Duty To Help Others Quotes & Sayings

We shall need all the anti-slavery feeling in the country, and more; you can go home and try to bring the people to your views, and you may say anything you like about me, if that will help ... When the hour comes for dealing with slavery, I trust I will be willing to do my duty though it cost my life. — Abraham Lincoln

A great leader fights with great adversity, suffers greatly, but courageously, and never forget to help others is his ultimate duty. — Debasish Mridha

The Americans of the United States do not let their dogs hunt the Indians as do the Spaniards in Mexico, but at bottom it is the same pitiless feeling which here, as everywhere else, animates the European race. This world here belongs to us, they tell themselves every day: the Indian race is destined for final destruction which one cannot prevent and which it is not desirable to delay. Heaven has not made them to become civilized; it is necessary that they die. Besides I do not want to get mixed up in it. I will not do anything against them: I will limit myself to providing everything that will hasten their ruin. In time I will have their lands and will be innocent of their death.
Satisfied with his reasoning, the American goes to church where he hears the minister of the gospel repeat every day that all men are brothers, and that the Eternal Being who has made them all in like image, has given them all the duty to help one another. — Alexis De Tocqueville

When you are tempted to stay away from that seventies' meeting, from that elder's meeting, from that deacons' quorum and you shrink from going there, because you feel you will not be interested, say, 'I will go; the duty of a Latter-day Saint is upon me; and responsibility of membership in that quorum is upon me, and I must go and help make that meeting interesting — David O. McKay

Twice a week we attended a political 'seminar', where we were continually told that we were doing our sacred duty to help make the border totally secure. — Svetlana Alexievich

Philanthropy is the duty of how we should behave when things go wrong for people, and how we can help to make things better for everyone - voluntarily, without being required to do it by the government, and for others, without private gain for ourselves. — Robert L. Payton

The needs are too great, and there are too few of us. We have a duty, a responsibility to help others. It's not all about fun. It's not always easy. — Leland Dirks

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it sis my duty ... This is my highest and best use as a human. — Ben Stein

When I became a bandit, I spent a lot of time being close to the lowliest of the low: criminals, the enslaved, deserters, men who had nothing to lose. Contrary to what I had expected, I found that they had a hardscrabble beauty and grace. They were not mean in their nature, but made mean by the meanness of their rulers. The poor were willing to endure much, but the emperor had taken everything from them.

These men have simple dreams: a plot of land, a few possessions, a warm house, conversations with friends, and a happy wife and healthy children. They remember the smallest acts of kindness and think me a good man because of a few exaggerated stories. They've raised me on their shoulders and called me duke, and I have a duty to help them get a little closer to their dreams. — Ken Liu

Davos enjoyed a good story as well as any man, but Stannis had not named him Hand for his enjoyment, he felt. His first duty was to help his king rule, and for that he must needs understand the words the ravens brought. The best way to learn a thing was to do it, he had found; sails or scrolls, it made no matter. — George R R Martin

You should take no action unwillingly, selfishly, uncritically, or with conflicting motives. Do not dress up your thoughts in smart finery: do not be a gabbler or a meddler. Further, let the god that is within you be the champion of the being you are a male, mature in years, a statesman, a Roman, a ruler: one who has taken his post like a soldier waiting for the Retreat from life to sound, and ready to depart, past the need for any loyal oath or human witness. And see that you keep a cheerful demeanour, and retain your independence of outside help and the peace which others can give. Your duty is to stand straight - not held straight. — Marcus Aurelius

I don't want to be considered a hero ... Imagine [if] young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty. I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary. — Miep Gies

Nothing of that which is conducive to help man, collectively or individually, to live not "happily" but less unhappily in this world, ought to be indifferent to the Theosophist-Occultist. It is no concern of his whether his help benefits a man in his worldly or spiritual progress; his first duty is to be ever ready to help if he can, without stopping to philosophize. — H. P. Blavatsky

Now we go in and take over," answered A. "It's our duty to help these people. — Katerina Stoykova Klemer

