could not repress
Betrayed the depths of her distress.
Upon her grief my sorrow fed,
And I was bowed with unlived years,
My heart swelled with a sea of tears,
The tears my manhood could not shed.
The world is Rome, and Fate is Nero,
Disporting in the hour of doom.
God made us men; times make the hero —
But in that awful space of gloom
I gave no thought but sorrow's room.
All — all was dim within that bower,
What time the sun divorced the day;
And all the shadows, glooming gray,
Proclaimed the sadness of the hour.
She could not speak — no word was needed;
Her look, half strength and half despair,
Told me I had not vainly pleaded,
That she would not ignore my prayer.
And so she turned and left me there,
And as she went, so passed my bliss;
She loved me, I could not mistake —
But for her own and my love's sake,
Her womanhood could rise to this!
My wounded heart fled swift to cover,
And life at times seemed very drear.
My brother proved an ardent lover —
What had so young a man to fear?
He wed Ione within the year.
No shadow clouds her tranquil brow,
Men speak her husband's name with pride,
While she sits honored at his side —
”
”
Paul Laurence Dunbar
“
Comrades!” he cried. “You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for YOUR sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades,” cried Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and whisking his tail, “surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back?” Now if there was one thing that the animals were completely certain of, it was that they did not want Jones back. When it was put to them in this light, they had no more to say. The importance of keeping the pigs in good health was all too obvious. So it was agreed without further argument that the milk and the windfall apples (and also the main crop of apples when they ripened) should be reserved for the pigs alone.
”
”
George Orwell (Animal Farm and 1984)
“
His hand felt odd against her swollen belly. She started to speak at the same moment that the baby suddenly moved.
Tate’s hand jerked back as if it had been stung. He stared at her stomach with pure horror as it fluttered again.
She couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing.
“Is that…normal?” he wanted to know.
“It’s a baby,” she said softly. “They move around. He kicks a little. Not much, just yet, but as he grows, he’ll get stronger.”
“I never realized…” He drew in a long breath and put his hand back against her body. “Cecily, does it hurt you when he…” He hesitated. His black, stunned eyes met hers. “He?”
She nodded.
“They can tell, so soon?”
“Yes,” she said simply. “They did an ultrasound.”
His fingers became caressing. A son. He was going to have a son. He swallowed. It was a shock. He hadn’t thought past her pregnancy, but now he realized that there was going to be a miniature version of himself and Cecily, a child who would embody the traits of all his ancestors. All his ancestors. It made him feel humble.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
He glared into her eyes. “Not with any help from you, let me tell you! It took me forever to track down the driver who brought you to Nashville. He was off on extended sick leave, and it wasn’t until this week that anybody remembered he’d worked that route before Christmas.”
She averted her eyes. “I didn’t want to be found.”
“So I noticed. But you have been, and you’re damned well coming home,” he said furiously. “I’m damned if I’m going to leave you here at the mercy of people who go nuts over an inch of snow!”
She sat up, displacing his hand, noticed that she was too close to him for comfort, swung her legs off the sofa and got up. “I’m not going as far as the mailbox with you!” she told him flatly. “I’ve made a new life for myself here, and I’m staying!”
“That’s what you think.” He got up, too, and went toward the bedroom. He found her suitcase minutes later, threw it open on the bed and started filling it.
“I’m not going with you,” she told him flatly. “You can pack. You can even take the suitcase and all my clothes. But I’m not leaving. This is my life now. You have no place in it!”
He whirled. He was furious. “You’re carrying my child!”
The sight of him was killing her. She loved him, wanted him, needed him, but he was here only out of a sense of duty, maybe even out of guilt. She knew he didn’t want ties or commitments; he’d said so often enough. He didn’t love her, either, and that was the coldest knowledge of all.
“Colby asked me to marry him for the baby’s sake,” she said bitterly. “Maybe I should have.”
“Over my dead body,” he assured her.
”
”
Diana Palmer (Paper Rose (Hutton & Co. #2))
“
God is not dead—
She has forsaken us.
We wipe our angry, hate-filled tears
after another shooting, as a man
polishes his gun outside a mosque.
All those stolen lives—we scream
for justice! But God has quietly left
our temples and churches.
She will not return, for what WE have done
is much worse. We have murdered
humanity.
God has deserted even the devout of us
who save our love and compassion
for those good and righteous, as we abandon the bigots
brimming with hate. Yes, those least deserving
of love, but the most in need of it.
God’s agony rings in our hearts. She wails for the future
shooters. Though we reject them,
God greets these cracked and confused creatures—
the least deserving of compassion but the most in need of it!
We’ve read their spiteful tweets, but when we pass
them in classrooms, in trains and markets, we dismiss
those seemingly small opportunities for kindness.
We don’t know—and how ignorant we are—
that every time we ignore them,
we sharpen our daggers
and stab humanity in its pink raw flesh,
not in dark alleyways. No, we do this openly
in broad daylight, for hating them
shows how loving we are. For condemning
them proves how moral we are.
But every shooting illumines
the failure of our collective duty to love
as God loves, to be compassionate as God
is compassionate.
Your prayers heal, yes,
but for God’s sake, let God be.
I say: First,
resurrect your humanity!
”
”
Kamand Kojouri
“
And once they have children, the most difficult times will seem to them happy, so long as there is love and courage. Even toil will be a joy, you may deny yourself bread for your children and even that will be a joy. They will love you for it afterward; so you are laying by for your future. As the children grow up you feel that you are an example, a support for them; that even after you die your children will always keep your thoughts and feelings, because they have received them from you, they will take on your semblance and likeness. So you see this is a great duty. How can it fail to draw the father and mother nearer? People say it’s a trial to have children. Who says that? It is heavenly happiness! Are you fond of little children, Liza? I am awfully fond of them. You know—a little rosy baby boy at your bosom, and what husband’s heart is not touched, seeing his wife nursing his child! A plump little rosy baby, sprawling and snuggling, chubby little hands and feet, clean tiny little nails, so tiny that it makes one laugh to look at them; eyes that look as if they understand everything. And while it sucks it clutches at your bosom with its little hand, plays. When its father comes up, the child tears itself away from the bosom, flings itself back, looks at its father, laughs, as though it were fearfully funny, and falls to sucking again. Or it will bite its mother’s breast when its little teeth are coming, while it looks sideways at her with its little eyes as though to say, ‘Look, I am biting!’ Is not all that happiness when they are the three together, husband, wife and child? One can forgive a great deal for the sake of such moments. Yes, Liza, one must first learn to live oneself before one blames others!
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Notes from the Underground)
“
She planted her hands on her hips. “And what if I bag the most birds?”
“Then you get to shoot whomever you wish,” Mr. Pinter drawled.
As the others laughed, Celia glared at him. He was certainly enjoying himself, the wretch. “I’d be careful if I were you, Mr. Pinter. That person would most likely be you.”
“Oho, man, you’ve really got her dander up this time,” Gabe exclaimed. “What on earth did you do?”
Mr. Pinter’s gaze met hers, glinting with unholy amusement. “I confiscated her pistol.”
A Gabe gasped, Oliver shook his head. “You’ll learn soon enough-never take away one of Celia’s guns. Not if you want to live.”
“I’m not that bad,” Celia grumbled as the duke and the viscount eyed her with a twinge of alarm, though Lord Devonmont’s grin broadened. “I’ve never shot a person in my life.”
“There’s always a first time,” Gabe teased.
“Oh, for pity’s sake.” She regarded them all stoutly. “I promise not to shoot any of you. How about this? If I win, you gentlemen owe me a rifle. Between the five of you, I’m sure you can afford a decent one.”
“Five?” Mr. Pinter said. “Don’t I get a part in this little game?”
She stared him down. “I thought you had certain duties to attend to.” He should be investigating her suitors.
“Whatever duties he has for me will keep, Celia,” Oliver said. “Do come with us, Pinter. I want to see how well you handle a fowling piece.”
Mr. Pinter smiled at her. “I’d be honored, my lord. As long as her ladyship doesn’t mind.”
Of course she minded. But if she tried to cut him out, they’d say she was afraid he would beat her.
“Not in the least,” she said. “Just be prepared to contribute your part of my rifle.”
But as she headed for the door, it wasn’t the rifle she was worried about. It was that blasted kiss. Because if he won…
Well, she’d just have to make sure he didn’t.
”
”
Sabrina Jeffries (A Lady Never Surrenders (Hellions of Halstead Hall, #5))
“
They won’t have forgotten her. Sooner or later she would have become involved, but she’ll be drawn in now whether I want to protect her or not.” “But how do you know that, for God’s sake? The alethiometer again?” “Yes. Lyra has a part to play in all this, and a major one. The irony is that she must do it all without realizing what she’s doing. She can be helped, though, and if my plan with the Tokay had succeeded, she would have been safe for a little longer. I would have liked to spare her a journey to the North. I wish above all things that I were able to explain it to her...” “She wouldn’t listen,” the Librarian said. “I know her ways only too well. Try to tell her anything serious and she’ll half-listen for five minutes and then start fidgeting. Quiz her about it next time and she’ll have completely forgotten.” “If I talked to her about Dust? You don’t think she’d listen to that?” The Librarian made a noise to indicate how unlikely he thought that was. “Why on earth should she?” he said. “Why should a distant theological riddle interest a healthy, thoughtless child?” “Because of what she must experience. Part of that includes a great betrayal....” “Who’s going to betray her?” “No, no, that’s the saddest thing: she will be the betrayer, and the experience will be terrible. She mustn’t know that, of course, but there’s no reason for her not to know about the problem of Dust. And you might be wrong, Charles; she might well take an interest in it, if it were explained in a simple way. And it might help her later on. It would certainly help me to be less anxious about her.” “That’s the duty of the old,” said the Librarian, “to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.” They sat for a while longer, and then parted, for it was late, and they were old and anxious.
”
”
Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1))
“
Tis a long journey, Sir, replied the master of the inn——unless a man has great business.——Tut! tut! said the stranger, I have been at the promontory of Noses; and have got me one of the goodliest, thank Heaven, that ever fell to a single man’s lot.
Whilst the stranger was giving this odd account of himself, the master of the inn and his wife kept both their eyes fixed full upon the stranger’s nose——By saint Radagunda, said the inn-keeper’s wife to herself, there is more of it than in any dozen of the largest noses put together in all Strasburg! is it not, said she, whispering her husband in his ear, is it not a noble nose?
’Tis an imposture, my dear,' said the master of the inn——’tis a false nose.'
’Tis a true nose,' said his wife.
’Tis made of fir-tree,' said he, I smell the turpentine.——
'There’s a pimple on it,' said she.
’Tis a dead nose,' replied the inn-keeper.
’Tis a live nose, if I am alive myself,' said the inn-keeper’s wife.
The stranger had not got half a league on his way towards Frankfort before were just ringing to call the Strasburgers to their devotions, and shut up the duties of the day in prayer:—no soul in all Strasburg heard ’em—the city was like a swarm of bees——men, women, and children, (the Compline bells tinkling all the time) flying here and there—in at one door, out at another——this way and that way—long ways and cross ways—up one street, down another street——in at this alley, out of that——did you see it? did you see it? did you see it? O! did you see it?——who saw it? who did see it? for mercy’s sake, who saw it?
Alack o’day! I was at vespers!—I was washing, I was starching, I was scouring, I was quilting——God help me! I never saw it——I never touch’d it!——would I had been a centinel, a bandy-legg’d drummer, a trumpeter, a trumpeter’s wife, was the general cry and lamentation in every street and corner of Strasburg.
”
”
Laurence Sterne
“
Our acceptance with God is sure only through His beloved Son, and good works are but the result of the working of His sin-pardoning love. They are no credit to us, and we have nothing accorded to us for out good works by which we may claim a part in the salvation of our souls. Salvation is God’s free gift to the believer, given to him for Christ’s sake alone. The troubled soul may find peace through faith in Christ, and his peace will be in proportion to his faith and trust. He cannot present his good works as a plea for the salvation of his soul.
But are good works of no real value? Is the sinner who commits sin every day with impunity, regarded of God with the same favor as the one who through faith in Christ tries to work in his integrity? The Scripture answers, ‘We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should work in them.’ In His divine arrangement, through His unmerited favor, the Lord has ordained that good works shall be rewarded. We are accepted through Christ’s merit alone, and the acts of mercy, the deeds of charity, which we perform, are the fruits of faith; and they become a blessing to us; for men are to be rewarded according to their works. It is the fragrance of the merit of Christ than makes our good works acceptable to God, and it is grave that enables us to do the works for which He rewards us. Our works in and of themselves have no merit. When we have done all that it is possible for us to do, we are to count ourselves as unprofitable servants. We deserve no thanks from God. We have only done what it was our duty to do, and our works could not have been performed in the strength of our own sinful nature.
The Lord has bidden us to draw nigh to Him, and He will draw nigh to us; and drawing nigh to Him, we receive the grace by which to do those good works which will be rewarded at His hands.
”
”
Ellen Gould White
“
I simply hinted that an ‘extraordinary’ man has the right… that is not an official right, but an inner right to decide in his own conscience to overstep… certain obstacles, and only in case it is essential for the practical fulfilment of his idea (sometimes, perhaps, of benefit to the whole of humanity)... ...I maintain that if the discoveries of Kepler and Newton could not have been made known except by sacrificing the lives of one, a dozen, a hundred, or more men, Newton would have had the right, would indeed have been in duty bound… to eliminate the dozen or the hundred men for the sake of making his discoveries known to the whole of humanity. But it does not follow from that that Newton had a right to murder people right and left and to steal every day in the market. Then, I remember, I maintain in my article that all… well, legislators and leaders of men, such as Lycurgus, Solon, Mahomet, Napoleon, and so on, were all without exception criminals, from the very fact that, making a new law, they transgressed the ancient one, handed down from their ancestors and held sacred by the people, and they did not stop short at bloodshed either, if that bloodshed—often of innocent persons fighting bravely in defence of ancient law—were of use to their cause. It’s remarkable, in fact, that the majority, indeed, of these benefactors and leaders of humanity were guilty of terrible carnage. In short, I maintain that all great men or even men a little out of the common, that is to say capable of giving some new word, must from their very nature be criminals—more or less, of course. Otherwise it’s hard for them to get out of the common rut; and to remain in the common rut is what they can’t submit to, from their very nature again, and to my mind they ought not, indeed, to submit to it. You see that there is nothing particularly new in all that. The same thing has been printed and read a thousand times before.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
“
First, it is the duty of black men to judge the South discriminatingly. The present generation of Southerners are not responsible for the past, and they should not be blindly hated or blamed for it. Furthermore, to no class is the indiscriminate endorsement of the recent course of the South toward Negroes more nauseating than to the best thought of the South. The South is not “solid’; it is a land in the ferment of social change, wherein forces of all kinds are fighting for supremacy; and to praise the ill the South is today perpetrating is just as wrong as to condemn the good. Discriminating and broad-minded criticism is what the South needs,—needs it for the sake of her own white sons and daughters, and for the insurance of robust, healthy mental and moral development.
