This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.
Man | Obligation | World |
The source of my obligation is the value I place on the relatedness of caring.
Obligation | Value |
Ambrose Redmoon, pen name for James Neil Hollingsworth
Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.
Individual | Obligation | Right |
[Man’s] self-conscious existence as man forces on him a choice of uses for his faculties... This choice is what is called free will. Free will, therefore, not only a prerogative but an obligation for man. Free will thus understood, has nothing to do with destiny. It is a power which man is compelled by his own nature to use, whether the use he makes of it is predestined or not... the responsibility of deciding rests with me just the same whether the outcome is predetermined or not. If it is predetermined, it is my own past habit-forming and character-forming decisions in this and previous lifetimes which have predetermined it; and this decision in its turn will help to condition my mind, thus determining future ones.
Character | Choice | Decision | Destiny | Existence | Free will | Future | Habit | Man | Mind | Nature | Nothing | Obligation | Past | Power | Responsibility | Self | Will |
Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
So far there has been no known human society in which the distinction between right and wrong, and the obligation to do right, have been denied.
Distinction | Obligation | Right | Society | Wrong | Society |
I have no sympathy with the old idea that children owe such immense gratitude to their parents that they can never fulfill their obligations to them. I think the obligation is all on the other side. Parents can never do too much for their children to repay them for the injustice of having brought them into the world, unless they have insured them high moral and intellectual gifts, fine physical health, and enough money and education to render life something more than one careless struggle for necessaries.
Children | Education | Enough | Gratitude | Health | Injustice | Injustice | Life | Life | Money | Obligation | Parents | Struggle | Sympathy | World | Old | Think |
Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
Superpowers have a special obligation not to humiliate each other.
The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.
James Froude, fully James Anthony Froude
Morality rests upon a sense of obligation; and obligation has no meaning except as implying a divine command, without which it would cease to be.
Meaning | Morality | Obligation | Sense |
When you have your own children you will understand your obligation to your parents.
Children | Obligation | Parents | Will | Understand |
Jean Anouilh, fully Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh
Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law.
Law | Obligation | Sacred |
If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time."
Change | Obligation | Time | World |
Twelve Things to Remember: The value of time. The success of perseverance. The pleasure of working. The dignity of simplicity. The worth of character. The power of kindness. The influence of example. The obligation of duty. The wisdom of economy. The virtue of patience. The improvement of talent. The joy of originating.
Character | Dignity | Duty | Example | Improvement | Influence | Joy | Kindness | Obligation | Patience | Perseverance | Pleasure | Power | Simplicity | Success | Time | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Worth | Value |
No one may forsake his neighbor when he is in trouble. Everyone is under obligation to help and support his neighbor as he would himself like to be helped.
Fear guides more to their duty than gratitude; for one man who is virtuous from the love of virtue, from the obligation he thinks he lies under to the Giver of all, there are ten thousand who are good only from their apprehension of punishment.
Duty | Fear | Good | Gratitude | Love | Man | Obligation | Punishment | Virtue | Virtue |
Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach
Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but that mark of a fake messiah.
A tender conscience is a stronger obligation than a prison.
Conscience | Obligation | Prison |
There is one thing diviner than duty, namely, the bond of obligation transmuted into liberty.
Duty | Liberty | Obligation |
David Grayson, pseudonym of Ray Stannard Baker
What a convenient and delightful world is this world of books! - If you bring to it not the obligation of the student, or look upon it as an opiate for idleness, but enter it rather with the enthusiasm of the adventurer!
Books | Enthusiasm | Idleness | Obligation | World |