This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Love is a matter of feeling, not of will or volition and I cannot love because I will to do so, still less because I ought (I cannot be necessitated to love); hence there is no such thing as a duty to love... What is done from constraint is not done from love.
Constraint | Duty | Love | Will |
With the sharpest self-examination we can find nothing beside the moral principle of duty which could have been powerful enough to move us to this or that action and to so great a sacrifice; yet we cannot from this infer with certainty; that it was not really some secret impulse of self-love, under the false appearance of duty, that was the actual determining cause of the will. We like them to flatter ourselves by falsely taking credit for a more noble motive; whereas in fact we can never, even with the strictest examination, get completely behind the secret springs of action.
Action | Appearance | Cause | Credit | Duty | Enough | Impulse | Love | Nothing | Sacrifice | Self | Self-love | Will |
Conscience is not a thing to be acquired, and it is not a duty to acquire it; but every man, as a moral being, has it originally within him.
Conscience | Duty | Man |
An action done from duty derives its moral worth, not from the purpose which is to be attained by it, but from the maxim by which it is to be determined, and therefore does not depend on the realization of the object of the actions, but merely on the principle of volition by which the action has taken place, without regard to any object of desire.
Action | Desire | Duty | Object | Purpose | Purpose | Regard | Worth |
Virtue... in so far as it is based on internal freedom, contains a positive command for man, namely, that he should bring all his powers and inclinations under his rule (that of reason); and this is a positive precept of command over himself which is additional to the prohibition, namely, that he should not allow himself to be governed by his feelings and inclinations (the duty of apathy); since, unless reason takes the reins of government into its own hands, the feelings and inclinations play the master over the man.
Apathy | Duty | Feelings | Freedom | Government | Man | Play | Precept | Reason | Rule | Virtue | Virtue | Government |
It is surprising how practical duty enriches the fancy and the heart, and action clears and deepens the affections.
Think of giving not as a duty but as a privilege.
Justice is a name for certain moral requirements, which, regarded collectively, stand higher in the scale of social utility, and are therefore of more paramount obligation, than any others; though particular cases may occur in which some other social duty is so important, as to overrule any one of the general maxims of justice. Thus, to save a life, it may not only be allowable, but a duty, to steal, or take by force, the necessary food or medicine, or to kidnap, and compel to officiate, the only qualified medical practitioner. In such cases, as we do not call anything justice which is not a virtue, we usually say, not that justice must give way to some other moral principle, but that what is just in ordinary case is, by reason of that other principle, not just in the particular case. By this useful accommodation of language, the character of indefeasibility attributed to justice is kept up, and we are saved from the necessity of maintaining that there can be laudable injustice.
Character | Duty | Force | Important | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Language | Life | Life | Maxims | Necessity | Obligation | Reason | Virtue | Virtue |
Every duty which we omit, obscures some truth which we should have known.
Conscience and self-love, if we understand our true happiness, always lead us the same way. Duty and interest are perfectly coincident; for the most part in this world, but entirely and in every instance if we take in the future, and the whole; this being implied in the notion of a good and perfect administration of things.
Administration | Conscience | Duty | Future | Good | Love | Self | Self-love | World | Understand |
The constant duty of every man to his fellows is to ascertain his own powers and special gifts, and to strengthen them for the help of others.
My parents never bound us to any church but taught us that the love of goodness was the love of God, the cheerful doing of duty made life happy, and that the love of one’s neighbor in its widest sense was the best help for oneself. Their lives showed us how lovely this simple faith was, how much honor, gratitude and affection it brought them, and what a sweet memory they left behind.
Church | Duty | Faith | God | Gratitude | Happy | Honor | Life | Life | Love | Memory | Parents | Sense |
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
It is not virtue, but a deceptive copy and imitation of virtue, when we are led to the performance of duty by pleasure as its recompense.
Duty | Imitation | Pleasure | Recompense | Virtue | Virtue |
Marie Curie, fully Marie Skłodowska-Curie, originally Manya Sklodowska
You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.
Aid | Better | Duty | Hope | Humanity | Improvement | Responsibility | Time | Work | World | Think |
Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL
The path of duty lies in what is near and men seek for it in what is remote. The work of duty lies in what is easy, and men seek for it in what is difficult.
I am persuaded that all persons may find in natural things an admirable school for self-instruction, and a field for the necessary mental exercise; that they may easily apply their habits of thought, thus formed, to a social use; and that they ought to do this, as a duty to themselves and their generation.