101 Duty Quotes

In a world that often emphasizes personal gain and self-interest, the timeless concept of duty serves as a grounding force, reminding us of our responsibilities to others and to ourselves. Whether it's fulfilling our roles in the workplace, within our families, or in the broader community, the call of duty resonates across cultures and generations. To honor this noble principle, we've curated a collection of the top 101 duty quotes. These quotes, drawn from a wide array of sources, offer wisdom, motivation, and reflection on what it truly means to live a life of duty and commitment. Join us as we explore these inspiring words that capture the essence of responsibility and the enduring call to do what is right.

1. “If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity.” - Albert Einstein

2. “I have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigated pain. It is important to share how I know survival is survival and not just a walk throught the rain.” - Audre Lorde

3. “A poet's work . . . to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.” - Salman Rushdie

4. “Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” - Abraham Lincoln

5. “The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first and love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life.” - Theodore Roosevelt

6. “On my honor, I will do my bestTo do my duty To God and my country” - Boy Scouts of America

7. “Human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.” - George Washington

8. “It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.” - Benjamin Franklin

9. “Do your duty as you see it, and damn the consequences.” - George S. Patton Jr.

10. “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

11. “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

12. “There is but one path of safety to the Latter-day Saints, and that is the path of duty. It is not testimony, it is not marvelous manifestations, it is not knowing that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true, . . . it is not actually knowing that the Savior is the Redeemer, and that Joseph Smith was His prophet, that will save you and me, but it is the keeping of the commandments of God, the living the life of a Latter-day Saint. [Heber J. Grant, Improvement Era, November 1936, p. 659] Quoted in “Waiting Upon the Lord” By Henry B. Eyring, BYU Speeches, 30 Sept 1990” - Heber J. Grant

13. “Character is doing what you don't want to do but know you should do.” - Joyce Meyer

14. “Non nobis solum nati sumus.(Not for ourselves alone are we born.)” - Marcus Tullius Cicero

15. “Thus, you see, he arrived at the same end, via supposed duty, that he was previously pledged to via interest. I fancy a good number of us, when any line of action will promote our own interest, can make ourselves believe that reasons exist which compel us to it as a duty.” - Elizabeth Gaskell

16. “There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution. - Mr. Knightley” - Jane Austen

17. “The way I see it, when you put the uniform on, in effect you sign a contract. And you don't back out of a contract merely because you've changed your mind. You can still speak up for your principles, you can still argue against the ones you're being made to fight for, but in the end you do the job.” - Pat Barker

18. “I don’t believe him,” said Hermione in a very unsteady voice, the moment they were out of earshot of Hagrid. “I don’t believe him. I really don’t believe him. . . .”“Calm down,” said Harry.“Calm down!” she said feverishly. “A giant! A giant in the forest! And we’re supposed to give him English lessons! Always assuming, of course, we can get past the herd of murderous centaurs on the way in and out! I — don’t — believe — him!” - J.K. Rowling

19. “You know I have duties──we both have duties──before which feeling must be sacrificed.” - George Eliot

20. “You know, that man has a spirit, that each man and woman is unique, that we have duty to promote our unalienable rights and to protect them, that we have a duty to our families and ourselves, to take care of ourselves, to contribute to charity, that we have a duty to support a just and righteous law that is stable and predictable.” - Mark R. Levin

21. “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

22. “A perfect man would never act from a sense of duty; he’d always want the right thing more than the wrong one. Duty is only a substitute for love (of God and of other people) like a crutch which is a substitute for a leg. Most of us need the crutch at times; but of course it is idiotic to use the crutch when our own legs (our own loves, tastes, habits etc.) can do the journey on their own.” - C. S. Lewis

23. “Society can give its young men almost any job and they'll figure how to do it. They'll suffer for it and die for it and watch their friends die for it, but in the end, it will get done. That only means that society should be careful about what it asks for. ... Soldiers themselves are reluctant to evaluate the costs of war, but someone must. That evaluation, ongoing and unadulterated by politics, may be the one thing a country absolutely owes the soldiers who defend its borders.” - Sebastian Junger

