This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one." - Ambrose Redmoon, pen name for James Neil Hollingsworth
"It is safe to assume that the actions of our ancestors were guided by gratitude, obligation, retribution, and indignation before they developed enough language capacity for moral discourse." - Frans de Waal, fully Franciscus Bernardus Maria "Frans" de Waal
"Prayer stamps with its indelible mark our actions and demeanor. A tranquility of bearing, a facial and bodily repose are observed in those whose inner lives are thus enriched. Within the depths of consciousness a flame kindles. And man sees himself. He discovers his selfishness, his silly pride, his fear, his greeds, his blunder. He develops a sense of moral obligation, intellectual humility. Thus begins a journey of the soul toward the realm of grace." - Alexis Carrel
"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." - Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
"Thinking for oneself is always arduous and is sometimes painful. The temptation to stop thinking and to take dogma on faith is strong. Yet, since the intellect does possess the capacity to think for itself, it also has the impulse and feels the obligation. We may therefore feel sure that the intellect will always refuse, sooner or later, to take traditional doctrines on trust." - Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
"[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." - Arthur W Osborn
"Is not beauty created at every encounter between a man and life, in which he repays his debt by focusing on the living moment all the power which life has given him as an obligation? Beauty - for the one who pays his debt. For others, too, perhaps." - Dag Hammarskjöld
"You have to turn might into duty and right into obligation. In effect, societies are ruled either by coercion or manipulation, by deceit, cheating, ideology, or by power. How do you get to normative order that avoids the excesses of things? That is the basic problem." - Daniel Bell
"An extraordinary haste to discharge an obligation, is sort of ingratitude." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"War suspends the rules of moral obligation, and what is long suspended is in danger of being totally abrogated. Civil wars strike deepest of all into the manners of the people. They vitiate their politics; they corrupt their morals; they pervert their natural taste and relish of equity and justice. By teaching us to consider our fellow-citizens in a hostile light, the whole body of our nation becomes gradually less dear to us. The very nature of affection and kindred, which were the bond of charity, whilst we agreed, become new incentives to hatred and rage, when the communion of our country is dissolved." - Edmund Burke
"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." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
"Superpowers have a special obligation not to humiliate each other." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
"The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting." - Henry James
"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." - James Froude, fully James Anthony Froude
"When you have your own children you will understand your obligation to your parents." - Japanese Proverbs
"Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law." - Jean Anouilh, fully Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh
"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." - John Stuart Mill
"Justice is a name for certain classes of moral rules, which concern the essentials of human well-being more nearly, and are therefore of more absolute obligation, than any other rules for the guidance of life." - John Stuart Mill
"An absolute command of your temper, so as not to be provoked to passion, upon any account; patience, to hear frivolous, impertinent, and unreasonable applications; with address enough to refuse, without offending, or, by your manner of granting, to double the obligation; dexterity enough to conceal a truth without telling a lie; sagacity enough to read other people’s countenances; and serenity enough not to let them discover anything by your; a seeming frankness with a real reserve. There are the rudiments of a politician." - Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
"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."" - Marian Wright Edelman
"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." - Marshall Field
"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." - Martin Luther
"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." - Oliver Goldsmith
"It is a fusion of two hearts - the union of two lives - the coming together of two tributaries, which after being joined in marriage, will flow in the same channel in the same direction… carrying the same burdens of responsibility and obligation." - Peter Marshall
"One more royal trait properly belongs to the poet. I mean his cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet, for beauty is his aim. He loves virtue, not for its obligation, but for its grace; he delights in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that sparkles from them. Beauty, the spirit of joy and hilarity, he sheds over the universe." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"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." - Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach
"A tender conscience is a stronger obligation than a prison." - Thomas Fuller
"There is one thing diviner than duty, namely, the bond of obligation transmuted into liberty." - William Rounseville Alger
"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!" - David Grayson, pseudonym of Ray Stannard Baker
"Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions. " - Edward R. Murrow, born Egbert Roscoe Murrow
"Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one. " - Eleanor Roosevelt, fully Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
"A teacher, like a playwright, has an obligation to be interesting or, at least, brief. A play closes when it ceases to interest audiences." - Haim Ginott, fully Haim G. Ginott, orignially Ginzburg