Today even the attitude of the Southern whites toward the blacks is not, as so many assume, in all cases the same; the ignorant Southerner hates the Negro, the workingmen fear his competition, the money-makers wish to use him as a laborer, some of the educated see a menace in his upward development, while others—usually the sons of the masters—wish to help him to rise. National opinion has enabled this last class to maintain the Negro common schools, and to protect the Negro partially in property, life, and limb. Through the pressure of the money-makers, the Negro is in danger of being reduced to semi-slavery, especially in the country districts; the workingmen, and those of the educated who fear the Negro, have united to disfranchise him, and some have urged his deportation; while the passions of the ignorant are easily aroused to lynch and abuse any black man. To praise this intricate whirl of thought and prejudice is nonsense; to inveigh indiscriminately against “the South” is unjust; but to use the same breath in praising Governor Aycock, exposing Senator Morgan, arguing with Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, and denouncing Senator Ben Tillman, is not only sane, but the imperative duty of thinking black men.
”
”
W.E.B. Du Bois (The Souls of Black Folk)
“
Where should we be if every one had his rights? Fancy every one's having a hand in the government? Can you imagine a city ruled by its citizens? Why, the citizens are the team, and the team cannot be driver. To put to the vote is to throw to the winds. Would you have states driven like clouds? Disorder cannot build up order. With chaos for an architect, the edifice would be a Babel. And, besides, what tyranny is this pretended liberty! As for me, I wish to enjoy myself; not to govern. It is a bore to have to vote; I want to dance. A prince is a providence, and takes care of us all. Truly the king is generous to take so much trouble for our sakes. Besides, he is to the manner born. He knows what it is. It's his business. Peace, War, Legislation, Finance--what have the people to do with such things? Of course the people have to pay; of course the people have to serve; but that should suffice them. They have a place in policy; from them come two essential things, the army and the budget. To be liable to contribute, and to be liable to serve; is not that enough? What more should they want? They are the military and the financial arm. A magnificent rôle. The king reigns for them, and they must reward him accordingly. Taxation and the civil list are the salaries paid by the peoples and earned by the prince. The people give their blood and their money, in return for which they are led. To wish to lead themselves! what an absurd idea! They require a guide; being ignorant, they are blind. Has not the blind man his dog? Only the people have a lion, the king, who consents to act the dog. How kind of him! But why are the people ignorant? because it is good for them. Ignorance is the guardian of Virtue. Where there is no perspective there is no ambition. The ignorant man is in useful darkness, which, suppressing sight, suppresses covetousness: whence innocence. He who reads, thinks; who thinks, reasons. But not to reason is duty; and happiness as well. These truths are incontestable; society is based on them.
”
”
Victor Hugo (The Man Who Laughs)
“
God's honesty. A god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure that his creatures understand his intention could that be a god of goodness? Who allows countless doubts and dubieties to persist, for thousands of years, as though the salvation of mankind were unaffected by them, and who on the other hand holds out the prospect of frightful consequences if any mistake is made as to the nature of the truth? Would he not be a cruel god if he possessed the truth and could behold mankind miserably tormenting itself over the truth? But perhaps he is a god of goodness notwithstanding and merely could not express himself more clearly! Did he perhaps lack the intelligence to do so? Or the eloquence? So much the worse! For then he was perhaps also in error as to that which he calls his 'truth', and is himself not so very far from being the 'poor deluded devil'! Must he not then endure almost the torments of Hell to have to see his creatures suffer so, and go on suffering even more through all eternity, for the sake of knowledge of him, and not be able to help and counsel them, except in the manner of a deafand-dumb man making all kinds of ambiguous signs when the most fearful danger is about to fall on his child or his dog? A believer who reaches this oppressive conclusion ought truly to be forgiven if he feels more pity for this suffering god than he does for his 'neighbours' for they are no longer his neighbours if that most solitary and most primeval being is also the most suffering being of all and the one most in need of comfort. All religions exhibit traces of the fact that they owe their origin to an early, immature intellectuality in man they all take astonishingly lightly the duty to tell the truth: they as yet know nothing of a duty of God to be truthful towards mankind and clear in the manner of his communications. On the 'hidden god', and on the reasons for keeping himself thus hidden and never emerging more than half-way into the light of speech, no one has been more eloquent than Pascal a sign that he was never able to calm his mind on this matter: but his voice rings as confidently as if he had at one time sat behind the curtain with this hidden god. He sensed a piece of immorality in the 'deus absconditus' [the "hidden/concealed god"] and was very fearful and ashamed of admitting it to himself: and thus, like one who is afraid, he talked as loudly as he could.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality)
“
BUYING OFF THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS Where are the environmentalists? For fifty years, they’ve been carrying on about overpopulation; promoting family planning, birth control, abortion; and saying old people have a “duty to die and get out of the way”—in Colorado’s Democratic Governor Richard Lamm’s words. In 1971, Oregon governor and environmentalist Tom McCall told a CBS interviewer, “Come visit us again. . . . But for heaven’s sake, don’t come here to live.” How about another 30 million people coming here to live? The Sierra Club began sounding the alarm over the country’s expanding population in 1965—the very year Teddy Kennedy’s immigration act passed65—and in 1978, adopted a resolution expressly asking Congress to “conduct a thorough examination of U.S. immigration laws.” For a while, the Club talked about almost nothing else. “It is obvious,” the Club said two years later, “that the numbers of immigrants the United States accepts affects our population size and growth rate,” even more than “the number of children per family.”66 Over the next three decades, America took in tens of millions of legal immigrants and illegal aliens alike. But, suddenly, about ten years ago, the Sierra Club realized to its embarrassment that importing multiple millions of polluting, fire-setting, littering immigrants is actually fantastic for the environment! The advantages of overpopulation dawned on the Sierra Club right after it received a $100 million donation from hedge fund billionaire David Gelbaum with the express stipulation that—as he told the Los Angeles Times—“if they ever came out anti-immigration, they would never get a dollar from me.”67 It would be as if someone offered the Catholic Church $100 million to be pro-abortion. But the Sierra Club said: Sure! Did you bring the check? Obviously, there’s no longer any reason to listen to them on anything. They want us to get all excited about some widening of a road that’s going to disturb a sandfly, but the Sierra Club is totally copasetic with our national parks being turned into garbage dumps. Not only did the Sierra Club never again say another word against immigration, but, in 2004, it went the extra mile, denouncing three actual environmentalists running for the Club’s board, by claiming they were racists who opposed mass immigration. The three “white supremacists” were Dick Lamm, the three-time Democratic governor of Colorado; Frank Morris, former head of the Black Congressional Caucus Foundation; and Cornell professor David Pimentel, who created the first ecology course at the university in 1957 and had no particular interest in immigration.68 But they couldn’t be bought off, so they were called racists.
”
”
Ann Coulter (¡Adios, America!: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole)
“
Gray burst into the galley. “Miss Turner is not eating.”
The cramped, boxed-in nature of the space, the oppressive heat-it seemed an appropriate place to take this irrational surge of resentment. If only his emotion could dissipate through the ventilation slats as quickly as steam.
“And good morning to you, too.” Gabriel wiped his hands on his apron without glancing up.
“She’s not eating,” Gray repeated evenly. “She’s wasting away.” He didn’t even realize his knuckled cracked. He flexed his fingers impatiently.
“Wasting away?” Gabriel’s face split in a grin as he picked up a mallet and attacked a hunk of salted pork. “Now what makes you say that?”
“Her dress no longer fits properly. The neckline of her bodice is too loose.”
Gabriel stopped pounding and looked up, meeting Gray’s eyes for the first time since he’d entered the galley. The mocking arch of the old man’s eyebrows had Gray clenching his teeth. They stared at each other for a second. Then Gray blew out his breath and looked away, and Gabriel broke into peals of laughter.
“Never thought I’d live to see the day,” the old cook finally said, “when you would complain that a beautiful lady’s bodice was too loose.”
“It’s not that she’s a beautiful lady-“
Gabriel looked up sharply.
“It’s not merely that she’s a beautiful lady,” Gray amended. “She’s a passenger, and I have a duty to look out for her welfare.”
“Wouldn’t that be the captain’s duty?”
Gray narrowed his eyes.
“And I know my duty well enough,” Gabriel continued. “It’s not as though I’m denying her food, now is it? I’m thinking Miss Turner just isn’t accustomed to the rough living aboard a ship. Used to finer fare, that one.”
Gray scowled at the hunk of cured pork under Gabriel’s mallet and the shriveled, sprouted potatoes rolling back and forth with each tilt of the ship. “Is this the noon meal?”
“This, and biscuit.”
“I’ll order the men to trawl for a fish.”
“Wouldn’t that be the captain’s duty?” Gabriel’s tone was sly.
Gray wasn’t sure whether the plume of steam swirling through the galley originated for the stove or his ears. He didn’t care for Gabriel’s flippant tone. Neither did he care for the possibility of Miss Turner’s lush curves disappearing when he’d never had any chance to appreciate them.
Frustrated beyond all reason, Gray turned to leave, wrenching open the galley door with such force, the hinges creaked in protest. He took a deep breath to compose himself, resolving not to slam the door shut behind him.
Gabriel stopped pounding. “Sit down, Gray. Rest your bones.”
With another rough sigh, Gray complied. He backed up two paces, slung himself onto a stool, and watched as the cook grabbed a tin cup from a hook on the wall and filled it, drawing a dipper of liquid from a small leather bucket. Then Gabriel set the cup on the table before him.
Milk.
Gabriel stared it. “For God’s sake, Gabriel. I’m not six years old anymore.”
The old man raised his eyebrows. “Well, seeing as how you haven’t outgrown a visit to the kitchen when you’re in a sulk, I thought maybe you’d have a taste for milk yet, too. You did buy the goats.
”
”
Tessa Dare (Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy, #2))
“
But as she rounded the last turn before the hall landing, she nearly collided with Sir Ian, carrying his mother’s shawl.
“Oh!” Lina exclaimed, coming to an abrupt halt a step above his.
“Rather careless of you to leave this behind,” he said.
He was too close.
“Aye, it was,” she agreed, stepping back up a step to gain more space.
His eyes danced. “Mayhap I should demand a penance before returning it.”
“You dare,” she said, stiffening and wishing he were not so fiendishly beguiling with that boyish gleam of mischief in his eyes. He was definitely not just a mischievous boy anymore, though. And, for a lady to encourage such behavior . . .
He looked up, as if to heaven, and murmured, “Just one wee ki—”
“Shame on you, Sir Ian Colquhoun,” she interjected, thinking she sounded just like her mother. “Galbraith cannot know that you are on this stairway.”
“Once again, you are wrong, lass,” he said, his eyes still alight. “He is still with Lizzie on the dais—giving her a well-deserved scolding, I trust. I saw that you had left the shawl and offered to find a maidservant to return it to you. But this is much better. I do think you should thank me prettily for taking so much trouble.”
“I will thank you. After you have returned it to me.”
Cocking his head, he held the shawl higher, so she’d have to reach for it.
When she did, he moved it back out of her reach.
Lina lowered her outstretched hand to her side and eyed him sternly from her slightly superior height. “I thought you sought my approval.”
He stepped up to the stair below hers, putting the shawl out of reach again. His face was now inches higher than hers and his body again much too close for comfort.
“I’d prefer something else just now,” he said softly, looking into her eyes.
Reaching with his left hand for her right wrist, he held it firmly. Apparently oblivious of her attempt to snatch it free, he pressed the shawl into her hand and let go of her wrist, his gaze never leaving hers.
She waited to see what he would do next.
He smiled then, wryly, as if he dared her to walk away.
His lips were tantalizingly close.
Lina shut her eyes.
“Coward,” Ian murmured, enjoying himself.
Her eyes flew open. Then, to his astonishment, she learned forward, brushed her lips against his right cheek, and whirled, snatching up her skirts in her free hand as first her right foot and then her left blindly sought the next stair upward.
Reaching out, he easily caught her arm. “Not so fast,” he said, turning her back to face him. “You must not kiss and run, lass. That’s against the rules.”
“The lady makes the rules, sir. Let go of me.” She was two steps above his again, looking disdainfully down her nose at him. She did not try to pull away.
She was testing him, he knew. But she was right about who made the rules.
Even so, the urge was strong to seize her and teach her what kissing was all about. However, he also wanted to make her desire that kiss enough to abandon her disapproval. And that was the greater challenge.
Sakes, if he were seeking a wife and had no royal duty commanding him . . .
Shifting his grip to her hand, he drew it to his lips and slowly kissed each knuckle. Then he kissed the silky skin above them, turned her trembling hand palm up long enough to breathe gently into that tender palm . . . and released her.
With a barely discernable gasp, she turned away, her dignity apparently still—or again—intact. He enjoyed watching her move, so he stood where he was to savor the sight. His reward came when she stopped before vanishing around the next curve and looked back. Her lips parted slowly, invitingly, in surprise.
He bowed and had the delight of seeing her whirl again and hurry away.
“I shall win this battle, I think,” he murmured to himself.
”
”
Amanda Scott (The Knight's Temptress (Lairds of the Loch, #2))
“
If he is going to treat her as the moral idea demands, he must try to see in her the concept of mankind and endeavour to respect her. [...]
Thus this book may be considered as the greatest honour ever paid to women. Nothing but the most moral relation towards women should be possible for men; there should be neither sexuality nor love, for both make woman the means to an end, but only the attempt to understand her. Most men theoretically respect women, but practically they thoroughly despise them; according to my ideas this method should be reversed. It is impossible to think highly of women, but it does not follow that we are to despise them for ever. [...]
Even technically the problem of humanity is not soluble for man alone; he has to consider woman even if he only wishes to redeem himself; he must endeavour to get her to abandon her immoral designs on him. Women must really and truly and spontaneously relinquish coitus. That undoubtedly means that woman, as woman, must disappear, and until that has come to pass there is no possibility of establishing the kingdom of God on earth. Pythagoras, Plato, Christianity (as opposed to Judaism), Tertullian, Swift, Wagner, Ibsen, all these have urged the freedom of woman, not the emancipation of woman from man, but rather the emancipation of woman from herself.
[...]
This is the way, and no other, to solve the woman question, and this comes from comprehending it. The solution may appear impossible, its tone exaggerated, its claims overstated, its requirements too exacting. Undoubtedly there has been little said about the woman question, as women talk of it; we have been dealing with a subject on which women are silent, and must always remain silent—the bondage which sexuality implies.
This woman question is as old as sex itself, and as young as mankind. And the answer to it? Man must free himself of sex, for in that way, and that way alone, can he free woman. In his purity, not, as she believes, in his impurity, lies her salvation. She must certainly be destroyed, as woman; but only to be raised again from the ashes—new, restored to youth—as a real human being.
[...]
Sexual union has no place in the idea of mankind, not because ascetism is a duty, but because in it woman becomes the object, the cause, and man does what he will with her, looks upon her merely as a "thing," not as a living human being with an inner, psychic, existence. And so man despises woman the moment coitus is over, and the woman knows that she is despised, even although a few minutes before she thought herself adored.