24. “Ain't all buttons and charts, little albatross. Know what the first rule of flying is? Well I s'pose you do, since you already know what I'm 'bout to say.I do. But I like to hear you say it.Love. Can know all the math in the 'verse but take a boat in the air that you don't love? She'll shake you off just as sure as a turn in the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down...tell you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens...makes her a home.” - Joss Whedon

25. “A person less fortunate than yourself deserves the best you can give. Because of duty, and honor, and service. You understand those words? You should do your job right, and you should do it well, simply because you can, without looking for notice or reward.” - Lee Child

26. “If the past is not to bind us, where can duty lie? We should have no law but the inclination of the moment.” - George Eliot

27. “Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.” - Jane Austen

28. “An action, to have moral worth, must be done from duty.” - Immanuel Kant

29. “We are meant to be.” He pressed his lips to mine again; against myself, against my worry, I once again succumbed to the power of his kiss. “I know that now. Our love is stronger than magic, stronger than the laws of all Feyland. It will survive this...whatever the future brings.” - Prince Kian, Silver Frost.” - Kailin Gow

30. “His outflung hands traced over the threads of his rug, passed loop by loop through some patient woman's hands. Or maybe she hadn't been patient. Maybe she'd been tired, or irritated, or distracted, or hungry, or angry. Maybe she had been dying. But her hands had kept moving, all the same.” - Lois McMaster Bujold

31. “Rise above the deceptions and temptations of the mind. This is your duty. You are born for this only; all other duties are self-created and self-imposed owing to ignorance.” - Sivananda

32. “Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.” - G.K. Chesterton

33. “Full moon is falling through the sky.Cranes fly through clouds.Wolves howl. I cannot find restBecause I am powerlessTo amend a broken world.Sima Zian added, "I love the man who wrote that, I told you before, but there is so much burden in Chan Du. Duty, assuming all tasks, can betray arrogance. The idea we can know what must be done, and do it properly. We cannot know the future, my friend. It claims so much to imagine we can. And the world is not broken any more than it always, always is.” - Guy Gavriel Kay

34. “If we wish to be happy, monsieur, we must never comprehend duty; for, as soon as we comprehend it, it is implacable. One would say that it punishes you for comprehending it; but no, it rewards you for it; for it puts you into a hell where you feel God at your side.” - Victor Hugo

35. “Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but, leave him when he is wrong.” - Abraham Lincoln

36. “An enlightened man had but one duty - to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led.” - Hermann Hesse

37. “So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man,When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,' The youth whispers, 'I can.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

38. “Duty performed gives clearness and firmness to faith, and faith thus strengthened through duty becomes the more assured and satisfying to the soul.” - Tryon Edwards

39. “Every duty that is bidden to wait comes back with seven fresh duties at its back.” - Charles Kingsley

40. “Duty is what one expects from others.” - Oscar Wilde

41. “One painful duty fulfilled makes the next plainer and easier.” - Helen Keller

42. “It's a father's duty to give his sons a fine chance.” - George Eliot

43. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright” - Blaise Pascal

44. “She had a fierce pleasure in the idea of telling Margaret unwelcome truths, in the shape of performance of duty.” - Elizabeth Gaskell

45. “And whosoever fears Allah and keeps his duty to Him, He will make a way for him to get out (from every difficulty).And He will provide him from (sources) he never could imagine.” - Anonymous

46. “We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” - George Orwell

47. “Honor is no phantom. Duty doesn't melt away, no matter how much we might wish it to.” - Claudia J. Edwards

48. “God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right, even though I think it is hopeless.” - Chester Nimitz

49. “These thoughts are depressing I know. They are depressing, I wish I was more cheerful, it is more pleasant,Also it is a duty, we should smile as well as submitting To the purpose of One Above who is experimentingWith various mixtures of human character which goes best, All is interesting for him it is exciting, but not for us. There I go again. Smile, smile, and get some work to doThen you will be practically unconscious without positively having to go.” - Stevie Smith

50. “True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero

51. “Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires but according to our powers.” - Henri Frédéric Amiel

