Sacred Duty Quotes & Sayings

Greatness and Truth can never be in danger from these murdering wretches. To perform one's duty, be it now, be it clean, and be it done with humility ... A man is a sacred thing. ANY ACTION OR THOUGHT WHICH INJURES THE HUMAN IMAGINATION IS EVIL. — Kenneth Patchen

Our minds and hearts are free to believe everything or nothing at all - and it is our duty to protect and perpetuate this sacred culture of freedom. — Thomas Jefferson

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

A poet has a sacred duty. He has to hear unsung songs and see unseen beauty. — Debasish Mridha

Whoever is willing to enter the magic path should regard it as his sacred duty to practice regular exercises. He ought to be kind, generous and tolerant with his fellow men, but relentless and hard with himself. Only such behavior will be followed by success in magic. — Franz Bardon

It is our sacred duty to transmit unimpaired to our posterity the blessings of liberty which were bequeathed to us by the founders of the Republic. — Andrew Johnson

I have always endeavoured, as my double duty of believer and sovereign dictated, to follow the precepts of the sacred Book of Islam: precepts of balance, justice and moderation. Although my religious education was very literal, in that I learnt to understand the precepts of the Koran precisely according to the text, we have seen that on several occasions throughout my life, I have felt myself to be very particularly in the hands of the Almighty. — Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

Better, Josef, far better, to have the courage to change your convictions. Duty and faithfulness are shams, curtains to hide behind. Self-liberation means a sacred no, even to duty. — Irvin D. Yalom

Families are the Lord's workshop on earth to help us learn and live the gospel. We come into our families with a sacred duty to help strengthen each other spiritually. — Cheryl A. Esplin

When we are kind to animals, they become loving and kind to us. It is our sacred duty to love the creator and the creations. — Debasish Mridha

We can scarcely indeed look into any part of the sacred volume without meeting abundant proofs, that it is the religion of the Affections which God particularly requires. Love, Zeal, Gratitude, Joy, Hope, Trust, are each of them specified; and are not allowed to us as weaknesses, but enjoined on us as our bounden duty, and commended to us as our acceptable worship. — William Wilberforce

That second man has his own way of looking at things; asks himself which debt must I pay first, the debt to the rich, or the debt to the poor? the debt of money, or the debt of thought to mankind, of genius to nature? For you, O broker! there is no other principle but arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my forces mechanically on the payment of moneys. Let me live onward; you shall find that, though slower, the progress of my character will liquidate all these debts without injustice to higher claims. If a man should dedicate himself to the payment of notes, would not this be injustice? Does he owe no debt but money? And are all claims on him to be postponed to a landlord's or a banker's? — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am speaking now of the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred
that of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt ... If we let our friend become cold and selfish and exacting without remonstrance, we are no true lover, no true friend. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

Money is sacred as everyone knows ... So then must be the hunger for it and the means we use to obtain it. Once a man is in debt he becomes a flesh and blood form of money, a walking investment. You can do what you like with him, you can work him to death or you can sell him. This cannot be called cruelty or greed because we are seeking only to recover our investment and that is a sacred duty. — Barry Unsworth

It is Ireland's sacred duty to send over, every few years, a playwright to save the English theater from inarticulate glumness. — Kenneth Tynan

HELMER; But this is disgraceful. Is this the way you neglect your most sacred duties?
NORA: What do you consider is my most sacred duty?
HELMER: Do I have to tell you that? Isn't it your duty to your husband and children?
NORA:I have another duty, just as sacred.
HELMER: You can't have. What duty do you mean?
NORA: My duty to myself. — Henrik Ibsen

That's the real tragedy. I've come to see that what we had was better than that pitiful and pitiless intoxication they call love. It is the joy you have to truly know someone. To know another person as well as you know yourself, and to be happy to be unhappy in their company. To fall in love with someone you have to be blinded to their truth. It's easy to fall for fantasies. But to know someone, and to want to know them, is truly the deepest honour we have as beings. To know another is a sacred duty. — M. Suddain

Governments are deemed to succeed or fail by how well they make money go round, regardless of whether it serves any useful purpose. They regard it as a sacred duty to encourage the country's most revolting spectacle: the annual feeding frenzy in which shoppers queue all night, then stampede into the shops, elbow, trample and sometimes fight to be the first to carry off some designer junk which will go into landfill before the sales next year. The madder the orgy, the greater the triumph of economic management. — George Monbiot