The only thing to be respected in man is the idea of mankind; this disparagement of woman (and himself), induced by coitus, is the surest proof that it is opposed to that idea of mankind. Any one who is ignorant of what this Kantian "idea of mankind" means, may perhaps understand it when he thinks of his sisters, his mother, his female relatives; it concerns them all: for our own sakes, then, woman ought to treated as human, respected and not degraded, all sexuality implying degradation.
But man can only respect woman when she herself ceases to wish to be object and material for man; if there is any question of emancipation it should be the emancipation from the prostitute element. [...]
The question is not merely if it be possible for woman to become moral. It is this: is it possible for woman really to wish to realise the problem of existence, the conception of guilt? Can she really desire freedom? This can happen only by her being penetrated by an ideal, brought to the guiding star. It can happen only if the categorical imperative were to become active in woman; only if woman can place herself in relation to the moral idea, the idea of humanity.
In that way only can there be an emancipation of woman.
”
”
Otto Weininger (Sex and Character: An Investigation of Fundamental Principles)
“
Sometimes these things grow to monumental proportions when they have only the space of our own minds to wander about,
”
”
Bridget Barton (Bride for the Sake of Duty)
“
I remember when I first became a believer in Jesus. I somehow thought it was my duty to change people for the sake of spreading the gospel. I would rejoice when people would find hope in Christ but would feel like a failure when someone would decline the invitation to know Jesus as Lord and Savior. It was a little discouraging. But that’s because my understanding of how God works in my life was off. I say this because I believe many of today’s Christians put too much pressure on themselves to bring people to Jesus. It’s our job to love people, not change them. Only the Holy Spirit has the power and authority to do such a thing. Our calling is to simply share the gospel in love and truth, showing the character of Jesus through our everyday lives. When you let yourself off the hook for being solely responsible for somebody’s soul, you will find a totally new sense of freedom: the freedom to love. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to know all the right things to say. You don’t have to have all the answers. And if your message is totally rejected . . . it’s not on you. It’s between that individual and God. Maybe you’ll get another opportunity to try, but it’s not your job to change him or her. Our job is to simply be available for those who are looking to know more about God, take opportunities to be vocal about our personal relationships with him, and continue to point people back to God with every question they may have. I didn’t understand this in the early years of my faith, and I put way too much pressure on myself when it came to people being transformed. Why? Because we live in a performance-based culture, and yes, even pastors have a tendency to fall captive to its pull. Like me, you probably feel pressured from multiple angles. We’re told by advertising that we need to be attractive, by parents that we need good jobs, by teachers that we need good grades, by friends that we need to give more time. Jesus isn’t like that. He doesn’t make irrational demands and point a finger at us for not living up to the expectation. The only thing Jesus wants from us is our love. And when we learn to offer him that love, we long to obey him and live in the better way he has for us as well. It’s a beautiful thing. As we learned from Jesus in Matthew 25, we can love God simply by loving others. Whether that love produces a change in their lives is up to God. We don’t have to stress about it. Only the Holy Spirit has the power and authority to change someone’s heart. Our calling is to simply share the gospel in love and truth, showing the character of Jesus through our everyday lives. This alone is the calling of a Christian. This alone is a weighty yet fulfilling purpose for all who choose to pick up their crosses daily. If we were to scour the Bible, we’d see there isn’t a single passage that states we are called to change people ourselves. Why? Because it’s not our job, and it was never intended to be. We must take a step back and realize that God’s job is to be God and our job is to lead people toward the door that is hope. Once we’ve done this, we must let go and allow the one who created the world to take care of the rest. If we had the power to change people, the transformative love of God wouldn’t be needed. Don’t waste your time trying to change people. Instead, focus on loving well.
”
”
Jarrid Wilson (Love Is Oxygen: How God Can Give You Life and Change Your World)
“
Summing Up While the Old Testament envisions occasional short-term avoidance of sex for the purposes of holiness, it does not envision celibacy as a lifelong calling. The ancient world generally tended to view the question of whether to marry or remain single as a pragmatic matter. Marriage was considered primarily in terms of the responsibilities and duties required to sustain a household. Cynics and Stoics differed on the relative importance of marriage for the fulfilled life. Jesus, in his commendation of those who have “made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19: 12), recognized that God calls some, but not all, to a single life. Paul addresses this question extensively in 1 Corinthians 7 in a carefully balanced way, recognizing some circumstances under which married people might avoid sex for brief periods of time, but discouraging married people from avoiding sex altogether. Paul invites single people to remain unmarried, but clearly recognizes that not all people are gifted with lifelong celibacy. The modern awareness of the persistence of sexual orientation thus raises an important question: Are all gay and lesbian Christians whose sexual orientation is not subject to change necessarily called to a celibate life? If so, then this stands in some tension with the affirmation—of both Jesus and Paul—that lifelong celibacy is a gift for some but not for all.
”
”
James V. Brownson (Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church's Debate on Same-Sex Relationships)
“
Of one man in especial, beyond any one else, the citizens of a republic should beware, and that is of the man who appeals to them to support him on the ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the republic, that he will secure for those who elect him, in one shape or another, profit at the expense of other citizens of the republic… It makes no difference whether he appeals to class hatred or class interest, to religious or antireligious prejudice. The man who makes such an appeal should always be presumed to make it for the sake of furthering his own interest. The very last thing an intelligent and self-respecting member of a democratic community should do is to reward any public man because that public man says that he will get the private citizen something to which this private citizen is not entitled, or will gratify some emotion or animosity which this private citizen ought not to possess… If a public man tries to get your vote by saying that he will do something wrong in your interest, you can be absolutely certain that if ever it becomes worth his while he will do something wrong against your interest.
”
”
Theodore Roosevelt (The Duties of American Citizenship)
“
When I saw her!
It was mid day, it was a sunny noon,
When she passed through,
I felt the shimmer of the moon,
And for a moment I believed everything about her was true,
Her eyes that radiated with the charm of the day,
Her wavy arms that moved like the waves of calm and graceful sea,
Her beautiful face that you would notice anyway,
And when she passed by, you hoped this is what you would always and forever see,
Her every step that led her somewhere,
Made you forget your errands and just be with her,
Wherever she went, just anywhere,
And you imagined a life with her, only with her,
And when she spoke to someone else,
You cursed the skies for this prejudice,
For in that moment you wanted to be this someone, and not anyone else,
And you wanted to rewrite the fate’s treatise,
So that whenever she talked, she only talked to you,
Whenever she passed by someone in the street,
She always passed staring at you,
And wherever she went, it was just you she intended to meet,
But right now, she just passed by and I saw her walk away,
Until she had reached far, and become a distant star,
And now I only keep gazing at the sky every night and day,
And I deal with the never ending inner war,
Where she still peeps through all my memories,
Where she still makes me believe what I saw was true,
And I feel like these helpless daisies,
Who can do nothing, but just wait for the winter to pass and hope the sky will once again turn blue,
So I am a flower that is rooted in its place and its faith,
And I only grow in the field of her beauty,
That is what my heart feels and that is what my mind always sayeth,
For sometimes to love and to believe is the noblest duty!
And I love her still although she is a star so distant,
Rescued by my memories that form the only bridge,
Between what I felt then , what I so long to feel now, ah it is a feeling so eminent,
But I have to live with the star and its distance and volunteer myself for this daily emotional sacrilege!
But then, living loving someone is a beautiful feeling,
Maybe that is why daisies bloom every year,
To witness the kiss of the summer, that magical thing,
And for its sake bearing the pain of winter, seems nothing, every year, and every next year!
”
”
Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
“
When I saw her!
It was mid day, it was a sunny noon,
When she passed through,
I felt the shimmer of the moon,
And for a moment I believed everything about her was true,
Her eyes that radiated with the charm of the day,
Her wavy arms that moved like the waves of calm and graceful sea,
Her beautiful face that you would notice anyway,
And when she passed by, you hoped this is what you would always and forever see,
Her every step that led her somewhere,
Made you forget your errands, because you only wished to be with her,
Wherever she went, just anywhere,
And you imagined a life with her, only with her,
And when she spoke to someone else,
You cursed the skies for this prejudice,
For in that moment you wanted to be this someone, and not anyone else,
And you wanted to rewrite the fate’s treatise,
So that whenever she talked, she only talked to you,
Whenever she passed by someone in the street,
She first ogled at you,
And felt the desire that you were the only one she wished to meet,
But right now, she just passed by and I saw her walk away,
Until she had reached far, and become a distant star,
And now I only keep gazing at the sky every night and day,
And I deal with the never ending inner war,
Where she still peeps through all my memories,
Where she still makes me believe what I saw, and felt in that moment was true,
And it makes me feel like these helpless daisies,
Who can do nothing, but just wait for the winter to pass and hope the sky will once again turn blue,
So I am a flower that is rooted in its place and its faith,
And I only grow in the field of her beauty,
That is what my heart feels and that is what my mind always sayeth,
For sometimes to love and to believe is the noblest duty!
And I love her still although she is a star so distant,
Rescued by my memories that form the only bridge,
Between what I felt then, what I so long to feel now, ah it is a feeling so eminent,
But I have to live with the star and its distance and volunteer myself for this daily emotional sacrilege!
But then, living loving someone is a beautiful feeling,
Maybe that is why daisies bloom every year,
To witness the kiss of the summer, that magical thing,
And for its sake bearing the pain of winter, seems nothing, every year, and every next year!
”
”
Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
“
Bertram Scudder seemed to be afraid of her. He clung to the microphone, spitting words into its delicate mesh, into the ears of the country, introducing the subject of his program. He was laboring to sound cynical, skeptical, superior and hysterical together, to sound like a man who sneers at the vanity of all human beliefs and thereby demands an instantaneous belief from his listeners. A small patch of moisture glistened on the back of his neck. He was describing in overcolored detail her month of convalescence in the lonely cabin of a sheepherder, then her heroic trudging down fifty miles of mountain trails for the sake of resuming her duties to the people in this grave hour of national emergency.
”
”
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
“
In their midst, Mrs. Hamer stands with her feet solidly grounded, the welcoming woman in love with the welcoming God. She shows us that the person of faith dare not retreat into racial narcissism or private virtuousness, but must “drink the earthly cup to the dregs”—and only in so doing know the fullness of God’s goodness and the resplendent openness to life and to others that follow.3 Mrs. Hamer embodied the conviction that the God of biblical faith is a liberating God; and those who would please him do so not for the sake of duty alone, but out of deep love and gratitude.
”
”
Charles Marsh (God's Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights)
“
Father Polda smiled in the darkness. None of the saints had been left out. A big, generous man, he was meticulous with regard to the catalogue of the holy, and even though those whose duty it was to deal with witches and dragons might be thought to have been outmoded by the modernity that was coming to the mountains, he was glad they were still included for politeness' sake and memory of past favors, if nothing else.
”
”
Paul Gallico (Ludmila: A Story Of Liechtenstein)
“
Human labour has rarely been of a fulfilling kind. For one thing, it has always been coerced in one way or another, even if the coercion in question is simply the need not to starve. For another thing, it has been carried on in class society, and thus not as an end in itself but as a means to the power and profit of others. For Marx, as for his mentor Aristotle, the good life consists of activities engaged in for their own sake. The best things are done just for the hell of it. We do them simply because they belong to our fulfillment as the kind of animals we are, not out of duty, custom, sentiment, authority, material necessity, social utility or fear of the Almighty.
”
”
Terry Eagleton (Why Marx Was Right)
“
In short, I maintain that all great men or even men a little out of the common, that is to say capable of giving some new word, must from their very nature be criminals—more or less, of course. Otherwise it’s hard for them to get out of the common rut; and to remain in the common rut is what they can’t submit to, from their very nature again, and to my mind they ought not, indeed, to submit to it. You see that there is nothing particularly new in all that. The same thing has been printed and read a thousand times before. As for my division of people into ordinary and extraordinary, I acknowledge that it’s somewhat arbitrary, but I don’t insist upon exact numbers. I only believe in my leading idea that men are in general divided by a law of nature into two categories, inferior (ordinary), that is, so to say, material that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men who have the gift or the talent to utter a new word. There are, of course, innumerable sub-divisions, but the distinguishing features of both categories are fairly well marked. The first category, generally speaking, are men conservative in temperament and law-abiding; they live under control and love to be controlled. To my thinking it is their duty to be controlled, because that’s their vocation, and there is nothing humiliating in it for them. The second category all transgress the law; they are destroyers or disposed to destruction according to their capacities. The crimes of these men are of course relative and varied; for the most part they seek in very varied ways the destruction of the present for the sake of the better. But if such a one is forced for the sake of his idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I maintain, find himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading through blood—that depends on the idea and its dimensions, note that. It’s only in that sense I speak of their right to crime in my article (you remember it began with the legal question). There’s no need for much anxiety, however; the masses will scarcely ever admit this right, they punish them or hang them (more or less), and in doing so fulfil quite justly their conservative vocation. But the same masses set these criminals on a pedestal in the next generation and worship them (more or less). The first category is always the man of the present, the second the man of the future. The first preserve the world and people it, the second move the world and lead it to its goal. Each class has an equal right to exist. In fact, all have equal rights with me—and vive la guerre éternelle4—till the New Jersusalem,5 of course!
”
”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Crime and Punishment (Enriched Classics))
“
Tithing and Generosity If you preach about tithing, at some point you must get to the ultimate giver, Jesus, who at infinite cost gave us not just a tithe of his wealth but all of it. This gives us the security and joy to give away our wealth, since the only real long-term security is to be rich in him. In 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 Paul wants the people to give an offering to the poor. But he says, in effect, “I don’t want to order you. I don’t want this offering to simply be the response to my demand.” He doesn’t put pressure directly on the will (for example, by saying, “I’m an apostle and this is your duty to me!”) or on the emotions (by telling them stories about how much the poor are suffering and how much more they have than the sufferers). Instead, Paul vividly and unforgettably says, “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). When he says, “You know the grace,” he is, of course, spiritually reminding them of that grace using a powerful image, bringing Jesus’ salvation into the realm of money and wealth and poverty. He moves them by a spiritual recollection of the gospel.
”
”
Timothy J. Keller (Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism)
“
You have reached the blind alley of the treason you committed when you agreed that you had no right to exist. Once, you believed it was ‘only a compromise’: you conceded it was evil to live for yourself, but moral to live for the sake of your children. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your children, but moral to live for your community. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your community, but moral to live for your country. Now, you are letting this greatest of countries be devoured by any scum from any corner of the earth, while you concede that it is selfish to live for your country and that your moral duty is to live for the globe. A man who has no right to life, has no right to values and will not keep them. “At the end of your road of successive betrayals, stripped of weapons, of certainty, of honor, you commit your final act of treason and sign your petition of intellectual bankruptcy: while the muscle-mystics of the People’s States proclaim that they’re the champions of reason and science, you agree and hasten to proclaim that faith is your cardinal principle, that reason is on the side of your destroyers, but yours is the side of faith. To the struggling remnants of rational honesty in the twisted, bewildered minds of your children, you declare that you can offer no rational argument to support the ideas that created this country, that there is no rational justification for freedom, for property, for justice, for rights, that they rest on a mystical insight and can be accepted only on faith, that in reason and logic the enemy is right, but faith is superior to reason. You declare to your children that it is rational to loot, to torture, to enslave, to expropriate, to murder, but that they must resist the temptations of logic and stick to the discipline of remaining irrational—that skyscrapers, factories, radios, airplanes were the products of faith and mystic intuition, while famines, concentration camps, and firing squads are the products of a reasonable manner of existence—that the industrial revolution was the revolt of the men of faith against that era of reason and logic which is known as the Middle Ages.