52. “To exact revenge for yourself or your friends is not only a right, it's an absolute duty.” - Stieg Larsson

53. “Devotion to duty is the highest form of worship of God.” - Swami Vivekananda

54. “The most difficult challenge an honest man will ever face is having to choose between duty and love.One creates a man of honorable character―a life worth dying for.The other creates a vulnerable soul that madly yearns for either death or immortality.” - Richelle Goodrich

55. “Takamasa Saegusa: 'Seigen, a mere member of the Toudouza, had the effrontery to sully the sacred dueling ground. For that reason, our lord had already decided to subject him to tu-uchi before long. Cut off his head immediately, and stick it on a pike!'Gennosuke could hardly believe his ears. Such an insult to Irako Seigen was unwarranted. It was pride. For Gennosuke, Irako Seigen was pride itself.Takamasa Saegusa: 'Fujiki Gennosuke! It is the way of the samurai to take the head of the defeated enemy on the battleground. Do not hesitate! If you are a samurai, you must carry out the duty of a samurai!'Samurai...Saegusa, Lord of Izu, continued shouting, but Gennosuke did not attend. That word 'samurai' alone reverberated through his body.If one aims at the juncture between the base of the skull and the spine, decapitation is not that difficult, but Gennosuke could muster no more strength than a baby. He grew pale and trembled with the strain. He could only hack with his sword as if he were sawing wood. He felt nauseated, as if his own cells one after another were being annihilated. But this...Lord Tokugawa Tadanaga: 'I approve.'Takamasa Saegusa: 'Fujiki Gennosuke, for this splendid action you have received words of thanks from our lord. As a sign of his exceptional approval, you shall be given employment at Sunpu Castle. This great debt will by no means be forgotten. From this day forward you must offer your life to our lord!'Prostrating himself, Gennosuke vomited.” - Takayuki Yamaguchi

56. “This is a perfectly good picture. And if I didn't know you, I would be impressed and charmed. But I do know you."He thought some more, wondering whether he dared say precisely what he felt, for he knew he could never explain exactly why the idea came to him. "It's the painting of a dutiful daughter," he said eventually, looking at her cautiously to see her reaction. "You want to please. You are always aware of what the person looking at this picture will think of it. Because of that you've missed something important. Does that make sense?"She thought, then nodded. "All right," she said grudgingly and with just a touch of despair in her voice. "You win."Julien grunted. "Have another go, then. I shall come back and come back until you figure it out.""And you'll know?""You'll know. I will merely get the benefit of it.” - Iain Pears

57. “Tonight he would do anything in the world for her.Tomorrow he would begin to set her free.” - Mary Balogh

58. “Those who believe that liberal democracy and the free market can be defended by the force of law and regulation alone, without an internalised sense of duty and morality, are tragically mistaken.” - Jonathan Sacks

59. “But it is a writer's duty to write and speak and record the truth, always the truth, no matter whom may be offended.” - Edward Abbey

60. “My noble father,I do perceive here a divided duty.To you I am bound for life and education.My life and education both do learn meHow to respect you. You are the lord of my duty,I am hitherto your daughter. But here’s my husband,And so much duty as my mother showedTo you, preferring you before her father,So much I challenge that I may professDue to the Moor my lord.” - Shakespeare; William

61. “We’re so rarely called on to be Christians, but when we are, we’ve got men like Atticus to go for us.” - Harper Lee

62. “From out of nowhere, Phury felt an overwhelming tide of guilt, like someone had popped the lid off allhis deepest concerns and his fears for the future of the race. He had to respond to it, couldn't bear thepressure. Riding the wave, he found himself saying in a rush, "We live and die for our kind. The species is our firstand only concern. We fight every night and count the jars of thelessers we kill. Stealth is the way weprotect the civilians. The less they know about us, the safer they are. That is why we disappeared.” - J.R. Ward

63. “In the violent scorn of her revolted pride, of her indignant honor, had she forgotten a lowlier yet harder duty left undone?In her contempt and dread of yielding to mere amorous weakness had she stifled and denied the cry of pity, the cry of conscience?To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite. To forgive wrongs darker than death or night. To defy power which seems omnipotent. To love and live to hope till hope creates from it's own wreck the thing it contemplates. Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent.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.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.” - Ouida