"I ask no one who may read this book to accept my views. I ask him to think for himself. Whoever, laying aside prejudice and self-interest, will honestly and carefully make up his own mind as to the causes and the cure of the social evils that are so apparent, does, in that, the most important thing in his power toward their removal. This primary obligation devolves upon us individually, as citizens and as men. Whatever else we may be able to do, this must come first. For "if the blind lead the blind, they both shall fall into the ditch." Social reform is not to be secured by noise and shouting; by complaints and denunciation; by the formation of parties, or the making of revolutions; but by the awakening of thought and the progress of ideas. Until there be correct thought, there cannot be right action; and when there is correct thought, right action will follow. Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness." - Henry George
"Together we have come to realize that for most men the right to learn is curtailed by the obligation to attend school." - Ivan Illich
"Jean-Paul Sartre has said, “Man is condemned to be free.” God has given him “choice” – the greatest obligation of freedom." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"For of those to whom much is given, much is required. And when at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment on each of us—recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities to the state—our success or failure, in whatever office we hold, will be measured by the answers to four questions: First, were we truly men of courage—with the courage to stand up to one’s enemies—and the courage to stand up, when necessary, to one’s associates—the courage to resist public pressure, as well as private greed? Secondly, were we truly men of judgment—with perceptive judgment of the future as well as the past—of our mistakes as well as the mistakes of others—with enough wisdom to know what we did not know and enough candor to admit it? Third, were we truly men of integrity—men who never ran out on either the principles in which we believed or the men who believed in us—men whom neither financial gain nor political ambition could ever divert from the fulfillment of our sacred trust? Finally, were we truly men of dedication—with an honor mortgaged to no single individual or group, and comprised of no private obligation or aim, but devoted solely to serving the public good and the national interest? Courage—judgment—integrity—dedication—these are the historic qualities,with God’s help, characterize our Government’s conduct in the 4 stormy years that lie ahead." - John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
"If there is to be peace in our industrial life let the employer recognize his obligation to his employees - at least to the degree set forth in existing statutes. " - John L. Lewis, fully John Llewellyn Lewis
"Non-cooperation began for me by refusing to be part of the factory farm system. This motivated me to create an alternative system. What came first though was the moral obligation to non-cooperate with a system I saw as evil." - Judy Wicks
"All of those for whom authentic transformation has deeply unseated their souls must, I believe, wrestle with the profound moral obligation to shout form the heart—perhaps quietly and gently, with tears of reluctance; perhaps with fierce fire and angry wisdom; perhaps with slow and careful analysis; perhaps by unshakable public example—but authentically always and absolutely carries a a demand and duty: you must speak out, to the best of your ability, and shake the spiritual tree, and shine your headlights into the eyes of the complacent. You must let that radical realization rumble through your veins and rattle those around you. Alas, if you fail to do so, you are betraying your own authenticity. You are hiding your true estate. You don’t want to upset others because you don’t want to upset your self. You are acting in bad faith, the taste of a bad infinity. " - Ken Wilber, fully Kenneth Earl Wilber II
"To place yourself under an obligation is to sell your liberty." - Laberius, full name Decimus Laberius NULL
"Surely the love of our country is a lesson of reason, not an institution of nature. Education and habit, obligation and interest, attach us to it, not instinct. It is, however, so necessary to be cultivated, and the prosperity of all societies, as well as the grandeur of some, depends upon it so much, that orators by their eloquence, and poets by their enthusiasm, have endeavoured to work up this precept of morality into a principle of passion. But the examples which we find in history, improved by the lively descriptions and the just applauses or censures of historians, will have a much better and more permanent effect than declamation, or song, or the dry ethics of mere philosophy." - Henry St John, Lord Bolingbroke, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke
"Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect." - Margaret Mitchell, fully Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell
"The writer’s job is to write with rigor, with commitment, to defend what they believe with all the talent they have. I think that’s part of the moral obligation of a writer, which cannot be only purely artistic. I think a writer has some kind of responsibility at least to participate in the civic debate. I think literature is impoverished, if it becomes cut from the main agenda of people, of society, of life." - Mario Vargas Llosa, fully Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa
"Things to remember: 1) The worth of character; 2) The improvement of talent; 3) The influence of example; 4) The joy of origination; 5) The dignity of simplicity; 6) The success of perseverance... More things to remember: 7) The value of time; 8) The pleasure of working; 9) The obligation of duty; 10) The power of kindness; 11) The wisdom of economy; 12) The virtue of patience." - Marshall Field
"The search of knowledge is an obligation laid on every Muslim." - Muhammad, also spelled Mohammad, Mohammed or Mahomet, full name Muhammad Ibn `Abd Allāh Ibn `Abd al-Muttalib NULL
"I suspect that most of the individuals who have religious faith are content with blind faith. They feel no obligation to understand what they believe. They may even wish not to have their beliefs disturbed by thought. But if God in whom they believe created them with intellectual and rational powers, that imposes upon them the duty to try to understand the creed of their religion. Not to do so is to verge on superstition." - Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
"My religion recognizes no obligation to resolve doubt other than through rational means; and it commands no mere faith in eternal truths." - Moses Mendelssohn