”
”
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
“
And that is precisely the goal of your morality, the duty that your code demands of you. Give to that which you do not enjoy, serve that which you do not admire, submit to that which you consider evil—surrender the world to the values of others, deny, reject, renounce your self. Your self is your mind; renounce it and you become a chunk of meat ready for any cannibal to swallow. “It is your mind that they want you to surrender—all those who preach the creed of sacrifice, whatever their tags or their motives, whether they demand it for the sake of your soul or of your body, whether they promise you another life in heaven or a full stomach on this earth. Those who start by saying: ‘It is selfish to pursue your own wishes, you must sacrifice them to the wishes of others’—end up by saying: ‘It is selfish to uphold your convictions, you must sacrifice them to the convictions of others.
”
”
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
“
Our attitude towards knowledge is more natural: we have the libertinage of the spirit in all innocence, we hate the pathetic and hieratic manners, we delight in what is forbidden, we would hardly know an interest in knowledge if we were bored on the way to it would have.
Our attitude towards morality is more natural. Principles have become ridiculous; nobody allows himself to speak of his "duty" without irony. But one appreciates a helpful, benevolent disposition (one sees morality in instinct and deduces the rest ). In addition, a few honor point terms.
Our position in politicis is more natural: we see problems of power, of the quantity of power against another quantity. We do not believe in a right that does not rest on the power to assert itself: we see all rights as conquests.
Our esteem for great people and things is more natural: we count passion as a privilege, we do not find anything great unless a great crime is involved; we conceptualize all being great as placing oneself outside in relation to morality.
Our attitude towards nature is more natural: we no longer love it for the sake of its “innocence”, “reason”, “beauty”, we have “demonized” and “dumbfounded” it. But instead of despising it for that reason, we have since felt more related and more at home in it. It does not aspire to virtue: we therefore respect it.
Our attitude towards art is more natural: we do not ask of it the beautiful false lies, etc.; the brutal positivism prevails, which takes place without being excited.
In sum: there are indications that nineteenth-century Europeans are less ashamed of their instincts; they has taken a good step towards admitting their unconditional naturalness, that is, their immorality, to themself without bitterness: on the contrary, strong enough to endure this sight alone.
This sounds to certain ears as if the corruption had advanced: and it is certain that man has not approached the "nature" of which Rousseau speaks, but has "taken" a step further in the civilization which he perpetuated. We have strengthened ourselves: we have come closer to the 17th century, the taste of its end in particular.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“
Not even to the Fool could I admit the curiosity I felt about Dutiful. A son, and not mine. And as my father had chosen me, so I had with him. To not not know him, for the sake of protecting him.
”
”
Robin Hobb (Fool's Errand (Tawny Man, #1))
“
The shepherd’s primary duty is to search out the lost sheep and stay with it once found. This is what distinguishes the true shepherd from the hireling, the intellectual from the intelligentsia. Both are degreed, learned and scholarly. The difference lies in their relation to the people. The intellectual never loses that compassion for the multitude which characterized the Word Incarnate. The intelligentsia, on the contrary, live apart from tears and hunger, cancer and bereavements, poverty and ignorance. They lack the common touch. Only the cream of bookish learning and not the milk of human kindness flows through their veins. So with the priest. Contact with people for Christ’s sake is the victimhood which makes the priesthood. Only by also being a lamb offered through forgetfulness of worldly superiority does the priest become the shepherd of souls.
”
”
Fulton J. Sheen (The Priest Is Not His Own)
“
I would almost dare to say that the sickness is perhaps a very real and very dreadful hatred of life as such, of course subconscious, buried under our pitiful and superficial optimism about ourselves and our affluent society. But I think that the very thought processes of materialistic affluence (and here the same things are found in all the different economic systems that seek affluence for its own sake) are ultimately self-defeating. They contain so many built-in frustrations that they inevitably lead us to despair in the midst of “plenty” and “happiness” and the awful fruit of this despair is indiscriminate, irresponsible destructiveness, hatred of life, carried on in the name of life itself. In order to “survive” we instinctively destroy that on which our survival depends….Technics and wisdom are not by any means opposed. On the contrary, the duty of our age, the “vocation” of modern man is to unite them in a supreme humility which will result in a totally self-forgetful creativity and service.
”
”
Maria Popova (Figuring)
“
will willingly. 1. They draw off their thoughts, all that they may, from the remembrance of God, death, and judgment to come. 2. Then they cast off by degrees private duties, as closet prayer, curbing their lusts, watching, sorrow for sin, and the like. 3. Then they shun the company of lively and warm Christians. 4. After that they grow cold to public duty, as hearing, reading, godly conference, and the like. 5. Then they begin to pick holes, as we say, in the coats of some of the godly; and that devilishly, that they may have a seeming colour to throw religion (for the sake of some infirmity they have espied in them) behind their backs. 6. Then they begin to adhere to, and associate themselves with, carnal, loose, and wanton men. 7. Then they give way to carnal and wanton discourses in secret; and glad are they if they can see such things in any that are counted honest, that they may the more boldly do it through their example. 8. After this they begin to play with little sins openly. 9. And then, being hardened, they show themselves as they are. Thus, being launched again into the gulf of misery, unless a miracle of grace prevent it, they everlastingly perish in their own deceivings.
”
”
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress)
“
Think for him, judge for him, and act for him as you would for any weak and blind person, but for pity’s sake, don’t abandon him to his own wayward tastes and inclinations. His pleasures and wishes must not determine his direction. He doesn’t know yet what is good for his mind and soul, any more than what is good for his body. Don’t let him decide what he will eat, what he will drink, and what he will wear. Be consistent and deal with his mind in like manner. Train him in the way that is scriptural and right but not in the way that he fancies.
”
”
J.C. Ryle (The Duties of Parents: Parenting Your Children God's Way [Updated, Annotated])
“
in Kantian ethics, the true tension is not between the subject’s idea that he is acting only for the sake of duty, and the hidden fact that there was effectively some pathological motivation at work (the vulgar psychoanalysis); the true tension is exactly the opposite one: the free act in its abyss is unbearable, traumatic, so that when we accomplish an act out of freedom and in order to be able to sustain it, we experience it as conditioned by some pathological motivation
”
”
Slavoj Žižek (Sex and the Failed Absolute)
“
Of all the odd demands that modern life makes on humanity, the most difficult may be not only its insistence that we comfortably spend our adult lives going from one situation of serial monogamy to another, but its expectation that we get along, maintain friendships, share parental duties, and in cases even attend the second and third weddings of our exes. It asks that we pretend that heartbreak is a minor inconvenience that can be overcome with just the right amount of psycholanguage, with just a few repetitions of the mantra for the sake of the children.
”
”
Elizabeth Wurtzel (Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America)
“
And then it was Taggart who screamed. It was a long, sudden, piercing scream, as if at some sudden sight, though his eyes were staring at space and seemed blankly sightless. The sight he was confronting was within him. The protective walls of emotion, of evasion, of pretense, of semi-thinking and pseudo-words, built up by him through all of his years, had crashed in the span of one moment—the moment when he knew that he wanted Galt to die, knowing fully that his own death would follow. He was suddenly seeing the motive that had directed all the actions of his life. It was not his incommunicable soul or his love for others or his social duty or any of the fraudulent sounds by which he had maintained his self-esteem: it was the lust to destroy whatever was living, for the sake of whatever was not. It was the urge to defy reality by the destruction of every living value, for the sake of proving to himself that he could exist in defiance of reality and would never have to be bound by any solid, immutable facts. A moment ago, he had been able to feel that he hated Galt above all men, that the hatred was proof of Galt’s evil, which he need define no further, that he wanted Galt to be destroyed for the sake of his own survival. Now he knew that he had wanted Galt’s destruction at the price of his own destruction to follow, he knew that he had never wanted to survive, he knew that it was Galt’s greatness he had wanted to torture and destroy—he was seeing it as greatness by his own admission, greatness by the only standard that existed, whether anyone chose to admit it or not: the greatness of a man who was master of reality in a manner no other had equaled.
”
”
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
“
Don’t be too easily convinced that God really wants you to do all sorts of work you needn’t do. Each must do his duty “in that state of life to which God has called him.” Remember that a belief in the virtues of doing for doing’s sake is characteristically feminine, characteristically American, and characteristically modern: so that three veils may divide you from the correct view! There can be intemperance in work just as in drink. What feels like zeal may be only fidgets or even the flattering of one’s self importance. . . . By doing what “one’s station and its duties” does not demand, one can make oneself less fit for the duties it does demand and so commit some injustice. Just you give Mary a little chance as well as Martha.
”
”
Gordon MacDonald (Ordering Your Private World)
“
For God’s sake, you’re not some hulking Quasimodo. You’re a very attractive man with an impressive scar. That’s it. Okay?
”
”
Lily Gold (Triple-Duty Bodyguards)
“
For God’s sake, can I please just go inside? I’ll take my chances with dying, at this point. X could sneak in through the window and slit my throat in my sleep, and it would be the highlight of my fucking day.
”
”
Lily Gold (Triple-Duty Bodyguards)
“
Rama and Sita’s final separation, after she is asked to prove herself again (this time for the people of Ayodhya) is at Sita’s initiative. She disappears into the Earth without even a glance at the man she has loved and it is Rama who is left alone, abandoned to his public life and duties. At the very end of the story, we are left with the man—hero, husband, king, divine reflection—and his emptiness. Glorious Rama, destined for greatness and success from birth, ends up alone and lonely—that should be enough reason for us to read the text anew. For our sake, and not his.
”
”
Namita Gokhale (In Search Of Sita: Revisiting Mythology)
“
The first duty of liberality (dana) which demands that a ruler should contribute generously towards the welfare of the people makes the tacit assumption that a government should have the competence to provide adequately for its citizens. In the context of modern politics, one of the prime duties of a responsible administration would be to ensure the economic security of the state. Morality (sila) in traditional Buddhist terms is based on the observance of the five precepts, which entails refraining from destruction of life, theft, adultery, falsehood and indulgence in intoxicants. The ruler must bear a high moral character to win the respect and trust of the people, to ensure their happiness and prosperity and to provide a proper example. When the king does not observe the dhamma, state functionaries become corrupt, and when state functionaries are corrupt the people are caused much suffering. It is further believed that an unrighteous king brings down calamity on the land. The root of a nation’s misfortunes has to be sought in the moral failings of the government. The third duty, paricagga, is sometimes translated as generosity and sometimes as self-sacrifice. The former would constitute a duplication of the first duty, dana, so self-sacrifice as the ultimate generosity which gives up all for the sake of the people would appear the more satisfactory interpretation. The concept of selfless public service is sometimes illustrated by the story of the hermit Sumedha who took the vow of Buddhahood. In so doing he who could have realized the supreme liberation of nirvana in a single lifetime committed himself to countless incarnations that he might help other beings free themselves from suffering.
”
”
Aung San Suu Kyi (Freedom from Fear: And Other Writings)
“
But at this point an objection is frequently raised.
The "otherworldliness" of Christianity is objected to as a form of selfishness.
The Christian, it is said, does what is right because of the hope of heaven, but
how much nobler is the man who because of duty walks boldly into the darkness of
annihilation! The objection would have some wight if heaven according to
Christian belief were mere enjoyment. But as a matter of fact heaven is
communion with God and with his Christ. it can be said reverently that the
Christian longs for heaven not only for his own sake, but also for the sake of
God. Our present love is so cold, our present service is so weak; and we would
one day love and serve Him as His love deserves.. it is perfectly true that the
christian is dissatisfied with the present world, but it is a holy
dissatisfaction; it is that hunger and thirst after righteousness which our
Savior blessed. We are separated from the Savior now by the veil of sense and
by the effects of sin, and it is not selfish to long to see Him face to face.
”
”
J. Gresham Machen
“
But at this point an objection is frequently raised.
The "otherworldliness" of Christianity is objected to as a form of self-ishness.
The Christian, it is said, does what is right because of the hope of heaven, but
how much nobler is the man who because of duty walks boldy into the darkness of
annihilation! The objection would have some wight if heaven according to
Christian belif were mere enjoyment. But as a matter of fact heaven is
communion with God and with his Christ. it can be said reverently that the
Christian longs for heaven not only for his own sake, but also for the sake of
God. Our present love is so cold, our present service is so weak; and we would
one day love and serve Him as His love deserves.. it is perfecly true that the
chirstian is dissatisfied with the present world, but it is a holy
dissatisfaction; it is that hunger and thirst after rightousness which our
Savior blessed. We are separated from the Savior now by the veil of sense and
by the effects of sin, and it is not selfish to long to see Him face to face.
”
”
J. Gresham Machen
“
Slogon:
A Call For The Overthrow Of The World Government! 666
I, Compton Gage, CALL on world believers of righteousness to wage 'all-out war' on the World Government, the infidels...
Jihad is obligatory, not only for the Muslims!
All world believers of righteousness are required to pladge allegiance to Allah!
World believers of righteousness must fight the enemies of Allah through uncompromising...
I urge the believers to fight; if there be of you twenty steadfast, they shall overcome two hundred; and if there be of you a hundred, they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve-
O you who believe, fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you and let them find firmness in you. And know that Allah is with those who keep their duty.
Behold, if you are in doubt as to my religion, (know that) I serve not those whom you werve besides Allah, but I serve Allah who causes you to die; and I am commanded to be of the believers-
Seest thou not those who change Allah's favour for disbelief and make their people to alight in the abode of perdition-
And those who flee for Allah's sake after they are oppressed, We shall certainly give them a good abode in the world; and the reward of the Hereafter is much greater...
And on the day when We raise up a witness out of every nation, then permission (to offer excuse) will not be allowed to make amends.
I exhort you only to one thing, that you rise up for Allah's sake by twos and simply; then ponder! There is no madness in your companion. He is only a warner to you before a severe chastisement.
We have adorned the lower heaven with an adornment, the star- They cannot listen to the exalted assembly and they are reproached from every side.
And whoever turns himself away from remembrance of the Beneficent, We appoint for him a devil so he is his associate.
They are times appointed for men, and (for) the pilgrimage. And it is not righteousness that you enter the house by their backs but he is righteous who keeps his duty. And go into the houses by their doors; and keep your duty to Allah, that you may be successful.
And fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you but be not aggressive. Surely Allah loves not the aggressors.
Fight not with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it; So if they fight you (in it), slay them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.
And fight them until there is no persecution, religion is only for Allah. But if they desist, then there should be no hostility except against the oppressors.
Death, man must face...
... death does not bring the life of a man to an end; it only opens the door to a higher form of life.
Just as from dust is evolved the man, from the deeds which he does is evolved the higher man.
Fear thou not; for I am with thee; be not dismayed; for I am thy...! I will strengthen thee; yea; I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteouness; Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be confounded; they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish...