64. “She was like a queen who beholds the virgin soil of her kingdom invaded and wasted by a traitor.Any other thing she would have pardoned: infidelity, indifference, cruelty, any sins of manhood's caprice or passion, but who should pardon this? The sin was not alone against herself; it was against every law of decency and truth that ever she had been taught to hold sacred; it was against all those great dead, who lay with the cross on their breasts and their swords by their side, from whom she had received and treasured the traditions of honor and purity of race.It was those dead knights whom he had smote upon the mouth and mocked, crying to them: 'Lo! your place is mine; my sons will reign in your stead. I have tainted your race forever; for every my blood flows with yours!'The greatness of a race is a thing far higher than mere pride. Its instincts are noble and supreme. Its obligations are no less than its privileges; it is a great light which streams backward through the darkness of the ages, and if by that light you guide not your footsteps, then are you thrice accursed, holding as you do that lamp of honor in your hands.So she had always thought, and now he had dashed the lamp in the dust.--"Wanda” - Ouida

65. “And we must still try or we would be leaving our friends to fight without us. I think this is what you have meant by duty, all along; I do understand, at least this much of it.” - Naomi Novik

66. “He had sprung from a rigid Puritan stock, and had been brought up to think much more intently of the duties of this life than of its privileges and pleasures.” - Henry James

67. “...so Leola thought that a modest romance with a hero in embryo could do no harm - might even be a patriotic duty.” - Robertson Davies

68. “Honor is honesty to what is, not blind duty to what you wish to be.” - Terry Goodkind

69. “[I]t is the writer's duty to write fiction which promotes virtue, the good, the beautiful, and above all, the true. ... It is the writer's duty to hate injustice, to defy the powerful, and to speak for the voiceless. To be ... the severest critics of our own societies.” - Edward Abbey

70. “What honest boy would pride himself on not picking pockets ? A thief who was trying to reform would. To be conceited of doing one's duty is then a sign of how little one does it, and how little one sees what a contemptible thing it is not to do it. Could any but a low creature be conceited of not being contemptible? Until our duty becomes to us common as breathing, we are poor creatures.” - George MacDonald

71. “In Sanskrit, there exists no word for ‘The Individual’ (L’Individu). En Grèce antique, il n’y avait aucun mot pour dire ‘Devoir’ (Duty). In French, the word for ‘Wife’ is the same as the word for ‘Woman.’ En anglais, nous n’avons aucun mot semblable à l’exquise ‘Jouissance!” - Roman Payne

72. “And you have to understand this, that a prince, especially a new one, cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being often forced, in order to maintain the state, to act contrary to faith, friendship, humanity, and religion. “ The Prince, XVIII, 5” - Machiavelli Nicolo Machiavelli

73. “We are obliged to love one another. We are not strictly bound to 'like' one another. Love governs the will: 'liking' is a matter of sense and sensibility. Nevertheless, if we really love others it will not be too hard to like them also.If we wait for some people to become agreeable or attractive before we begin to love them, we will never begin. If we are content to give them a cold impersonal 'charity' that is merely a matter of obligation, we will not trouble to understand them or to sympathize with them at all. And in that case we will not really love them, because love implies an efficacious will not only to do good to others exteriorly but also to find some good in them to which we can respond.” - Thomas Merton

74. “there are some some times in life where you have to let your feelings go and do what must be done” - Evan Meekins

75. “It is the duty of youths to war against indiscipline and corruption because they are the leaders of tomorrow.” - Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

76. “Love grows and wanes, but honor, duty, and commitment, those things are constant and stable. They define who you are.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