Parrhesia is a kind of verbal activity where the speaker has a specific relation to truth through frankness, a certain relationship to his own life through danger, a certain type of relation to himself or other people through criticism (self-criticism or criticism of other people), and a specific relation to moral law through freedom and duty. More precisely, parrhesia is a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty to improve or help other people (as well as himself). In parrhesia, the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flattery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy — Michel Foucault

I've called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act to help end discrimination to help end discrimination against same-sex couples in this country. Now, I want to add we have a duty to uphold existing law, but I believe we must do so in a way that does not exacerbate old divides. And fulfilling this duty in upholding the law in no way lessens my commitment to reversing this law. I've made that clear. — Barack Obama

First, let us be Gods, and then help others to be Gods. "Be and make." Let this be our motto. Say not man is a sinner. Tell him that he is a God. Even if there were a devil, it would be our duty to remember God always, and not the devil. — Swami Vivekananda

Whenever Percy stopped by to see her, she was so lost in thought that the conversation went something like this: Percy: "Hey, how's it going?" Annabeth: "Uh, no thanks." Percy: "Okay ... have you eaten anything today?" Annabeth: "I think Leo is on duty. Ask him." Percy: "So, my hair is on fire." Annabeth: "Okay. In a while." She got like this sometimes. It was one of the challenges of dating an Athena girl. Still, Percy wondered what he had to do to get her attention. He was worried about her after her encounter with the spiders at Fort Sumter, and he didn't know how to help her, especially if she shut him out. — Rick Riordan

sometimes we're called on to help other people. Sometimes it's because people trust us. Other times it's just sheer luck. And you know what? It's our duty to rise to the challenge and help them. If we don't help each other, that's when we stop being human." I — Alicia Rades

One of the hardest things I do as FBI Director is call the chiefs and sheriffs in departments around the nation when officers have been killed in the line of duty. I call to express my sorrow and offer the FBI's help. — James Comey

I think that God gave us a brain, and that it's the only thing we have to survive. All life forms have some advantage, some trick, some claw, some camouflage, some poison, some speed, something to help them survive. We've got a brain. Therefore it's our duty to use our brain. — George Lucas

This is our special duty, that if anyone specially needs our help, we should give him such help to the utmost of our power. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

A good government is one with a duty to help everyone, to maximise his or her potential: Indigenous people, people with disabilities, and our forgotten families.We will not leave anyone behind. — Warren Mundine

Housing waiting lists in the UK's local councils, who have a legal duty to help homeless and vulnerable people, are at an all-time high. With so much pressure on councils, domestic violence survivors can struggle to convince council employees they are a priority. Women have even spoken of being disbelieved when they disclose their need to flee because of violence. — Dawn Foster

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. — John Ruskin

I warned you; I warned you I was the Senses Taker," sneered the Senses Taker. "I help people find what they're not looking for, hear what they're not listening for, run after what they're not chasing, and smell what isn't even there. And, furthermore," he cackled, hopping around gleefully on his stubby legs, "I'll steal your sense of purpose, take your sense of duty, destroy your sense of proportion - and, but for one thing, you'd be helpless yet."
"What's that?" asked Milo fearfully.
"As long as you have the sound of laughter," he groaned unhappily, "I cannot take your sense of humor - and, with it, you've nothing to fear from me. — Norton Juster

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
[Inaugural Address, January 20 1961] — John F. Kennedy

We didn't grow up overly religious, but there was an understanding that you had a duty as a citizen to help your fellow man. — John Morgridge

An essential virtue is humility. ... The principle of humility and prayer leads one to feel a need of divine guidance. Self-reliance is a virtue, but with it should go a consciousness of the need of superior help - a consciousness that as you walk firmly in the pathway of duty, there is a possibility of your making a misstep; and with that consciousness is a prayer, a pleading that God will inspire you to avoid that false step — David O. McKay