And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this!
I give unto you power to tread on evil and over all the power of the devil, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
I come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
A Call For The Overthrow Of The World Government!
Kill Them All!
Compton Gage
”
”
COMPTON GAGE
“
Compton Gage
666
Open Letter!
Slogon:
A Call For The Overthrow Of The World Government!
I, Compton Gage, CALL on world believers of righteousness to wage 'all-out war' on the World Government, the infidels...
Jihad is obligatory, not only for the Muslims!
All world believers of righteousness are required to pledge allegiance to Allah!
World believers of righteousness must fight the enemies of Allah through uncompromising...
I urge the believers to fight; if there be of you twenty steadfast, they shall overcome two hundred; and if there be of you a hundred, they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve-
O you who believe, fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you and let them find firmness in you. And know that Allah is with those who keep their duty.
Behold, if you are in doubt as to my religion, (know that) I serve not those whom you werve besides Allah, but I serve Allah who causes you to die; and I am commanded to be of the believers-
Seest thou not those who change Allah's favour for disbelief and make their people to alight in the abode of perdition-
And those who flee for Allah's sake after they are oppressed, We shall certainly give them a good abode in the world; and the reward of the Hereafter is much greater...
And on the day when We raise up a witness out of every nation, then permission (to offer excuse) will not be allowed to make amends.
I exhort you only to one thing, that you rise up for Allah's sake by twos and simply; then ponder! There is no madness in your companion. He is only a warner to you before a severe chastisement.
We have adorned the lower heaven with an adornment, the star- They cannot listen to the exalted assembly and they are reproached from every side.
And whoever turns himself away from remembrance of the Beneficent, We appoint for him a devil so he is his associate.
They are times appointed for men, and (for) the pilgrimage. And it is not righteousness that you enter the house by their backs but he is righteous who keeps his duty. And go into the houses by their doors; and keep your duty to Allah, that you may be successful.
And fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you but be not aggressive. Surely Allah loves not the aggressors.
Fight not with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it; So if they fight you (in it), slay them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.
And fight them until there is no persecution, religion is only for Allah. But if they desist, then there should be no hostility except against the oppressors.
Death, man must face...
... death does not bring the life of a man to an end; it only opens the door to a higher form of life.
Just as from dust is evolved the man, from the deeds which he does is evolved the higher man.
Fear thou not; for I am with thee; be not dismayed; for I am thy...! I will strengthen thee; yea; I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteouness; Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be confounded; they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish...
And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this!
I give unto you power to tread on evil and over all the power of the devil, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
I come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
A Call For The Overthrow Of The World Government!
Kill Them All!
Compton Gage
”
”
COMPTON GAGE
“
Compton Gage
666
Open Letter!
Slogon:
A Call For The Overthrow Of The World Government!
I, Compton Gage, CALL on world believers of righteousness to wage 'all-out war' on the World Government, the infidels...
Jihad is obligatory, not only for the Muslims!
All world believers of righteousness are required to pledge allegiance to Allah!
World believers of righteousness must fight the enemies of Allah through uncompromising...
I urge the believers to fight; if there be of you twenty steadfast, they shall overcome two hundred; and if there be of you a hundred, they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve-
O you who believe, fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you and let them find firmness in you. And know that Allah is with those who keep their duty.
Behold, if you are in doubt as to my religion, (know that) I serve not those whom you serve besides Allah, but I serve Allah who causes you to die; and I am commanded to be of the believers-
Seest thou not those who change Allah's favour for disbelief and make their people to alight in the abode of perdition-
And those who flee for Allah's sake after they are oppressed, We shall certainly give them a good abode in the world; and the reward of the Hereafter is much greater...
And on the day when We raise up a witness out of every nation, then permission (to offer excuse) will not be allowed to make amends.
I exhort you only to one thing, that you rise up for Allah's sake by twos and simply; then ponder! There is no madness in your companion. He is only a warner to you before a severe chastisement.
We have adorned the lower heaven with an adornment, the star- They cannot listen to the exalted assembly and they are reproached from every side.
And whoever turns himself away from remembrance of the Beneficent, We appoint for him a devil so he is his associate.
They are times appointed for men, and (for) the pilgrimage. And it is not righteousness that you enter the house by their backs but he is righteous who keeps his duty. And go into the houses by their doors; and keep your duty to Allah, that you may be successful.
And fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you but be not aggressive. Surely Allah loves not the aggressors.
Fight not with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it; So if they fight you (in it), slay them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.
And fight them until there is no persecution, religion is only for Allah. But if they desist, then there should be no hostility except against the oppressors.
Death, man must face...
... death does not bring the life of a man to an end; it only opens the door to a higher form of life.
Just as from dust is evolved the man, from the deeds which he does is evolved the higher man.
Fear thou not; for I am with thee; be not dismayed; for I am thy...! I will strengthen thee; yea; I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteouness; Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be confounded; they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish...
And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this!
I give unto you power to tread on evil and over all the power of the devil, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
I come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
A Call For The Overthrow Of The World Government!
Kill Them All!
Compton Gage
”
”
COMPTON GAGE
“
No matter the age, desertions of duty, large and small, happen for the avid gamer: skipping class, dodging chores, neglecting family or even neglecting other pleasures (good food, outdoors, reading books)–all for the sake of “more.” Honest gamers know this nearly invisible line that separates “escape” and “desertion.” And they also know that on the far side of escape, the pleasures of play are often greatly diminished. “More play” does not always render “more pleasure.
”
”
Jonathan L. Walls (The Legend of Zelda and Theology)
“
That a mother should wish to see her daughters happily married, is natural and proper; that a young lady should be pleased with polite attentions is likewise natural and innocent; but this undue anxiety, this foolish excitement about showing off the attentions of somebody, no matter whom, is attended with consequences seriously injurious. It promotes envy and rivalship; it leads our young girls to spend their time between the public streets, the ball room, and the toilet; and, worst of all, it leads them to contract engagements, without any knowledge of their own hearts, merely for the sake of being married as soon as their companions. When married, they find themselves ignorant of the important duties of domestic life; and its quiet pleasures soon grow tiresome to minds worn out by frivolous excitements. If they remain unmarried, their disappointment and discontent are, of course, in proportion to their exaggerated idea of the eclat attendant upon having a lover. The evil increases in a startling ratio; for these girls, so injudiciously educated, will, nine times out of ten, make injudicious mothers, aunts, and friends;
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Lydia Maria Child (The American Frugal Housewife)
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I maintain that if the discoveries of Kepler and Newton could not have been made known except by sacrificing the lives of one, a dozen, a hundred, or more men, Newton would have had the right, would indeed have been in duty bound … to eliminate the dozen or the hundred men for the sake of making his discoveries known to the whole of humanity. But it does not follow from that that Newton had a right to murder people right and left and to steal every day in the market. Then, I remember, I maintain in my article that all … well, legislators and leaders of men, such as Lycurgus, Solon, Mahomet, Napoleon, and so on, were all without exception criminals, from the very fact that, making a new law, they transgressed the ancient one, handed down from their ancestors and held sacred by the people, and they did not stop short at bloodshed either, if that bloodshed – often of innocent persons fighting bravely in defence of ancient law – were of use to their cause. It’s remarkable, in fact, that the majority, indeed, of these benefactors and leaders of humanity were guilty of terrible carnage. In short, I maintain that all great men or even men a little out of the common, that is to say capable of giving some new word, must from their very nature be criminals – more or less, of course. Otherwise it’s hard for them to get out of the common rut; and to remain in the common rut is what they can’t submit to, from their very nature again, and to my mind they ought not, indeed, to submit to it. You see that there is nothing particularly new in all that. The same thing has been printed and read a thousand times before. As
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Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
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There are, of course, innumerable subdivisions, but the distinguishing features of both categories are fairly well marked. The first category, generally speaking, are men conservative in temperament and law-abiding; they live under control and love to be controlled. To my thinking it is their duty to be controlled, because that’s their vocation, and there is nothing humiliating in it for them. The second category all transgress the law; they are destroyers or disposed to destruction according to their capacities. The crimes of these men are of course relative and varied; for the most part they seek in very varied ways the destruction of the present for the sake of the better. But if such a one is forced for the sake of his idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I maintain, find himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading through blood – that depends on the idea and its dimensions, note that. It’s only in that sense I speak of their right to crime in my article (you remember it began with the legal question). There’s no need for much anxiety, however; the masses will scarcely ever admit this right; they punish them or hang them (more or less), and in doing so fulfil quite justly their conservative vocation. But the same masses set these criminals on a pedestal in the next generation and worship them (more or less). The first category is always the man of the present, the second the man of the future. The first preserve the world and people it, the second move the world and lead it to its goal. Each class has an equal right to exist. In
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Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
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Once, you believed it was ‘only a compromise’: you conceded it was evil to live for yourself, but moral to live for the sake of your children. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your children, but moral to live for your community. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your community, but moral to live for your country. Now, you are letting this greatest of countries be devoured by any scum from any corner of the earth, while you concede that it is selfish to live for your country and that your moral duty is to live for the globe. A man who has no right to life, has no right to values and will not keep them.
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Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
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According to the Gita, the deeds that are done solely for the sake of self fetter our soul; the disinterested action, performed for the sake of the giving up of self, is the true sacrifice. For creation itself comes of the self-sacrifice of Brahma, which has no other purpose; and therefore, in our performance of the duty which is self-sacrificing, we realize the spirit of Brahma.
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Rabindranath Tagore (The Religion of Man)
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I, *** CALL on world believers of righteousness to wage 'all-out war' on the World Government, the infidels...
Jihad is obligatory, not only for the Muslims!
All world believers of righteousness are required to pledge allegiance to Allah!
World believers of righteousness must fight the enemies of Allah through uncompromising...
I urge the believers to fight; if there be of you twenty steadfast, they shall overcome two hundred; and if there be of you a hundred, they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve-
O you who believe, fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you and let them find firmness in you. And know that Allah is with those who keep their duty.
Behold, if you are in doubt as to my religion, (know that) I serve not those whom you serve besides Allah, but I serve Allah who causes you to die; and I am commanded to be of the believers-
Seest thou not those who change Allah's favour for disbelief and make their people to alight in the abode of perdition-
And those who flee for Allah's sake after they are oppressed, We shall certainly give them a good abode in the world; and the reward of the Hereafter is much greater...
And on the day when We raise up a witness out of every nation, then permission (to offer excuse) will not be allowed to make amends.
I exhort you only to one thing, that you rise up for Allah's sake by twos and simply; then ponder! There is no madness in your companion. He is only a warner to you before a severe chastisement.
We have adorned the lower heaven with an adornment, the star- They cannot listen to the exalted assembly and they are reproached from every side.
And whoever turns himself away from remembrance of the Beneficent, We appoint for him a devil so he is his associate.
They are times appointed for men, and (for) the pilgrimage. And it is not righteousness that you enter the house by their backs but he is righteous who keeps his duty. And go into the houses by their doors; and keep your duty to Allah, that you may be successful.
And fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you but be not aggressive. Surely Allah loves not the aggressors.
Fight not with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it; So if they fight you (in it), slay them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.
And fight them until there is no persecution, religion is only for Allah. But if they desist, then there should be no hostility except against the oppressors.
Death, man must face...
... death does not bring the life of a man to an end; it only opens the door to a higher form of life.
Just as from dust is evolved the man, from the deeds which he does is evolved the higher man.
Fear thou not; for I am with thee; be not dismayed; for I am thy...! I will strengthen thee; yea; I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteouness; Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be confounded; they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish...
And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this!
I give unto you power to tread on evil and over all the power of the devil, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
I come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
A Call For The Overthrow Of The World Government!
Kill Them All!
COMPTON 6:66
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COMPTON GAGE
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In the religious life it is possible to commit an analogous error, and to prize so unwisely peaceful hours of communion, as to waive imperative duty for the sake of them; like Peter with his "Let us make here three tabernacles," while there were devil-ridden sufferers waiting to be healed down on the plain. Moments of devotion, which do not prepare for hours of practical righteousness, are very untrustworthy. But, on the other hand, the paths of righteousness will not be trodden by those who have known nothing of the green pastures and waters where the wearied can rest.
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Alexander MacLaren (Expositions of Holy Scripture Psalms)
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I am a debtor to everyone on the face of the earth because of the gospel of Jesus; I am free only that I may be an absolute bondservant of His.” That is the characteristic of a Christian’s life once this level of spiritual honor and duty becomes real. Quit praying about yourself and spend your life for the sake of others as the bondservant of Jesus. That is the true meaning of being broken bread and poured-out wine in real life.
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Oswald Chambers (My Utmost for His Highest)
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YOUR lack of control is not due to the big burdens, but to your permitting the little frets and cares and burdens to accumulate. If anything vex you, deal with that and get that righted with Me before you allow yourself to speak to, or meet anybody, or to undertake any new duty. Look upon yourself more as performing My errands, and coming back quickly to Me to tell Me that message is delivered, that task done. Then, with no feeling of responsibility as to result (your only responsibility was to see the duty done), go out again, rejoicing at still more to do for My Sake.
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A.J. Russell (God Calling)
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Lemat's agent says to him: y duty to you, first and foremost, is make sure you have a career, a prosperous one. I know authors always want to pander to their more artistic leanings, but this is a business after all. You have to do something to pay the bills so you can keep on writing. If you wanted to be an author just for the sake of expressing your thoughts, you could have done that by staying self-published, am I correct? but that's not what you wanted. That's not why you penned Killing Jesus. You wanted to get out there and swim in a bigger pond, didn't you? Well, here you are. Welcome to the blooming ocean.
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Henry Mosquera
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My duty to you, first and foremost, is make sure you have a career, a prosperous one. I know authors always want to pander to their more artistic leanings, but this is a business after all. You have to do something to pay the bills so you can keep on writing. If you wanted to be an author just for the sake of expressing your thoughts, you could have done that by staying self-published, am I correct? but that's not what you wanted. That's not why you penned Killing Jesus. You wanted to get out there and swim in a bigger pond, didn't you? Well, here you are. Welcome to the blooming ocean.
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Henry Mosquera (Status Quo)
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"Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! To all the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name". Do not then (concludes the Stoic) take good words in your mouth, and prate before applauding citizens of honour, duty, and so forth, while you make your private lives a mere selfish calculation of expediency. We were surely born for nobler ends than this, and none who is worthy the name of a man would subscribe to doctrines which destroy all honour and all chivalry. The heroes of old time won their immortality not by weighing pleasures and pains in the balance, but by being prodigal of their lives, doing and enduring all things for the sake of their fellow-men.
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William Lucas Collins (Cicero Ancient Classics for English Readers)
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Father was a strict disciplinarian to his children in their early years, but his attitude toward himself was truly Spartan. He never visited the theater, for instance, but sought his recreation in various spiritual practices and in reading the bhagavad gita. Shunning all luxuries, he would cling to one old pair of shoes until they were useless. His sons bought automobiles after they came into popular use, but Father was always content with the trolley car for his daily ride to the office. The accumulation of money for the sake of power was alien to his nature. Once, after organizing the Calcutta Urban Bank, he refused to benefit himself by holding any of its shares. He had simply wished to perform a civic duty in his spare time.
