This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
My religion recognizes no obligation to resolve doubt other than through rational means; and it commands no mere faith in eternal truths.
Doubt | Eternal | Faith | Obligation | Religion |
Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.
I never thought of losing, but now that it's happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.
Obligation | People | Thought | Thought |
The term "mensch" literally means a "person" or "man," but it represents a moral ideal for all people, men and women alike. . . . It means being sensitive to other people's needs and seeking out ways to help them. It is acquired by living close to family and extending one's sense of obligation beyond the family to the broader community. In the Jewish culture of Eastern Europe where the term arose, to call someone a mensch was the highest compliment that could be given.
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
It is much safer to be feared than loved because ...love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Baseness | Dread | Fear | Obligation | Opportunity | Punishment |
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
One can say this in general of men: they are ungrateful, disloyal, insincere and deceitful, timid of danger and avid of profit... Love is a bond of obligation that these miserable creatures break whenever it suits them to do so; but fear holds them fast by a dread of punishment that never passes.
Danger | Dread | Fear | Love | Obligation | Punishment | Danger |
Ouida, pseudonym of Maria Louise Ramé, preferred to be called Marie Louise de la Ramée NULL
This had been the higher, diviner way which she had missed, this obligation from the passion of the past which she had left unfulfilled, unaccepted.
Obligation | Passion | Past |
Ouida, pseudonym of Maria Louise Ramé, preferred to be called Marie Louise de la Ramée NULL
Now the misgiving arose in her whether she had mistaken arrogance for duty; whether, cleaving so closely to honor she had forgotten the obligation of mercy.
Arrogance | Honor | Misgiving | Obligation |
Should one break in and free the animals? That is illegal, but the obligation to obey the law is not absolute. It was justifiably broken by those who helped runaway slaves in the American South, to mention only one possible parallel.
Law | Obligation |
For however often a man may receive an obligation from you, if you refuse a request, all former favors are effaced by this one denial.
Man | Obligation | Receive |
Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
Man always travels along precipices. His truest obligation is to keep his balance.
Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
The obligation to earn one's bread by the sweat of one's brow also presumes the right to do so. A society in which this right is systematically denied, in which economic policies do not allow workers to reach satisfactory levels of employment, cannot be justified from an ethical point of view, nor can that society attain social peace.
Obligation | Right | Society | Society |
Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
There are two victims in every abortion: a dead baby and a dead conscience... There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws [laws which seek to legitimate abortion and euthanasia]; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection.
Conscience | Grave | Obligation |
Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
You are called to work and pray especially the weak and most defenseless ones, those as yet unborn. Establishment of a new culture of life, the fruit of the culture of truth and of love. Everyone has an obligation to be at the service of life.
Culture | Obligation | Service | Truth | Work |
Voting is the most precious right of every citizen, and we have a moral obligation to ensure the integrity of our voting process.
Integrity | Obligation | Right |
Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
As for myself, may the sweet Muses, as Virgil says, bear me away to their holy places where sacred streams do flow, beyond the reach of anxiety and care, and free from the obligation of performing each day some task that goes against the grain. May I no longer have anything to do with the mad racket and the hazards of the forum, or tremble as I try a fall with white-faced Fame. I do not want to be roused from sleep by the clatter of morning callers or by some breathless messenger from the palace; I do not care, in drawing my will, to give a money-pledge for its safe execution through anxiety as to what is to happen afterwards; I wish for no larger estate than I can leave to the heir of my own free choice. Some day or other the last hour will strike also for me, and my prayer is that my effigy may be set up beside my grave, not grim and scowling, but all smiles and garlands, and that no one shall seek to honor my memory either by a motion in the senate or by a petition to the Emperor.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Day | Honor | Memory | Obligation | Prayer | Sacred | Safe | Will |
R. D. Laing, fully Ronald David Laing
True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself. False guilt is guilt felt at not being what other people feel one ought to be or assume that one is.
Guilt | Obligation | People |
Ray Bradbury, fully Ray Douglas Bradbury
The gift of life is so precious that we should feel an obligation to pay back the universe for the gift of being alive.
Life | Life | Obligation | Universe |
It is proper to observe, that even in this sense of our country, that love of it which is our duty, does not imply any conviction of the superior value of it to other countries, or any particular preference of its laws and constitution of government. Were this implied, the love of their country would be the duty of only a very small part of mankind; for there are few countries that enjoy the advantage of laws and governments which deserve to be preferred. To found, therefore, this duty on such a preference, would be to found it on error and delusion. It is however a common delusion. There is the same partiality in countries, to themselves, that there is in individuals. All our attachments should be accompanied, as far as possible, with right opinions. We are too apt to confine wisdom and virtue within the circle of our own acquaintance and party. Our friends, our country, and, in short, everything related to us, we are disposed to overvalue. A wise man will guard himself against this delusion. He will study to think of all things as they are, and not suffer any partial effections to blind his understanding. In other families there may be as much worth as in our own. In other circles of friends there may be as much wisdom; and in other countries as much of all that deserves esteem; but, notwithstanding this, our obligation to love our own families, friends, and country, and to seek, in the first place, their good, will remain the same.
Acquaintance | Duty | Error | Love | Man | Obligation | Partiality | Preference | Right | Sense | Study | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wisdom | Wise | Worth | Friends | Think | Value |
What obligation is more binding than to protect the cherished, to defend whoever or whatever cannot defend itself, and to nurture in turn that which has given nourishment? I