Poland is an ally of the United States of America. It was our duty to show that we are a reliable, loyal, and predictable ally. America needed our help, and we had to give it. — Adam Michnik

Our duty is to understand youth, but more, to help them understand themselves that they may release their varied abilities ... We must help them to discover a life work, not work for life. — Henrietta Mears

This is the way to cultivate courage: First, by standing firm on some conscientious principle, some law of duty. Next, by being faithful to truth and right on small occasions and common events. Third, by trusting in God for help and power. — James Freeman Clarke

Teachers who help to open young minds perform a duty which is as near sacred as I will admit. — Richard Dawkins

We speak much of the duty of making others happy. No day should pass, we say, on which we do not put a little cheer into some discouraged heart, make the path a little smoother for someone's tired feet, or help some fainting robin unto its nest again. This is right. We cannot put too great emphasis upon the duty of giving happiness and cheer to others. But it is no less a duty that we should be happy and cheerful ourselves. — J.R. Miller

The first duty of man is to support himself - to see to it that he does not become a burden. His next duty is to help others if he has a surplus, and if he really believes they deserve to be helped. — Robert Green Ingersoll

It did not occur to them to refuse. They knew that if you find some person or creature in desperate need of help which you can supply you have a human duty to supply it, even if it could inconvenience or even hurt you to do so. This, after all, is how the greatest and best deeds in the world have been done, and though the children did not say this aloud, they knew it inside themselves without even thinking about it. — Mary Stewart

LEIA - O help Me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, help. Thou art Mine only hope. LUKE - I wonder who she is. Whoever she may be, whatever is Her cause, I shall unto her pleas respond. Not e'en were she my sister could I know A duty of more weight than I feel now. It seemeth she some dreadful trouble hath - Mayhap I should replay the message whole. — Ian Doescher

It should not be forgotten in this connection that the minister's duty is increasingly that of an apologist for Christianity. The general level of education is much higher than it has ever been. Many young people hear of evolution in the high schools and in the college where their fathers never heard of it except as far as a distant something. If the minister would be able to help his young people, he must be a good apologete, and he cannot be a good apologete unless he is a good systematic theologian (pg. 24). — Cornelius Van Til

Helping a person in need is good in itself. But the degree of goodness is hugely affected by the attitude with which it is done. If you show resentment because you are helping the person out of a reluctant sense of duty, then the person may recieve your help but may feel awkward and embarrassed. This is because he will feel beholden to you. If,on the other hand, you help the person in a spirit of joy, then the help will be received joyfully. The person will feel neither demeaned nor humiliated by your help, but rather will feel glad to have caused you pleasure by receiving your help. And joy is the appropriate attitude with which to help others because acts of generosity are a source of blessing to the giver as well as the receiver. — John Chrysostom

Christian Love is when you care about people for who they are and seek to encourage them as they walk on the same difficult path that you are walking on. Everyone has struggles in this life and it is a Christian's duty to help others around them and look out for the interests of others before their own. — Anya VonderLuft

To defend the oppressed against their oppressors, to plead the cause of the weak against the strong who exploit and crush them, this is the duty of all hearts that have not been spoiled by egoism and corruption ... It is so sweet to devote oneself to one's fellows that I do not know how there can be so many unfortunates still without support or defenders. As for me, my life's task will be to help those who suffer and to pursue through my avenging speech those who take pleasure in the pain of others. How happy I will be if my feeble efforts are crowned with success and if, at the price of my devotion and sacrifices, my reputation is not tarnished by the crimes of the oppressors I will fight. — Maximilien De Robespierre

My teacher taught me that the way for me to help others was not to tell them their duty, but myself to learn of Him who bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. As — George MacDonald

Make no great account who is for thee or against thee, but mind only the present duty and take care that God be with thee in whatsoever thou doest. Have a good conscience and God will defend thee, for he whom God will help no man's perverseness shall be able to hurt. If thou knowest how to hold thy peace and to suffer, without doubt thou shalt see the help of the Lord. He knoweth the time and the way to deliver thee, therefore must thou resign thyself to Him. To God it belongeth to help and to deliver from all confusion. Oftentimes it is very profitable for keeping us in greater humility, that others know and rebuke our faults. — Thomas A Kempis