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Paramahansa Yogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi)
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When all our hopes are gone, It is best our hands keep toiling on For others’ sake: For strength to bear is found in duty done; And he is best indeed who learns to make The joy of others cure his own heartache.
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Lettie B. Cowman (Streams in the Desert: 366 Daily Devotional Readings)
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Hospitality, as with all the mountain tribes, was - and is still - a most sacred duty; and the man who would slay a chance-met traveller without pity or remorse for the sake of trifling gain, would lay down his life for the very same individual were he to cross his threshold as even an unbidden guest.
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John F. Baddeley
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The teachings of Buddhism which delve into the various causes of suffering identify greed or lust – the passion for indulging an intemperate appetite – as the first of the Ten Impurities2 which stand in the way of a tranquil, wholesome state of mind. On the other hand, much value is attached to liberality or generosity, which heads such lists as the Ten Perfections of the Buddha,3 the Ten Virtues4 which should be practised and the Ten Duties of Kings.5 This emphasis on liberality should not be regarded as a facile endorsement of alms-giving based on canny calculation of possible benefits in the way of worldly prestige or other-worldly rewards. It is a recognition of the crucial importance of the liberal, generous spirit as an effective antidote to greed as well as a fount of virtues which engender happiness and harmony. The late Sayadaw Ashin Janaka Bivamsa of the famous Mahagandharun monastery at Amarapura taught that liberality without morality cannot really be pure. An act of charity committed for the sake of earning praise or prestige or a place in a heavenly abode, he held to be tantamount to an act of greed. Loving
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Aung San Suu Kyi (Freedom from Fear: And Other Writings)
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MARCH 10 SUGGESTED READING: ISAIAH 30:18–21 … This is the way, walk ye in it … (Isa. 30:21). We cannot grow into entire sanctification; but after we attain this experience, we must grow into all the fullness of Christ. We are not saved and filled with the Holy Spirit to do any special work, but simply to let God work through us. Oh, we are so desperately concerned about erecting the scaffolding in our lives to build a great work! When God begins to remove it—the scaffolding of our works, etc.—we begin to totter. And when our scaffolding falls, and we are sitting among the ruins, the Holy Spirit whispers, “That was not my staff, upon which you should rest. So I am removing it. You are the work I am after, not your little works. I want you where I can work through you.” For God’s sake, let Him do what He likes with you. PRAYER THOUGHT: Help me, God, never to hesitate to embark on the path of duty You set before me to journey.
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Oswald Chambers (Devotions for a Deeper Life)
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A society of prohibition requires all its members to sacrifice their individual, private ways of obtaining enjoyment for the sake of the social order as a whole. That is to say, one receives an identity from society in exchange for one’s immediate access to enjoyment, which one must give up. This is, traditionally, the way in which society as such functions. This type of society operates in the manner of a sports team: the team demands individual sacrifices in order to ensure the team’s success. In order for the team to win, the individual must give up her or his dreams of wholly individual achievement and fit her or his abilities into the structure of the team. In a society of commanded enjoyment, this dynamic changes dramatically. Rather than demanding that its members give up their individual enjoyment for the sake of the whole, the society of enjoyment commands their enjoyment—private enjoyment becomes of paramount importance—and the importance of the social order as a whole seems to recede. Contemporary complaints about sports stars who are more concerned about individual statistics and money than about their team’s fortunes are indicative of this transformation. These sports stars are not simply anomalous narcissists. In the society of enjoyment, individual, private accomplishments and rewards are more important than the success of the team. In such a society, it is no longer requisite that subjects accept a constant dissatisfaction as the price for existing within a social order. To return to the example of the sports team, one can remain a member of the team without having to subordinate one’s own individual agenda to the larger plans of the team. Dissatisfaction now appears as something that one need not experience, in contrast to life in the society of prohibition, where dissatisfaction inheres in the very fabric of social existence itself. In the society of enjoyment, the private enjoyment that threatened the stability of the society of prohibition becomes a stabilizing force and even acquires the status of a duty.
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Todd McGowan (The End of Dissatisfaction: Jacques Lacan and the Emerging Society of Enjoyment (Psychoanalysis and Culture))
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[M]an is the head of a woman in exactly the same way that Christ is the head of the Church.' Ephesians Chapter 5, Verse 23. The husband is to sacrifice himself for the wife. He was the head by dying, sacrificing Himself and pouring put His blood. The headship is based on self-forgetfulness for the sake of the beloved.
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Fulton J. Sheen (Life Is Worth Living)
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Well, of course, I agree as far as the facts will allow. Wherever the option between losing truth and gaining it is not momentous, we can throw the chance of gaining truth away, and at any rate save ourselves from any chance of believing falsehood, by not making up our minds at all till objective evidence has come. In scientific questions, this is almost always the case; and even in human affairs in general, the need of acting is seldom so urgent that a false belief to act on is better than no belief at all. Law courts, indeed, have to decide on the best evidence attainable for the moment, because a judge's duty is to make law as well as to ascertain it, and (as a learned judge once said to me) few cases are worth spending much time over: the great thing is to have them decided on any acceptable principle, and got out of the way. But in our dealings with objective nature we obviously are recorders, not makers, of the truth; and decisions for the mere sake of deciding promptly and getting on to the next business would be wholly out of place. Throughout the breadth of physical nature facts are what they are quite independently of us, and seldom is there any such hurry about them that the risks of being duped by believing a premature theory need be faced. The questions here are always trivial options, the hypotheses are hardly living (at any rate not living for us spectators), the choice between believing truth or falsehood is seldom forced. The attitude of skeptical balance is therefore the absolutely wise one if we would escape mistakes. What difference, indeed, does it make to most of us whether we have or have not a theory of the Röntgen rays, whether we believe or not in mind-stuff, or have a conviction about the causality of conscious states? It makes no difference. Such options are not forced on us. On every account it is better not to make them, but still keep weighing reasons pro et contra with an indifferent hand.
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William James (The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality)
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But at this point an objection is frequently raised.
The "otherworldliness" of Christianity is objected to as a form of self-ishness. The Christian, it is said, does what is right because of the hope of heaven, but how much nobler is the man who because of duty walks boldy into the darkness of
annihilation! The objection would have some wight if heaven according to Christian belief were mere enjoyment. But as a matter of fact heaven is
communion with God and with his Christ. it can be said reverently that the Christian longs for heaven not only for his own sake, but also for the sake of
God. Our present love is so cold, our present service is so weak; and we would one day love and serve Him as His love deserves.. it is perfectly true that the
christian is dissatisfied with the present world, but it is a holy dissatisfaction; it is that hunger and thirst after righteousness which our Savior blessed. We are separated from the Savior now by the veil of sense and by the effects of sin, and it is not selfish to long to see Him face to face.
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J. Gresham Machen
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But at this point an objection is frequently raised. The ‘otherworldliness’ of Christianity is objected to as a form of selfishness. The Christian, it is said, does what is right because of the hope of heaven, but how much nobler is the man who because of duty walks boldly into the darkness of annihilation!
The objection would have some weight if heaven according to Christian belief were mere enjoyment. But as a matter of fact heaven is communion with God and with His Christ. It can be said reverently that the Christian longs for heaven not only for his own sake, but also for the sake of God. Our present love is so cold, our present service so weak; and we would one day love and serve Him as His love deserves. It is perfectly true that the Christian is dissatisfied with the present world, but it is a holy dissatisfaction; it is that hunger and thirst after righteousness which our Saviour blessed. We are separated from the Saviour now by the veil of sense and by the effects of sin, and it is not selfish to long to see Him face to face.
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J. Gresham Machen
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It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. And here, precisely, lies the mystery. In capitalism, this is precisely what is not supposed to happen. Sure, in the old inefficient Socialist states like the Soviet Union, where employment was considered both a right and a sacred duty, the system made up as many jobs as it had to. (This is why in Soviet department stores it took three clerks to sell a piece of meat.) But, of course, this is the very sort of problem market competition is supposed to fix. According to economic theory, at least, the last thing a profit-seeking firm is going to do is shell out money to workers they don’t really need to employ. Still, somehow, it happens.
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David Graeber (Bullshit Jobs: A Theory)
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His hand brushed against it, for god’s sake. He saw the label as the beam of his flashlight swept across it: MORPHIUM. But he didn’t grab it. If it had said MORPHINE he would have grabbed it in a second. But it said MORPHIUM. And it wasn’t until about thirty seconds later that he realized that this was a fucking German boat and of course the words would all be different and there was about a 99 percent chance that MORPHIUM was, in fact, exactly the same stuff as MORPHINE. When he realized that he planted his feet in the passageway of the darkened U-boat and let out a deep long scream from way down in his gut. With the noise of the waves, no one heard him. Then he continued onwards and carried out his duty, handing over the stethoscope to Waterhouse. He carried out his duty because he is a Marine.
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Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon)
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am convinced that he did that from ‘self-laceration,’from the self-laceration of falsity, for the sake of the charity imposed by duty, as a penance laid on him. For any one to love a man, he must be hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone.
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Fyodor Dostoevsky (Fyodor Dostoyevsky: The Complete Novels)
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Therefore, you have no cause to evade anyone who stands before you and needs your service. Suppose he’s a stranger. The Lord, however, has stamped him with His own mark that’s familiar to you, and for that reason God forbids you to despise your own flesh. Suppose he is contemptible and worthless. The Lord, however, shows him to be one whom He has condescended to decorate with His own image. Suppose you owe him nothing for what he’s done. But God—to whom you know you are obligated because of His many wonderful benefits to you—puts Himself, as it were, in that person’s place. Suppose he is unworthy of even your smallest labors for his sake. But the image of God, according to which this person is commended to you, warrants your giving of yourself and your all. Supposing a man not only deserves nothing good from you, but he has also provoked you with injustices and injuries—even this is not just cause for you to stop embracing him with affection and fulfilling your duties of love to him. He has deserved, you might say, something much different from me. But what has the Lord deserved? When He orders you to forgive that man for whatever sin he has committed against you, He calls you to do so not because that man deserves it, but because God Himself has forgiven you (Luke 17:3–4). This is the only path to achieving that which is not only difficult for, but entirely adverse to, our human nature—that is, loving those who hate us, repaying evil with good, and blessing those who curse us.
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Aaron C. Denlinger (A Little Book on the Christian Life)
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This is why we need a spiritual revolution! The solutions to the global pandemics that face us as a species don’t lie in the halls of government but in every human heart and soul. Jesus asked us to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” The Buddha once said, “Whoever would think, on the basis of a body like this, to exalt himself or disparage another: What is that if not blindness?” The Quran states, “Allah loveth the just dealers.” Baha’u’llah writes, “Let your heart burn with loving-kindness for all who may cross your path.” The Hindu teacher Sri M says, “Love is a many-splendored entity.… You want to give, want to sacrifice your personal convenience for the sake of your beloved.… I plead, please, that we fall in love with humanity as a whole.” In Judaism, tikkun olam refers to the divine prerogative, or a type of aleinu (our duty), toward repairing the world.
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Rainn Wilson (Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution)
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As well as those mortifications known as ‘passive’ – mortifications which present themselves to us without our looking for them – the mortifications that we propose to ourselves (and seek out) are called active mortifications. Amongst these, the mortifications which refer to the control of our internal senses are especially important for our interior progress and for enabling us to achieve purity of heart. These are: mortification of the imagination – avoiding that interior monologue in which fantasy runs wild, by trying to turn it into a dialogue with God, present in our soul in grace. We try to put a restraining check on that tendency of ours to go over and over some little happening in the course of which we have come off badly. No doubt we have felt slighted, and have made much of an injury to our self-esteem, caused to us quite unintentionally. If we don’t apply the brake in time, our conceit and pride will cause us to overbalance until we lose our peace and presence of God. Mortification of the memory – avoiding useless recollections which make us waste time[42] and which could lead us into more serious temptations. Mortification of the intelligence – so as to put it squarely to the business of concentrating on our duty at this moment[43] and, also, on many occasions of surrendering our own judgement so as to live humility and charity with others in a better way. To sum up, we try to get rid of those internal habits that we know we would not like to see in a man or a woman of God.[44] Let us make up our minds to keep close to Our Lord during these days by contemplating his most Sacred Humanity in the vivid and memorable scenes of The Way of the Cross. Let us see how, for our sakes, He walks along the Path of Sorrow. LENT – SATURDAY AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY 4.
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Francisco Fernández-Carvajal (In Conversation with God – Volume 2 Part 1: Lent & Holy Week)
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If you hear in my voice—I don’t know that it is so, but I hope it is—if you hear in my voice any resemblance to a voice that once was sweet music in your ears, weep for it, weep for it! If you touch, in touching my hair, anything that recalls a beloved head that lay on your breast when you were young and free, weep for it, weep for it! If, when I hint to you of a Home that is before us, where I will be true to you with all my duty and with all my faithful service, I bring back the remembrance of a Home long desolate, while your poor heart pined away, weep for it, weep for it!”
She held him closer round the neck and rocked him on her breast like a child.
“If, when I tell you, dearest dear, that your agony is over, and that I have come here to take you from it, and that we go to England to be at peace and at rest, I cause you to think of your useful life laid waste, and of our native France so wicked to you, weep for it, weep for it! And if, when I shall tell you of my name, and of my father who is living, and of my mother who is dead, you learn that I have to kneel to my honoured father, and implore his pardon for having never for his sake striven all day and lain awake and wept all night, because the love of my poor mother hid his torture from me, weep for it, weep for it! Weep for her, then, and for me!
Good gentlemen, thank God! I feel his sacred tears upon my face, and his sobs strike against my heart. O, see! Thank God for us, thank God!
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Charles Dickens
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I am convinced that he did that from 'self-laceration,' from the self-laceration of falsity, for the sake of the charity imposed by duty, as a penance laid on him.
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Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov)
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As for my division of people into ordinary and extraordinary, I acknowledge that it’s somewhat arbitrary, but I don’t insist upon exact numbers. I only believe in my leading idea that men are in general divided by a law of nature into two categories, inferior (ordinary), that is, so to say, material that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men who have the gift or the talent to utter a new word. There are, of course, innumerable sub-divisions, but the distinguishing features of both categories are fairly well marked. The first category, generally speaking, are men conservative in temperament and law-abiding; they live under control and love to be controlled. To my thinking it is their duty to be controlled, because that’s their vocation, and there is nothing humiliating in it for them. The second category all transgress the law; they are destroyers or disposed to destruction according to their capacities. The crimes of these men are of course relative and varied; for the most part they seek in very varied ways the destruction of the present for the sake of the better. But if such a one is forced for the sake of his idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I maintain, find within himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading through blood—that depends on the idea and its dimensions, note that. It’s only in that sense I speak of their right to crime in my article (you remember it began with the legal question). There’s no need for such anxiety, however; the masses will scarcely ever admit this right, they punish them or hang them (more or less), and in doing so fulfil quite justly their conservative vocation. But the same masses set these criminals on a pedestal in the next generation and worship them (more or less). The first category is always the man of the present, the second the man of the future. The first preserve the world and people it, the second move the world and lead it to its goal. Each class has an equal right to exist. In fact, all have equal rights with me—and "vive la guerre éternelle"—till the New Jerusalem, of course!