The person who is working on his or her family history fits the description of one who is fulfilling his or her duty. I know the effort, I know the expense. I know the difficulties through which one may go to uncover one name. I know our Heavenly Father is aware of these efforts. And those for whom we perform sacred ordinances are aware of our efforts. Oftentimes, in a miraculous way, there shall appear before us a clear pathway through a field of turbulence. — Thomas S. Monson

The most sacred duty, the supreme and urgent work, is to deliver humanity from the malediction of Cain - fratricidal war. — African Spir

It is not easy to be sure that being yourself is worth the trouble, but we do know it is our sacred duty. — Florida Scott-Maxwell

Most often life isn't what you are doing, but what is happening with you.
Life is filled with hidden joy and beauty,
but finding them is our sacred duty. — Debasish Mridha

All pulpits must passionately declare Christ to be the eternal Son of the living God, the only Savior of sinners. All preaching must boldly announce Him as the reigning Lord of heaven and earth. He must be fearlessly announced as the One before whom every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. All preaching must assert that this Jesus is the final Judge of every human life. To fulfill this sacred duty, every preacher must proclaim the full counsel of God. Every doctrine in Scripture must be delivered. Every truth must be taught. Every sin must be exposed. Every warning must be issued. And every promise must be offered. If God is to bless our preaching, the supreme majesty of Jesus Christ Himself must be expounded in our sermons. All the lines of our preaching must intersect at this highest pinnacle - Jesus Christ and Him crucified. — Steven J. Lawson

Smuggle out the truth, pass it through all the obstacles that its enemies fabricate; multiply, spread by all means possible her message so that she may triumph; through zeal and civic action counterbalance the influence of money and the machinations lavished on the propagation of deception. That, in my opinion, is the most useful activity and the most sacred duty of pure patriotism. — Maximilien Robespierre

England is a domestic country. Here the home is revered and the hearth sacred. The nation is represented by a family,
the Royal family,
and if that family is educated with a sense of responsibility and a sentiment of public duty, it is difficult to exaggerate the salutary influence it may exercise over a nation. — Benjamin Disraeli

Insurrection is the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties. — Marquis De Lafayette

The Imperial German Government will not expect the Government of the United States to omit any word or any act necessary to the performance of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment. — William Jennings Bryan

Let's make it clear for the dimmest bulbs among you: the kids at Columbine High didn't die from too many guns, they died from too few. I'm not suggesting that the teachers should have carried guns not as franchised agents of the state. They should have carried guns as ordinary individuals, exercising a sacred right, and in performance of a solemn duty to protect the young lives that were placed very foolishly, as it turned out in their hands. — L. Neil Smith

There are countless horrible things happening all over the world and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible. — Auberon Waugh

I know that not only is Swaraj our birthright, but it is our sacred duty to win it. — Mahatma Gandhi

It is our solemn duty, our precious privilege-even our sacred opportunity-to welcome to our homes and to our hearts the children who grace our lives. — Thomas S. Monson

Do the people of the world not yet realize that by fighting on until the bitter end I am not only performing my sacred duty to my people, but standing guard in the last citadel of collective security? Are they too blind to see that I have my responsibilities to the whole of humanity to face? I must still hold on until my tardy allies appear. And if they never come, then I say prophetically and without bitterness: The West will perish. — Haile Selassie

The sacred duty of being an individual is to gradually learn how to live so as to awaken the eternal within you. — John O'Donohue

The Human body is sacred - the veritable tabernacle of the Divine Spirit which inhabits it. It is a solemn duty of mankind to develop, protect, and preserve it from pollution, unnecessary wastage, and weakness. — Stephen L. Richards

It was not that donors had no loyalty to each other, but they were not ashamed to betray a fellow donor. In its wisdom the Alliance promulgated the moral rules - the main one being one's duty to the Alliance. The Alliance was sacred - all else secondary. But not all donors - or citizens - bought into that. Many knew in their hearts there was more to life. — Cate Campbell Beatty

This notice has been written, because I felt it a sacred duty to wipe the dust off their gravestones, and leave their dear names free from soil. — Charlotte Bronte

State authority can never be an end in itself; for, if that were so, any kind of tyranny would be inviolable and sacred. If a government uses the instruments of power in its hands for the purpose of leading a people to ruin, then rebellion is not only the right but also the duty of every individual citizen. — Adolf Hitler

You see I still have confidence in you sir, or should I say the artist who dwells within you, the artist who disdains such mundane details as selecting a fresh shirt in the morning, who steps forth into the workday world the rest of us inhabit indifferent to the glances he draws because his shoes fail to match, why? Because his mind has been elsewhere, his inner ear tuned to the sonorous tones of horn and kettledrum, tones it is his sacred duty to let us hear with him. — William Gaddis