Our greatest duty and our main responsibility is to help others. But please, if you can't help them, would you please not hurt them. — Dalai Lama

His face set in grim determination, Richard slogged ahead, his fingers reaching up to touch the tooth under his shirt. Loneliness, deeper than he had never known, sagged his shoulders. All his friends were lost to him. He knew now that his life was not his own. It belonged to his duty, to his task. He was the Seeker. Nothing more. Nothing less. Not his own man, but a pawn to be used by others. A tool, same as his sword, to help others, that they might have the life he had only glimpsed for a twinkling.
He was no different from the dark things in the boundary. A bringer of death. — Terry Goodkind

The initiative to undertake your most important duty in life is often buried beneath the accumulated debris of human habits. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Electronic brains may help us to use our heads but will not excuse us from that duty, and as to our hearts-cardiograms cannot diagnose what may be most ill about them, or confirm what may be best. The faithful woman and the versatile brave man, the wakeful intelligence open to inspiration or grace-these are still exemplary for our kind, as they always were and always will be. — Robert Fitzgerald

It is my greatest wish to be thought of as a godfather, a man whose duty it is to do my friends any service, to help my friends out of any trouble- with advice, with money, with my own strength in men and influence- To everyone at this table, I say your enemies are my enemies, and your friends are my friends. — Ed Falco

Genuine surprise is a great help when faced with an unwelcome duty. Of course, when it's the paying of debts you're forgetting, that can lead to broken fingers. And worse. I guess it's a form of lying - lying to oneself. And I'm very good at falsehoods. They often say the best liars half-believe their lies - which makes me the very best because if I repeat a lie often enough I can end up believing it entirely, no half measures involved! — Mark Lawrence

If you have done well in whatever business you are in, it is your duty to send the elevator back down and try to help bring up the next generation of undiscovered talent. — Kevin Spacey

There is a code of behavior, she knew, whose seventh article (it may be) says that on occasions of this sort it behooves the woman, whatever her own occupation may be, to go to the help of the young man opposite so that he may expose and relieve the thigh bones, the ribs, of his vanity, of his urgent desire to assert himself; as indeed it is their duty, she reflected, in her old maidenly fairness, to help us, suppose the Tube were to burst into flames. Then, she thought, I should certainly expect Mr. Tansley to get me out. But how would it be, she thought, if neither of us did either of these things? So she sat there smiling. — Virginia Woolf

God says it is our duty as Christians to take care of widows and orphans and to help the poor within the Christian society ... And Jesus said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" Matthew 25:40 KJV]. — Billy Graham

Upon this law, depend the natural rights of mankind, the supreme being gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beatifying that existence. He endowed him with rational faculties, by the help of which, to discern and pursue such things, as were consistent with his duty and interest, and invested him with an inviolable right to personal liberty, and personal safety. — Alexander Hamilton

I've achieved 'the American dream.' I feel it's my duty to help others achieve their vision, too - especially the youth. — Joe Frazier

If God gives you comfort, extend a comforting hand unto others. If God saves you, extend a saving hand unto others — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Dwindling energy is one of the most boring things about being old. From time to time you get a day when it seems to be restored, and you can't help feeling that you are 'back to normal', but it never lasts. You just have to resign yourself to doing less
or rather, taking more breaks than you used to in whatever you are doing. In my case I fear that what I most often do less of is my duty towards my companion rather than indulgence of my private inclinations. — Diana Athill

Our supreme duty is to advance toward freedom-physical, mental, and spiritual-and help others to do so. — Swami Vivekananda

You don't have to rush out to become the mayor of your city or the president of the United States in order to help others, but you can begin with your relatives and friends and the people around you. In fact, you can start with yourself. The important point is to realize that you are never off duty. — Chogyam Trungpa