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Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
“
The Christian life comes to mean nothing more than living in the world and as the world, in being no different from the world, in fact, in being prohibited from being different from the world for the sake of grace. The upshot of it all is that my only duty as a Christian is to leave the world for an hour or so on a Sunday morning and go to church to be assured that my sins are all forgiven. I need no longer try to follow Christ, for cheap grace, the bitterest foe of discipleship, which true discipleship must loathe and detest, has freed me from that. Grace as the data for our calculations means grace at the cheapest price, but grace as the answer to the sum means costly grace. It is terrifying to realize what use can be made of a genuine evangelical doctrine. In both cases we have the identical formula—“justification by faith alone.” Yet the misuse of the formula leads to the complete destruction of its very essence.
”
”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship)
“
Escape from the world was the counterpoise in monastic and partly even in clerical orders, which emphasized holiness in the center of the Church in order to wink the more lightly at worldly excesses without. As a natural result the world corrupted the Church, and by its dominion over the world the Church proved an obstacle to every free development of its life. Thus making its appearance in a dualistic social state, Calvinism has wrought an entire change in the world of thoughts and conceptions. In this also, placing itself before the face of God, it has not only honored man for the sake of his likeness to the Divine image, but also the world as a Divine creation, and has at once placed to the front the great principle that there is a particular grace which works Salvation, and also a common grace by which God, maintaining the life of the world, relaxes the curse which rests upon it, arrests its process of corruption, and thus allows the untrammelled development of our life in which to glorify Himself as Creator. Thus the Church receded in order to be neither more nor less than the congregation of believers, and in every department the life of the world was not emancipated from God, but from the dominion of the Church. Thus domestic life regained its independence, trade and commerce realized their strength in liberty, art and science were set free from every ecclesiastical bond and restored to their
own inspirations, and man began to understand the subjection of all nature with its hidden forces and treasures to himself as
a holy duty, imposed upon him by the original ordinances of Paradise : 'Have dominion over them.' Henceforth the curse should no longer rest upon the world itself, but upon that which is sinful in it, and instead of monastic flight from the world the duty is now emphasized of serving God in the world, in every position in life. To praise God in the Church and serve Him in the world became the inspiring impulse, and, in the Church,
strength was to be gathered by which to resist temptation and sin in the world.
”
”
Abraham Kuyper (Lectures on Calvinism)
“
Escape from the world was the counterpoise in monastic and partly even in clerical orders, which emphasized holiness in the center of the Church in order to wink the more lightly at worldly excesses without. As a natural result the world corrupted the Church, and by its dominion over the world the Church proved an obstacle to every free development of its life. Thus making its appearance in a dualistic social state, Calvinism has wrought an entire change in the world of thoughts and conceptions. In this also, placing itself before the face of God, it has not only honored man for the sake of his likeness to the Divine image, but also the world as a Divine creation, and has at once placed to the front the great principle that there is a particular grace which works Salvation, and also a common grace by which God, maintaining the life of the world, relaxes the curse which rests upon it, arrests its process of corruption, and thus allows the untrammelled development of our life in which to glorify Himself as Creator. Thus the Church receded in order to be neither more nor less than the congregation of believers, and in every department the life of the world was not emancipated from God, but from the dominion of the Church. Thus domestic life regained its independence, trade and commerce realized their strength in liberty, art and science were set free from every ecclesiastical bond and restored to their
own inspirations, and man began to understand the subjection of all nature with its hidden forces and treasures to himself as
a holy duty, imposed upon him by the original ordinances of Paradise : 'Have dominion over them.' Henceforth the curse should no longer rest upon the world itself, but upon that which is sinful in it, and instead of monastic flight from the world the duty is now emphasized of serving God in the world, in every position in life. To praise God in the Church and serve Him in the world became the inspiring impulse, and, in the Church, strength was to be gathered by which to resist temptation and sin in the world.
”
”
Abraham Kuyper (Lectures on Calvinism)
“
Escape from the world was the counterpoise in monastic and partly even in clerical orders, which emphasized holiness in the center of the Church in order to wink the more lightly at worldly excesses without. As a natural result the world corrupted the Church, and by its dominion over the world the Church proved an obstacle to every free development of its life. Thus making its appearance in a dualistic social state, Calvinism has wrought an entire change in the world of thoughts and conceptions. In this also, placing itself before the face of God, it has not only honored man for the sake of his likeness to the Divine image, but also the world as a Divine creation, and has at once placed to the front the great principle that there is a particular grace which works Salvation, and also a common grace by which God, maintaining the life of the world, relaxes the curse which rests upon it, arrests its process of corruption, and thus allows the untrammelled development of our life in which to glorify Himself as Creator. Thus the Church receded in order to be neither more nor less than the congregation of believers, and in every department the life of the world was not emancipated from God, but from the dominion of the Church. Thus domestic life regained its independence, trade and commerce realized their strength in liberty, art and science were set free from every ecclesiastical bond and restored to their own inspirations, and man began to understand the subjection of all nature with its hidden forces and treasures to himself as a holy duty, imposed upon him by the original ordinances of Paradise : 'Have dominion over them.' Henceforth the curse should no longer rest upon the world itself, but upon that which is sinful in it, and instead of monastic flight from the world the duty is now emphasized of serving God in the world, in every position in life. To praise God in the Church and serve Him in the world became the inspiring impulse, and, in the Church, strength was to be gathered by which to resist temptation and sin in the world.
”
”
Abraham Kuyper (Lectures on Calvinism)
“
from the self-laceration of falsity, for the sake of the charity imposed by duty, as a penance laid on him. For anyone to love a man, he must be hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov)
“
The love that had torn my heart apart when I left them for Switzerland had gradually turned into a sense of duty. I found myself thinking of them more as a beacon, a guiding light pushing me toward success, than parents with whom, as their child, I shared an emotional bond. Only in moments of doubt did their wisdom echo in my mind, urging me to persevere. Their sacrifices, the hurdles they had overcome for my sake, had become a weight I bore and a guilt that propelled me forward
”
”
Alieza Mogadam (Escaped at Thirteen: The True Story of a War Child's Rise to Success)
“
Gregori’s silver eyes moved over both women, then settled on Shea. “The child must be protected. It is no use appealing to Raven for logic, as she has none, and Mikhail is so besotted with her that he does not see his first duty, so it is up to you. For the sake of all of us, you must protect this child. Do you understand?”
Shea felt ensnared by those molten eyes. She might not fully comprehend his reasons, but she felt his genuine urgency. She nodded. “I’ll watch over her, healer.”
“It is not for my sake only, but for humans and Carpathians alike. This child must live, Shea,” he reiterated. “She must.”
Shea clearly felt the warning, the plea from his otherwise damned soul. This child was his only hope. For the first time she believed he was not the vampire, that his fear of turning was great, the child his only chance of survival. She nodded, meeting his eyes steadily so that he could see she comprehended the dangers.
Out of respect for her, Gregori, too, walked into the forest out of Shea’s sight before shape-shifting and loping away toward the ruins of Jacques’ old home.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Desire (Dark, #2))
“
The Framework of Life Deuteronomy 6:2 “Thus for the sake of Christ and his coming, natural life must be lived within the framework of certain definite rights and certain definite duties.” —ETHICS The Christian’s concern should never only be for the church and for God’s future kingdom, but also for natural life and the world. Our concerns should include good government, equal opportunity, justice, values that ennoble the human person, as well as concerns for our environment and the world’s resources. These concerns are not secular. Rather they are deeply spiritual, for without a sustainable world and cultural values based on freedom and justice, the message of God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ would fall into a vacuum. Thought The God of the Bible is Creator as well as Redeemer. He is concerned about this life as much as He is concerned about eternal life.
”
”
Charles R. Ringma (Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional (Designed for Influence))
“
Chapter 15 Grace One morning, after an uneventful sojourn at the bath house. The ward received a rare visit from the Physician Superintendent. He walked into the day room accompanied by the charge nurse just as me and Art were preparing the patients for lunch. “Do you say Grace before meals?” inquired the Superintendent of the charge. “Yes Sir.” The charge was well aware of the hospital rules and snapped almost to attention in reply. His response was true. Our charge, being a stickler for the rule book of the institution, always insisted on saying grace. The order was; “Stand behind your chairs.” Usually bellowed by the deputy although Art and I occasionally got the chance. The seventy odd patients milling round in the dining gallery would stand behind their chairs in absolute silence. Years of institutional living had taught them that meals would only be served after a period of absolute silence, followed by grace. The charge, not leaving his chair, would open his office door and poking his head out would call. “For whayouare aboutorecieve maythelor mayoutruly thankful.” To which the patients would dutifully chorus “Amen” and sit down to eat. On this day the “Big Chief” was present and Art and I could tell things were going to be different. “Stand behind your chairs.” Was said. Nothing happened.—Louder, “Stand behind your chairs.” Nothing.—Art bellowed “Stand behind your chairs.” The effect was electric and the mass moved into its lunchtime position of silence standing behind their chairs in the dining room. The charge had slipped into his long white nursing coat. He was going to assist with lunch. He moved away from the side of the Physician Superintendent and stood in the centre of the dining room. There he adopted a posture which he adjudged spiritually appropriate. Hands clasped in front of him, eyes lowered, he bowed his head. Not wishing to get on the wrong side of our boss. Art and I stood one either side of him and followed suit. Absolute silence reigned. Before the charge could proceed any further with this charade the ward kitchen door opened to reveal Benny and Jimmy. They were two long standing ward worker patients who’s job it was to prepare the plates on the servery ready for the meal. Patients assisting with serving meals was against the “rules” and Benny realising that the Superintendent was present blurted out. “For Christ’s sake shut that bloody door.” Seventy nine patients solemnly responded with “Amen.” and promptly sat down in eager anticipation of their dinner. “I see.” said the Physician Superintendent and walked poker faced from the dining room with the red faced charge trailing in his wake. We never said Grace again after that.
”
”
Gordon M. Kerkham (Random Reflections of a Looney Bin)
“
in most of these cases, integrity and courage were ultimately rewarded professionally. In a perfect world, that should always happen. But sadly, in the real world it does not, and I will not pretend there is no risk. You will, at some point or another, work for a jackass. We all have. That is why speaking up often requires courage. But that does not make taking a stand any less necessary for the sake of our country." Page 467
”
”
Robert M. Gates (Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War)
“
My first kiss. That was my first kiss. And he’s a duke. I just kissed a duke. And I didn’t even see it coming. I’d always imagined this slow-motion, front porch, end-of-the-first-date sort of thing. The anticipation, the nerves. But it was just…sudden and unexpected. This is insane.
“Something wrong?” she says, her hazel eyes soft and expressive, as if I’m about to unload the weight of the world and she’ll gladly bear it all.
“I--I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on with your cousin. Everything he’s done up until now…and then…I just can’t figure out who he is, that’s all.”
She just smiles and waits, like she knows I’ll continue once I figure out what I want to say.
“It’s just…at the dance at the Pommeroy’s, he tried to tell this other titled guy that I wasn’t good enough to dance with. He told the guy he should dance with a lady instead. Like I’m not worthy or something because I’m just some commoner.”
Emily furrows her brow. “That is quite unlike him. I’m sure he meant no harm.”
“But it was just so pompous, and every time I think maybe he deserves a chance or something, I think about it again and realize what a jerk he’s been. Why would he tell Lord Brimmon I’m not good enough?”
Her head snaps around and she looks at me. “’Twas Lord Brimmon?”
I nod and narrow my eyes at Emily’s reaction. “Why does it matter who it was?”
Emily hesitates.
“Tell me,” I say.
“Brimmon’s known as a rake at best and a scoundrel at worst. If Alex was trying to talk him out of dancing with you, it was for the sake of your reputation, not his.”
My jaw drops. Could that be true? Could I have been wrong about him?
Sigh. I’ve gotten nothing right in 1815. Nothing. I’ve been judging him for that comment since the moment he made it.
“So…it had nothing to do with me not being good enough?”
Emily laughs. “Oh, heavens, no. You’re his guest. How could that be true?”
“Oh…But then he was saying he’d dance with me because it was expected. Because I was his guest, he would do it out of duty. He acted like it was a chore.”
Emily looks downright amused. “Harksbury has hosted many guests. Alex danced with precisely one of them: you.”
“Oh.”
I stare down at my hands and try to suppress the urge to grin, but I can’t stop it. It spreads until I’m beaming.
Alex danced with me because he wanted to. Not because he had to.
Is it really possible there’s more to him than I thought?
“Well now I’ve screwed everything up…” I trail off. I don’t think I can admit to the botched kiss moment with Alex. “He’s going to think I’m a total freak.”
She furrows her brow. I don’t know if she’s wondering what’s gone on between Alex and me, or what a freak is. “I am certain he would not think such a thing.”
I wish I could believe her. But I know the truth: there’s no way Alex is ever going to kiss me again.
No matter how much I want it.
”
”
Mandy Hubbard (Prada & Prejudice)
“
We here meet a completely new conception of art; it is no longer a means towards an end, but an end in itself. At its origin, every form of spiritual endeavour is entirely determined by the useful purpose it serves, but such forms have the power and tendency to break free from their original purpose and make themselves independent; they become purposeless and to some extent autonomous. As soon as man feels secure and free from the immediate pressure of the struggle for life, he begins to play with the spiritual resources which he had originally developed as weapons and tools to aid him in his necessity. He begins enquiring into causes, seeking for explanations, researching into connections which have little or nothing to do with his struggle for life. Practical knowledge gives place to free enquiry, means for the mastery of nature become methods for discovering abstract truth. And thus art, originally a mere handmaid of magic and ritual, an instrument of propaganda and panegyric, a means to influence gods, spirits and men, becomes a pure, autonomous, ‘disinterested’ activity to some extent, practised for its own sake and for the beauty it reveals. In the same way, the commands and prohibitions, the duties and taboos, which were originally just expedients to make a common life in society possible, give rise to a doctrine of ethics that sets out to realize and perfect the moral personality. The Greeks were the first people to complete this transition from the instrumental to the ‘autonomous’ form of activity, whether in science, art or morality. Before them there was no free enquiry, no theoretical research, no rational knowledge and no art as we understand art—as an activity whose creations may always be considered and enjoyed as pure forms. This abandonment of the old view that art is only valuable and intelligible as a weapon in the struggle for life, in favour of a new attitude which treats it as mere play of line and colour, mere rhythm and harmony, mere imitation or interpretation of reality—this is the most tremendous change that has ever occurred in the whole history of art.
”
”
Arnold Hauser (The Social History of Art, Volume 1: From Prehistoric Times to the Middle Ages)
“
Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for YOUR sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades,
”
”
George Orwell (1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four), Animal Farm, and over 40 Other Works by George Orwell)
“
Armoured cruiser operations with a fleet of Dreadnoughts (though Jellicoe misguidedly thought otherwise and lost three at Jutland) were now ruled out owing to their near equality in speed. The battle cruisers could have filled these fleet duties if they had not possessed an armament that was bound to tempt a commander in chief to place them in line for the sake of their big guns, risking a hit on their vulnerable vital areas.