All I know is, unselfishness is the only moral principle," said Jessica Pratt, "the noblest principle and a sacred duty and much more important than freedom. Unselfishness is the only way to happiness. I would have everybody who refused to be unselfish shot. To put them out of their misery. They can't be happy anyway. — Ayn Rand

Multi-billion-dollar multinational corporations view the exploitation of the world's sick and dying as a sacred duty to their shareholders. — John Le Carre

Loving a warrior is hard. Dying in the line of duty is an honor to them. They would rather take that road than to dishonor their sacred oath — Ronie Kendig

Human society is born in the shadow of religious fear, and in that stage the suppression of heresy is a sacred social duty. Then comes the rise of a priesthood, and the independent thinker is met with punishment in this world and the threat of eternal damnation hereafter. Even today it is from the religious side that the greatest danger to freedom of thought comes. Religion is the last thing man will civilize. — Chapman Cohen

Man in the mass sinks unconsciously to an inferior moral and intellectual level, to that level which is always there, below the threshold of consciousness, ready to break forth as soon as it is activated by the formation of a mass.
...
Since nobody is capable of recognizing just where and how much he himself is possessed and unconscious, he simply projects his own condition upon his neighbor, and thus it becomes a sacred duty to have the biggest guns and the most poisonous gas. — C. G. Jung

Christmas has a certain universal appeal that gives it meaning well beyond a day to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but Christians have a special duty to experience its sacred and profound spiritual significance and non-Christians have a duty to treat the day with special respect. — Michael Josephson

The creation of freedom for oneself and a sacred "No" even to duty
for that, my brothers, the lion is needed. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Our duty to ourselves, to posterity, and to mankind, call on us
by every motive which is sacred or honorable, to watch over the safety of our beloved country
during the troubles which agitate and convulse the residue of the world, and to sacrifice to
that all personal and local considerations. — Thomas Jefferson

We must not, by any whimsical conceits supposed to be adapted to the altering fashions of the times, overturn the established law of the land: it descended to us as a sacred charge, and it is our duty to preserve it. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Our sacred duty is to love, motivate and pray for one another, so that, we all received grace of God, for every good deed. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Humanity is a biological species, living in a biological environment, because like all species, we are exquisitely adapted in everything: from our behavior, to our genetics, to our physiology, to that particular environment in which we live. The earth is our home. Unless we preserve the rest of life, as a sacred duty, we will be endangering ourselves by destroying the home in which we evolved, and on which we completely depend. — Edward O. Wilson

Nonviolent non-co-operation, I am convinced, is a sacred duty at times. — Mahatma Gandhi

Recent surveys of Church members have shown a serious erosion in the number of families who have a year's supply of life's necessities. Most members plan to do it. Too few have begun ... It is our sacred duty to care for our families, including our extended families. — Thomas S. Monson

The act of giving voice to this spiritual suffering is, in my view, the sacred duty of the writer. — Mo Yan

An ideal marriage is a true partnership between two imperfect people, each striving to complement the other, to keep the commandments, and to do the will of the Lord ["Our Sacred Duty to Honor Woman," Ensign, May 1999). — Russel M. Nelson

In the priesthood we share the sacred duty to labor for the souls of men. We must do more than learn that this is our duty. It must go down into our hearts so deeply that neither the many demands on our efforts in the bloom of life nor the trials that come with age can turn us from that purpose. — Henry B. Eyring

So long as people do not consider all men as their brothers and do not consider human life as the most sacred thing, which rather than destroy they must consider it their first and foremost duty to support; that is so long as people do not behave towards one another in a religious manner, they will always ruin one another's lives for the sake of personal gain. — Leo Tolstoy

Our sacred duty is to proclaim and preach the gospel of salvation to all people from every nation. — Lailah Gifty Akita

For you, o broker, there is no other principle but arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my forces mechanically on the payment of moneys. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I know of no more sacred duty than to rear and educate a child. — Ludwig Van Beethoven

If it were to be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws - the first growing out of the last ... A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government. — Alexander Hamilton

Whosoever considers the immense labors undertaken by Catholic exegetes during well nigh two thousand years, so that the word of God, imparted to men through the Sacred Letters, might daily be more deeply and fully understood and more intensely loved, will easily be convinced that it is the serious duty of the faithful, and especially of priests, to make free and holy use of this treasure, accumulated throughout so many centuries by the greatest intellects. — Pope Pius XII

It is every one's sacred duty to keep himself in a condition to do the biggest thing possible to him. — Orison Swett Marden