Imagine young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty. I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? — Miep Gies

I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know. God may call any one of us to respond to some far away problem or support those who have been so called. But we are finite and he will not call us everywhere or to support every worthy cause. And real needs are not far from us. — C.S. Lewis

But Mary had not come into the world to be sad or to help another to be sad. Sorrowful we may often have to be, but to indulge in sorrow is either not to know or to deny God our Saviour. True, her heart ached for Letty; and the ache immediately laid itself as close to Letty's ache as it could lie; but that was only the advance-guard of her army of salvation, the light cavalry of sympathy: the next division was help; and behind that lay patience, and strength, and hope, and faith,and joy. This last, modern teachers, having failed to regard it as a virtue, may well decline to regard as a duty; but he is a poor Christian indeed in whom joy has not at least a growing share, and Mary was not a poor Christian--at least, for the time she had been learning, and as Christians go in the present aeon of their history. — George MacDonald

As believers, how can we fail to see that abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide are a terrible rejection of God's gift of life and love? And as believers, how can we fail to feel the duty to surround the sick and those in distress with the warmth of our affection and the support that will help them always to embrace life? — Pope John Paul II

By his [God's] help I will arise and address myself diligently to my appointed duty. If happiness in this world is not for me, I will endeavor to promote the welfare of those around me, and my reward shall be hereafter. — Anne Bronte

A call to duty, a call for service. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Do not give alms promiscuously. Select the unworthy poor and make them happy. To give to the deserving is a duty, but to help the improvident, drinking class is clear generosity, so that the donor has a right to be warmed by a selfish pride and count on a most flattering obituary. — George Ade

It is a Bush administration official on the moment when torture breaks a victim:
The job of the interrogator is to safely help the terrorist do his duty to Allah, so he then feels liberated to speak freely.
From Neil Gaiman's account of a torturer in hell:
We will hurt you. And we are not sorry. But we do not do it to punish you. We do it to redeem you. Because afterward, you'll be a better person ... and because we love you. One day you'll thank us for it.
War is peace. Torture is freedom. In the end, you love Big Brother. — Andrew Sullivan

4For God said : Do your duty fob your father and mother and : Anyone who curses father or mother must be put to death." 5But you say, 'If anyone says to his father or mother: Anything I have that I might have used to help you is dedicated to God,' 6he is rid of his duty to father or mother. In this way you have made God's word null and void by means of your tradition. 7Hypocrites! It was you Isaiah meant when he so rightly prophesied: 8This people honors me only with lip service, while their hearts are far from me. — Anonymous

My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue. — Ayn Rand

Our highest, most important duty in this world is to help our fellow beings. — Mata Amritanandamayi

It's his duty. A good healer can't pick and choose. If he can help, then he must. — Helene Wecker

Quite how a heterosexual couple hiring a female cleaner ends up as a betrayal of feminism isn't terribly clear- unless you believe running a household is, in some way:
a. an inarguable duty of womenkind- that, in addition, can
b. only ever be done out of love, and never for cash, because that somehow "spoils" the magic of the household. As if dishes know they've been washed by hired help, instead of the woman of the house, and will feel all sad. — Caitlin Moran

[A man] finds in himself a talent which with the help of some culture might make him a useful man in many respects. But he finds himself in comfortable circumstances and prefers to indulge in pleasure rather than to take pains in enlarging and improving his happy natural capacities. He asks, however, whether his maxim of neglect of his natural gifts, besides agreeing with his inclination to indulgence, agrees also with what is called duty. He sees then that a system of nature could indeed subsist with such a universal law, [where] men... let their talents rest and resolve to devote their lives merely to idleness, amusement, and propagation of their species - in a word, to enjoyment; but he cannot possibly will that this should be a universal law of nature, or be implanted in us as such by a natural instinct. For, as a rational being, he necessarily wills that his faculties be developed, since they serve him, and have been given him, for all sorts of possible purposes. — Immanuel Kant