”
”
Richard Hough (Dreadnought: A History of the Modern Battleship)
“
In the former, Kant pictured man as a being capable of following a rational moral law, but also liable to be swayed from it by the non-rational desires which have their origin in our physical nature. To act morally is thus always a struggle. Victory is to be won by the suppression of all desires except the feeling of reverence for the moral law, which leads us to do our duty for its own sake.
”
”
Peter Singer (Hegel: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions Book 49))
“
give today’s imperialism its moral force: punitive idealism, free-market absolutism, and right-wing Christian mobilization. The first justified a belligerent diplomacy not just for the sake of national security but to advance “freedom.” The second sanctified property rights and the unencumbered free market as the moral core of the freedom it was America’s duty to export. The third backed up these ideals with social power, as the Republican Party learned how to channel the passions of its evangelical base into the international arena.
”
”
Greg Grandin (Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism (American Empire Project))
“
avoiding useless recollections which make us waste time[42] and which could lead us into more serious temptations. Mortification of the intelligence – so as to put it squarely to the business of concentrating on our duty at this moment[43] and, also, on many occasions of surrendering our own judgement so as to live humility and charity with others in a better way. To sum up, we try to get rid of those internal habits that we know we would not like to see in a man or a woman of God.[44] Let us make up our minds to keep close to Our Lord during these days by contemplating his most Sacred Humanity in the vivid and memorable scenes of The Way of the Cross. Let us see how, for our sakes, He walks along the Path of Sorrow.
”
”
Francisco Fernández-Carvajal (In Conversation with God – Volume 2 Part 1: Lent & Holy Week)
“
Look upon yourself more as performing My errands and coming back quickly to Me to tell Me that message is delivered, that task done. Then with no feeling of responsibility as to result (your only responsibility was to see the duty done) go out again, rejoicing at still more to do for My Sake.
”
”
A.J. Russell (God Calling)
“
And perhaps most important, the evangelicals went to great lengths to offer warnings that the ends cannot justify the means, and that to believe they can is to head down a perilous path that would lead to unintended bad consequences. Thomas More, in Robert Bolt’s play A Man for All Seasons, sums up their position well: “When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.
”
”
Ben Howe (The Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power Over Christian Values)
“
Jacques dropped another kiss on her forehead before he deliberately walked off the porch and into the dense forest, making sure he was out of her sight before his body began to change.
Gregori’s silver eyes moved over both women, then settled on Shea. “The child must be protected. It is no use appealing to Raven for logic, as she has none, and Mikhail is so besotted with her that he does not see his first duty, so it is up to you. For the sake of all of us, you must protect this child. Do you understand?”
Shea felt ensnared by those molten eyes. She might not fully comprehend his reasons, but she felt his genuine urgency. She nodded. “I’ll watch over her, healer.”
“It is not for my sake only, but for humans and Carpathians alike. This child must live, Shea,” he reiterated. “She must.”
Shea clearly felt the warning, the plea from his otherwise damned soul. This child was his only hope. For the first time she believed he was not the vampire, that his fear of turning was great, the child his only chance of survival. She nodded, meeting his eyes steadily so that he could see she comprehended the dangers.
Out of respect for her, Gregori, too walked into the forest out of Shea’s sight before shape-shifting and loping away toward the ruins of Jacque’s old home.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Desire (Dark, #2))
“
Gregori’s silver eyes moved over both women, then settled on Shea. “The child must be protected. It is no use appealing to Raven for logic, as she has none, and Mikhail is so besotted with her that he does not see his first duty, so it is up to you. For the sake of all of us, you must protect this child. Do you understand?”
Shea felt ensnared by those molten eyes. She might not fully comprehend his reasons, but she felt his genuine urgency. She nodded. “I’ll watch over her, healer.”
“It is not for my sake only, but for humans and Carpathians alike. This child must live, Shea,” he reiterated. “She must.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Desire (Dark, #2))
“
Gregori’s silver eyes moved over both women, then settled on Shea. “The child must be protected. It is no use appealing to Raven for logic, as she has none, and Mikhail is so besotted with her that he does not see his first duty, so it is up to you. For the sake of all of us, you must protect this child.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Desire (Dark, #2))
“
The child must be protected. It is no use appealing to Raven for logic, as she has none, and Mikhail is so besotted with her that he does not see his first duty, so it is up to you. For the sake of all of us, you must protect this child. Do you understand?”
Shea felt ensnared by those molten eyes. She might not fully comprehend his reasons, but she felt his genuine urgency. She nodded. “I’ll watch over her, healer.”
“It is not for my sake only, but for humans and Carpathians alike. This child must live, Shea,” he reiterated. “She must.”
Shea clearly felt the warning, the plea from his otherwise damned soul.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Desire (Dark, #2))
“
Do-gooders are different because they are willing to weigh their lives and their families in a balance with the needs of strangers. They are willing to risk the one for the sake of the other. They-like anyone else, believe that they have duties to their families. But they draw the line between family and strangers in a different place. It’s not that they value strangers more. It’s that they remember that strangers have lives and families too.
”
”
Larissa MacFarquhar (Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help)
“
Please.” Slipping her arms around Parker’s waist, Ashley leaned into him, peered up at him. “It’s too horrible out there. I’m scared.”
Parker raised his arms, flexed his muscles. “Fear? Fear is foreign to me!”
“Don’t joke about this! I’m really scared something bad will happen. I just feel it.”
“Ash, nothing bad is going to happen. I’ll be careful, okay? I’ll be safe.”
Miranda suddenly realized she’d been eavesdropping. She hadn’t meant to intrude on their private conversation, yet she’d been watching their faces and hearing every word. An eerie chill had settled at the base of her spine. She felt anxious and restless and afraid.
She glanced at Roo. Roo hadn’t said anything in such a long time, just sitting there holding gage, her head bent over his face. Miranda’s heart reached out to Roo, but her own uneasiness persisted. Something dangerous, something tragic…
Something familiar…
Reluctantly she turned her attention to Ashley and Parker. Though Ashley’s features were pale and drawn, she seemed composed now, even quietly resigned. Parker was squeezing her in a tight hug.
“You better hurry, Parker Wilmington.” Ashley’s voice was muffled against his chest. “Promise me you’ll come back to me.”
Parker rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, sure. I promise.”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight,” Parker echoed dutifully.
“Cross your heart.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Ashley, I said I’d be back, didn’t I? Don’t I always come back? Even when you don’t want me to?
”
”
Richie Tankersley Cusick (Walk of the Spirits (Walk, #1))
“
You better hurry, Parker Wilmington.” Ashley’s voice was muffled against his chest. “Promise me you’ll come back to me.”
Parker rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, sure. I promise.”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight,” Parker echoed dutifully.
“Cross your heart.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Ashley, I said I’d be back, didn’t I? Don’t I always come back? Even when you don’t want me to?”
Miranda’s breath caught in her throat. Fear squeezed in her chest.
It can’t be…it’s impossible.
For she knew now why she’d listened so intently to Ashley and Parker, why their conversation had seemed so familiar…
Oh, God, no…
“Parker,” she whispered.
Starting forward, she saw Ashley and Etienne standing at the edge of the shelter. Ashley was shivering, and Etienne’s arm was around her shoulders. Miranda tried to call out, to shout a warning, to stop Parker from going, but he’d already dashed into the rain; she could already see the beam of his flashlight growing smaller and dimmer, swallowed by the storm.
Yet his words were still here. They lingered in this dark, frightening, abandoned place--the words he’d spoken to Ashley, and the words Ashley had spoken to him.
Prophetic words and fatal words. Words that tore at Miranda’s heart and echoed over and over again in her mind.
The words Nathan and Ellena had spoken…
Right before the end.
”
”
Richie Tankersley Cusick (Walk of the Spirits (Walk, #1))
“
You better hurry, Parker Wilmington.” Ashley’s voice was muffled against his chest. “Promise me you’ll come back to me.”
Parker rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, sure. I promise.”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight,” Parker echoed dutifully.
“Cross your heart.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Ashley, I said I’d be back, didn’t I? Don’t I always come back? Even when you don’t want me to?
”
”
Richie Tankersley Cusick (Walk of the Spirits (Walk, #1))
“
Where should we be if every one had his rights? Fancy every one's having a hand in the government? Can you imagine a city ruled by its citizens? Why, the citizens are the team, and the team cannot be driver. To put to the vote is to throw to the winds. Would you have states driven like clouds? Disorder cannot build up order. With chaos for an architect, the edifice would be a Babel. And, besides, what tyranny is this pretended liberty! As for me, I wish to enjoy myself; not to govern. It is a bore to have to vote; I want to dance. A prince is a providence, and takes care of us all. Truly the king is generous to take so much trouble for our sakes. Besides, he is to the manner born. He knows what it is. It's his business. Peace, War, Legislation, Finance--what have the people to do with such things? Of course the people have to pay; of course the people have to serve; but that should suffice them. They have a place in policy; from them come two essential things, the army and the budget. To be liable to contribute, and to be liable to serve; is not that enough? What more should they want? They are the military and the financial arm. A magnificent rôle. The king reigns for them, and they must reward him accordingly. Taxation and the civil list are the salaries paid by the peoples and earned by the prince. The people give their blood and their money, in return for which they are led. To wish to lead themselves! what an absurd idea! They require a guide; being ignorant, they are blind. Has not the blind man his dog? Only the people have a lion, the king, who consents to act the dog. How kind of him! But why are the people ignorant? because it is good for them. Ignorance is the guardian of Virtue. Where there is no perspective there is no ambition. The ignorant man is in useful darkness, which, suppressing sight, suppresses covetousness: whence innocence. He who reads, thinks; who thinks, reasons. But not to reason is duty; and happiness as well. These truths are incontestable; society is based on them.
”
”
Viktor Hugo
“
Well . . . I believe, when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties . . . they lead their country by a short route to chaos.
-Robert Bolt.
A Man for All Seasons
”
”
Robert Bolt ([(A Man for All Seasons)] [Author: Robert Bolt] published on (March, 1998))
“
She said, It was always me. I had so much fun seeing you. You were the only person who acted like they had to get through the party for duty’s sake, and everyone else was there acting like they’d rather die than be anywhere else. Even your cav pretended she was having fun . . . But there you were, wearing your uniform, freezing me out. Perfect Captain Deuteros. Perfectly boring Judith Deuteros. Mummy said you were just the most completely Second House specimen ever to live. I went over to you when everyone else at the party would have eaten glass to talk to me . . . I had put a lot of effort into making them feel that way. There you were, and you weren’t even grateful. You were immune. You wouldn’t even tell me any good war stories when I’d been researching wars for days just because I knew you were coming. Jody, you can’t die on me. I’m so alone now.
I said, It’s been a long time since you called me that.
”
”
Tamsyn Muir (As Yet Unsent (The Locked Tomb, #2.5))
“
What must poor young women do, whom customs and nature forbid to solicit the men, and who cannot force themselves upon husbands, when the laws take no care to provide them any, and yet severely punish them if they do their duty without them; the duty of the first and great command of nature and nature’s God, encrease and multiply; a duty from the steady performance of which nothing has been able to deter me, but for its sake I have hazarded the loss of the publick esteem, and have frequently endured publick disgrace and punishment; and therefore ought, in my humble opinion, instead of a whipping, to have a statue erected to my memory.
”
”
Howard Zinn (A People's History of the United States)
“
He does not risk their lives and welfare for his sake, but only to answer the shared duty they are called to answer. He will not harm their reputations by his conduct or cause them to suffer shame or any penalty that only he deserves. My father once said, "Some officers get it backwards. They don't understand that we are responsible for our men, not the other way around. That's what forges trust and loyalty."
An officer accepts these and his many other responsibilities with gratitude. They are his honor.
”
”
John McCain (Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir)
“
Trial by fire—for his Sita. For his sake, for his sake alone, did Sita, a woman of dignity, agree to it.
He had thought that he would have no option but to fall at Sita’s feet and beg forgiveness for subjecting her to the ignominy. But Sita understood his situation. She decided to protect him and his worldly and kingly duties. She wanted to assure him that she was there for him.
She hid the seas of humiliation and grief behind her eyelids, and came forth unperturbed like a pot of water and doused the fire.
‘Don’t forgive me, Sita—’ he held back the words behind his lips.
Her lips delicately brushed away those words.
”
”
Volga
“
When there is little prayer that can be answered, the Father is not glorified. It is a duty for the glory of God to live and pray so that our prayer can be answered. For the sake of God's glory, let us learn to pray well.
”
”
Andrew Murray (With Christ in the School of Prayer (Christian Classics))
“
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth, Let's choose executors and talk of wills: And yet not so, for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's, And nothing can we call our own but death And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings; How some have been deposed; some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed; Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd; All murder'd: for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, Allowing him a breath, a little scene, To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks, Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus Comes at the last and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king! Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood With solemn reverence: throw away respect, Tradition, form and ceremonious duty, For you have but mistook me all this while: I live with bread like you, feel want, Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus, How can you say to me, I am a king?
”
”
William Shakespeare (The Complete Works of Shakespeare)
“
I must make you one confession,” Ivan began. “I could never understand how one can love one's neighbors. It's just one's neighbors, to my mind, that one can't love, though one might love those at a distance. I once read somewhere of John the Merciful, a saint, that when a hungry, frozen beggar came to him, he took him into his bed, held him in his arms, and began breathing into his mouth, which was putrid and loathsome from some awful disease. I am convinced that he did that from ‘self-laceration,’ from the self-laceration of falsity, for the sake of the charity imposed by duty, as a penance laid on him. For any one to love a man, he must be hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone.” “Father Zossima has talked of that more than once,” observed Alyosha; “he, too, said that the face of a man often hinders many people not practiced in love, from loving him. But yet there's a great deal of love in mankind, and almost Christ-like love. I know that myself, Ivan.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (The Brothers Karamazov)
“
My Beth.
Sitting patient in the shadow
Till the blessed light shall come,
A serene and saintly presence
Sanctifies our troubled home
Earthly joys, and hope, and sorrows,
Break like ripples on the strand
Of the deep and solemn river
Where her willing feet now stand.
Oh, my sister, passing from me,
Out of human care and strife,
Leave me, as a gift, those virtues
which have beautified your life.
Dear, bequeath me that great patience
Which has power to sustain
A cheerful, uncomplaining spirit
In its prison-house of pain.
Give me, for I need it sorely,
Of that courage, wise and sweet,
Which has made the path of duty
Green beneath your willing feet.
Give me that unselfish nature,
That with charity divine
Can pardon wrong for love's dear sake-
Meek heart, forgive me mine!
Thus our parting daily loseth
Something of its bitter pain,
And while learning this hard lesson,
My great loss becomes gain.
For the touch of grief will render
My wild nature more serene,
Give to life new aspirations-
A new trust in the unseen.
Henceforth, safe across the river,
I shall see forever more
A beloved, household spirit
Waiting for me on the shore.
Hope and faith, born of my sorrow,
Guardian angels shall become,
And the sister gone before me,
By their hands shall lead me home.
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Women (Little Women, #1))