77. “Two ideas are opposed — not concepts or abstractions, but Ideas which were in the blood of men before they were formulated by the minds of men. The Resurgence of Authority stands opposed to the Rule of Money; Order to Social Chaos, Hierarchy to Equality, socio-economico-political Stability to constant Flux; glad assumption of Duties to whining for Rights; Socialism to Capitalism, ethically, economically, politically; the Rebirth of Religion to Materialism; Fertility to Sterility; the spirit of Heroism to the spirit of Trade; the principle of Responsibility to Parliamentarism; the idea of Polarity of Man and Woman to Feminism; the idea of the individual task to the ideal of ‘happiness’; Discipline to Propaganda-compulsion; the higher unities of family, society, State to social atomism; Marriage to the Communistic ideal of free love; economic self-sufficiency to senseless trade as an end in itself; the inner imperative to Rationalism.” - Francis Parker Yockey

78. “Most of us don't mind doing what we ought to do when it doesn't interfere with what we want to do, but it takes discipline and maturity to do what we ought to do whether we want to or not.” - Joseph B. Wirthlin

79. “She hated being a nobody and like all children, adopted or not, I have had to live out some of her unlived life. We do that for our parents - we don't really have any choice.” - Jeanette Winterson

80. “We live in a world that has walls and those walls need to be guarded by men with guns.” - Aaron Sorkin

81. “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.” - Winston Churchill

82. “The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it's scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based! If you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don't deserve to wear that uniform!” - Ronald D. Moore and Naren Shankar

83. “Not once or twice in our fair island-story,The path of duty was the way to glory.” - Alfred Lord Tennyson

84. “No man of honor avoided what needed to be done, simply because it might not proceed in his favor.” - Claire Delacroix

85. “Do notforget duty. But choose love when you can.” - Cinda Williams Chima

86. “A father acts on behalf of his children by working, providing, intervening, struggling, and suffering for them. In so doing, he really stands in their place. He is not an isolated individual, but incorporates the selves of several people in his own self. Every attempt to live as if he were alone is a denial of the fact that he is actually responsible. He cannot escape the responsibility, which is his because he is a father. This reality refutes the fictitious notion that the isolated individual is the agent of all ethical behavior. It is not the isolated individual but the responsible person who is the proper agent to be considered in ethical reflection.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

87. “Work done is of more consequence for the future than the foresight of an angel.” - George MacDonald

88. “Major, I do not know why God does the things He does, but I believe you have the same duty to God as you have always had: to follow the right path, to live your life with a clear conscience.” - Jeff Shaara

89. “Thomas looked around and tried not to let his duty turn him bitter. These were good men, and he would not leave them behind. He had chosen this, an unselfish life.” - Jessica Fortunato

90. “There are no saints either. We are immortal, but not so unlike the humans as you think. We have enemies, we have duties, we hate, we struggle, and we love.” - Jessica Fortunato

91. “The voice of love calls to you, my son.” - Wayne Gerard Trotman

92. “There is nothing about our duties that necessitates like or dislike. You have your purpose and I have mine. That’s the end of the matter.” - Dawn Jayne

93. “Unity! Duty! And destiny!” - Greg Farshtey

94. “Duty doesn't need to call; it only needs to whisper. And if you heed the call, no matter what happens, you have no need for regret." Odd Thomas” - Dean Koontz

95. “Uniqueness isn't a virtue. It's a responsibility.” - Mark Batterson

96. “No duty is ignoble. What can be ignoble is the sight of people trying not to be ignoble.” - Idries Shah

97. “It is a noble responsibility to not back down when you know that you know that you know that you are right.” - Criss Jami

98. “I don't see why you two can't get along.""It is a personality issue," Rathenridge muttered.Dentin looked at him. No emotion, no reaction, simply bland observation. "Yours?” - Rachel Rossano

99. “So long as there is death there will be sorrow, and so long as there is sorrow it can be no part of the duty of human beings to increase its amount, in spite of the fact that a few rare spirits know how to transmute it.” - Bertrand Russell

100. “You can always tell duty. It's what you don't want to do--it's what you fight against inside you. Duty's when you realize how it'll hurt other people and you choose between that and what would be easiest for you.” - Leslie Ford

101. “Duty comes in many forms; at times duty to country may conflict with duty to family. Yet, with a lucid mind the guises can be torn away and in the end, duty becomes but one, and that duty is to value justice above everything--to do what is right not because someone ordains it, but because the heart which is the seat of truth decrees it so.” - F. Sionil José