National defense is the sacred duty of the young and all other people. — Kim Jong Il

As he got to know her better, he learned more of her childhood; and he came to realize that it was typical of that of most girls of her time and circumstance. She was educated upon the premise that she would be protected from the gross events that life might thrust in her way, and upon the premise that she had no other duty than to be a graceful and accomplished accessory to that protection, since she belonged to a social and economic class to which protection was an almost sacred obligation. She — John Williams

As your older brother, it's my sacred duty to save you from yourself."
She brings her fists down on the table, making all the dinner plates jump. "The ONLY reason you're fifteen minutes older than me is because you cut in front of the line, as usual! — Neal Shusterman

The enemy - the indispensible devil of every mass movement - is omnipresent. He plots both outside and inside the ranks of the faithful. It is his voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges. If anything goes wrong within the movement, it is his doing. It is the sacred duty of the true believer to be suspicious. He must be constantly on the lookout for saboteurs, spies and traitors. — Eric Hoffer

Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness. — Mahatma Gandhi

It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate their successors and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the inheritance which awaits them. — James A. Garfield

Fellow Americans, our duty is before us tonight. Let us go forward, determined to serve selflessly a vision of man with God, government for people, and humanity at peace. For it is now our task to tend and preserve, through the darkest and coldest nights, that "sacred fire of liberty" that President Washington spoke of two centuries ago, a fire that tonight remains a beacon to all oppressed of the world, shining forth from this kindly, pleasant, greening land we call America. — Ronald Reagan

Health is a divine gift, and the care of the body is a sacred duty, to neglect which is to sin. — Eugen Sandow

It is a melancholy consideration that there should be several among us so hardened and deluded as to think an oath a proper subject for a jest; and to make this, which is one of the most solemn acts of religion, an occasion of mirth. Yet such is the depravation of our manners at present, that nothing is more frequent than to hear profligate men ridiculing, to the best of their abilities, these sacred pledges of their duty and allegiance; and endeavouring to be witty upon themselves, for daring to prevaricate with God and man. — Joseph Addison

Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The Japanese have two words: "uchi" meaning inside and "soto" meaning outside. Uchi refers to their close friends, the people in their inner circle. Soto refers to anyone who is outside that circle. And how they relate and communicate to the two are drastically different. To the soto, they are still polite and they might be outgoing, on the surface, but they will keep them far away, until they are considered considerate and trustworthy enough to slip their way into the uchi category. Once you are uchi, the Japanese version of friendship is entire universes beyond the average American friendship! Uchi friends are for life. Uchi friends represent a sacred duty. A Japanese friend, who has become an uchi friend, is the one who will come to your aid, in your time of need, when all your western "friends" have turned their back and walked away. — Alexei Maxim Russell

All Americans have a sacred duty to guarantee Social Security benefits to our nation's senior citizens. — Steve King

One man thinks justice consists in paying debts, and has no measure in his abhorrence of another who is very remiss in this duty and makes the creditor wait tediously. But that second man has his own way of looking at things; asks himself Which debt must I pay first, the debt to the rich, or the debt to the poor? the debt of money or the debt of thought to mankind, of genius to nature? For you, O broker, there is not other principle but arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; — Ralph Waldo Emerson

She cannot escape marriage; it is her sacred Hindu duty, just as giving her away in marriage was her father's sacred Hindu duty. Like Indian Independence, marriage is her ultimate 'Tryst with Destiny,' and it is not in her hand to escape her preordained and compulsory fate. A marriageable daughter is the lowest common denominator in the giant scheme of things. — Chandana Roy

There is no such thing as closure for soldiers who have survived a war. They have an obligation, a sacred duty, to remember those who fell in battle beside them all their days and to bear witness to the insanity that is war. — Harold G. Moore

It begins to look as though modern man cannot find his heroism in everyday life any more, as men did in traditional societies just by doing their daily duty of raising children, working, and worshiping. He needs revolutions and wars and "continuing" revolutions to last when the revolutions and wars end. That is the price modern man pays for the eclipse of the sacred dimension. When he dethroned the ideas of soul and God he was thrown back hopelessly on his own resources, on himself and those few around him. Even lovers and families trap and disillusion us because they are not substitutes for absolute transcendence. We might say that they are poor illusions in the sense that we have been discussing. — Ernest Becker

What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws. — Alexander Hamilton

The sacred duty of every soul is to fear God. — Lailah Gifty Akita

There is a relentless search for the factual and this quest often lacks warmth or reverence. At a certain stage in our life we may wake up to the urgency of life, how short it is. Then the quest for truth becomes the ultimate project. We can often forage for years in the empty fields of self-analysis and self-improvement and sacrifice much of our real substance for specks of cold, lonesome factual truth. The wisdom of the tradition reminds us that if we choose to journey on the path of truth, it then becomes a sacred duty to walk hand in hand with beauty. — John O'Donohue

Numbered among our population are some 12,000,000 colored people. Under our Constitution their rights are just as sacred as those of any other citizen. It is both a public and a private duty to protect those rights. The Congress ought to exercise all its powers of prevention and punishment against the hideous crime of lynching, of which the negroes are by no means the sole sufferers, but for which they furnish a majority of the victims. — Calvin Coolidge

If you knew the satisfaction of performing a duty, as well as the gratitude to God which the missionary must always feel in being chosen for so noble and sacred a calling, you would feel no hesitation in embracing it. — David Livingstone

I believe that our vote is both a public duty and a sacred trust. — Gordon Brown

Possibly the best suggestion in condensed form, as to how to live, was given by my old Headmaster, Dr. Haig Brown, in 1904, when he wrote his Recipe for Old Age. A diet moderate and spare, Freedom from base financial care, Abundant work and little leisure, A love of duty more than pleasure, An even and contented mind In charity with all mankind, Some thoughts too sacred for display In the broad light of common day, A peaceful home, a loving wife, Children, who are a crown of life; These lengthen out the years of man Beyond the Psalmist's narrow span. — Robert Baden-Powell

Your sacred contribution in the world is the service to humanity. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I have other duties equally sacred ... Duties to myself. — Henrik Ibsen

Then, as now, there would always be people who preferred the option of devoting their religious energies to sacred space over the more difficult duty of compassion. — Karen Armstrong

Everyone has the right to doubt everything as often as he pleases and the duty to do it at least once. No way of looking at things is too sacred to be reconsidered. No way of doing things is beyond improvement. — Edward De Bono

So this was it, she thought. So many times she'd wondered. True sacrifice was the surrender of one sacred thing in favor of keeping another. No matter how prudent or cautious one was, in the end something precious was lost. Whether the claim was in the name of family or duty or honor or truth, it exacted a terrible price. To her dismay, she did not feel the pride or pleasure that Bledig had claimed when he spoke of the sacrifices he had made for her and their children. For Alwen, sacrifice brought grief and guilt, and an unbearable sense of uncertainty. — Roberta Trahan

Freedom is not a gift nor does it simply exist for us to have, but rather it is a sacred duty, and its blessed yield of hope is born from none other than the blood of the innocent. — Bryant H. McGill

It is the duty of every cultured man or woman to read sympathetically the scriptures of the world. If we are to respect others' religions as we would have them respect our own, a friendly study of the world's religions is a sacred duty. — Mahatma Gandhi

What kind of victory is it when someone is left defeated? What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy. What is a war criminal? Was not war itself a crime against God and humanity, and, therefore, were not all those who sanctioned, engineered and conducted wars, war criminals? The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty. — Mahatma Gandhi

The little people must be sacred to the big ones, and it is from the rights of the weak that the duty of the strong is comprised. — Victor Hugo

The grateful applause of the clergy has consecrated the memory of a prince, who indulged their passions and promoted their interest. Constantine gave them security, wealth, honours, and revenge; and the support of the orthodox faith was considered as the most sacred and important duty of the civil magistrate. The edict of Milan, the great charter of toleration, had confirmed to each individual of the Roman world the privilege of choosing and professing his own religion. — Edward Gibbon

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

Artfulness is not simple entertainment,
especially during upheaval,
unleashing creative life is sacred duty. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Our military leaders don't seize power in coups; our soldiers and sailors don't go on strike for higher pay or benefits; our armed forces don't weigh in on the political process. In return, Americans have a sacred duty to treat them honorably. — Kathleen Troia McFarland

I cherish the review-as-literature; as lapidary journalism in the eighteenth-century mode, the last hard sparkling diamond in theessayists's tarnished crown. To me, writing a good review is not just a way to make extra money, but a sacred duty. — Florence King

The preaching of the faith has lost nothing of its relevance in our times. The Church has a sacred duty to proclaim it without any whittling-down, just as Christ revealed it, and no consideration of time or circumstance can lessen the strictness of this obligation. — Pope Pius XII

The people are the best guardians of their own rights and it is the duty of their executive to abstain from interfering in or thwarting the sacred exercise of the lawmaking functions of their government. — William Henry Harrison