"Sense of duty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intimation, some outline, of the character of the men who composed the directors and stockholders of the California Insurance Company, who acted well their part, who fought the good fight and held the faith, whose stern sense of duty and heroic courage led them to lay upon the altar of their idealism the financial ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks
... hours had flown. Mrs. Cayhill, left to herself, had all the comfortable sensations of a tippler in the company of his bottle. She could forge ahead, undeterred by any sense of duty; she had not to interrupt herself to laugh at Ephie's wit, nor was she troubled by Johanna's cold eye—that eye which told more plainly than words, how her elder daughter regarded her self-indulgence. Propped up in bed on two pillows, she now laid down her book, and put out ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... present we may recognize these two—(a) the tendency towards a renunciation of the world, and the consequent cultivation of a purely spiritual love and (b) the insistence on a morality whose inspiration was a private sense of duty to God rather than a public sense of duty to one's neighbor and to society generally. It may be interesting to trace the causes which ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... to Abdiel as they went; but though the dog could understand much, I doubt if he understood that lecture. For Abdiel was one of the few, even among dogs, with whom the defence of master or friend is an inborn, instinctive duty; and strong temptation even has but a poor chance against the sense of duty in ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... said that in no den of iniquity in the city could Walter Gregory have received such moral injury as poisoned his very soul when, in Mr. Bently's elegant and respectable parlor, the "angel" he worshipped "explained how she was situated," and from a "sense of duty" stated her purpose to yield to the wishes of her friends. Gregory had often seen Mr. Grobb, but had given him no thought, supposing him some elderly relative of the family. That this was the accepted suitor of the girl who had, with tender, meaning glances, sung ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... leader, his clear judgement, his heroic endurance, his silence under difficulties, his calmness in the hour of danger or defeat, the patience with which he waited, the quickness and hardness with which he struck, the lofty and serene sense of duty that never swerved from its task through resentment or jealousy, that never through war or peace felt the touch of a meaner ambition, that knew no aim save that of guarding the freedom of his fellow-countrymen, and no personal longing save that of returning to his own fireside when their freedom ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... with that knowledge also came the thought that her love was hopeless, that even if Calhoun returned her love, her father would never consent to their union. He would rather see her dead than married to a Rebel, especially a hated Morgan raider. Long did she struggle with her own heart, her sense of duty, her ideas of patriotism; and duty conquered. She would give him up, ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... 'Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him,' and the same wise man adds in another place: 'He that spares the rod spoils the child.'" I know not whether he acted from a sense of duty, or to appease the anger of my aunt; but, for the first time in his life, I believe he did use the rod upon his son Ephraim. He provided himself with a switch, the size of which satisfied even Aunt Lucinda, and, taking ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... twelve-month together, without ever stopping to take breath, and had at last caught it by the antlers, and carried it home alive. And he had fought with a very odd race of people, half horses and half men, and had put them all to death, from a sense of duty, in order that their ugly figures might never be seen any more. Besides all this, he took to himself great credit for having ...
— The Three Golden Apples - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... proud, and yet they were as unsparing of the heretic as Ezzelino da Romano was of his enemies. With such men it was not hope of gain or lust of blood or pride of opinion or wanton exercise of power, but sense of duty, and they but represented public opinion from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century."[574] That is to say, that the virtues of the individuals were overruled by the vices of the ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... order after order, and worked till the perspiration stood in great drops upon his brow; and still no sign of life. The tears coursed silently down Mrs Inglis's face, and it was only by a great effort that she could keep from sobbing. Glad would she have been to have left the room, but a sense of duty forbade her, and she stayed, lending all the assistance that ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... disorder, has more subtlety in it; but it seldom succeeds, and is not applicable to vulgar minds, for there are some diseases which that medicine can by no means remove. For, should any one be uneasy because he is without virtue, without courage, destitute of a sense of duty or honesty, his anxiety proceeds from a real evil; and yet we must apply another method of cure to him, and such a one as all the philosophers, however they may differ about other things, agree in. For they must necessarily agree in this, that commotions ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... little heavily to the outflowing crowd in the arena, and bought a caterwauling toy balloon, but showed no great enthusiasm in manipulating it. Near the exit, as he came out, was a hot-waffle stand which he had overlooked, and a sense of duty obliged him to consume the three waffles, thickly powdered with sugar, which the waffle man cooked ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... to do anything, except lie still and give thanks, more fervently and gratefully than ever before, for the blessed gift of life, which was the sweeter for a sense of duty faithfully performed. ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... to her?" asked Jenny, waking from her happy reverie to a sudden sense of duty as the ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... on, venting his impatience, so plainly divided between his sense of duty in staying near his wife and his great desire to slip the leash, that Sherwood smiled to himself. Once again he mentioned Coleman and the Vigilantes ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... he had left Doramin's place very soon after his arrival—much too soon, in fact, for his safety, and of course a long time before the war. In this he was actuated by a sense of duty; he had to look after Stein's business, he said. Hadn't he? To that end, with an utter disregard of his personal safety, he crossed the river and took up his quarters with Cornelius. How the latter had managed to exist through the troubled times I can't say. As Stein's agent, after all, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... the girl's hand away and scowled savagely, trying to collect his thoughts and concentrate them on what he must say and do, to convince the trailmen of their duty toward the rest of the planet. As if they—not even human—could have a sense of duty! ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... case to-day I shrink From thus evading Sorrow's trammels; A sense of duty bids me think How costly are the larger mammals; To kill them just to soothe my mind Would seem to savour of the wasteful, A thing all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... Mordecai to Esther, we may recognise the principles upon which he had trained her. The sense of duty, the obligations of religion, the call to self-sacrifice and exertion, had all been instilled while Esther was in private life, and they bear their fruit on the throne. Yet there must have been a conflict ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... cannot reconcile it with my sense of duty to your interests to leave you any longer in ignorance of reports current in this town and its neighborhood, which, I regret to ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... proceedings, were at once devoted to perdition. Yet, after minute examination of the record, public and private, neither Wilkes nor Buckhurst can be found guilty of treachery or animosity towards him, but are proved to have been governed, in all their conduct, by a strong sense of duty to their sovereign, the Netherlands, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the chevalier's heart may have inclined him to linger near the home of the lady he still loved, his stern sense of duty soon summoned him away. News had come to King Louis that the people of Milan, who owed fealty to the French king, had revolted, and made ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... original. As each man sat down, Dennison and Webb had the impertinence to shout "Marten," but they were always called to order by the President, who was in no hurry to hear my maiden effort. Collier, who had not come to hear me from inclination but a sense of duty, dozed peacefully in a corner, a number of men recorded their votes and left the room, the President yawned prodigiously, and the Secretary looked as if he had got a headache. If I intended to speak before Lambert replied to ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... build up the Church, and enlarge the confines of his Master's kingdom, and the only personal advantage he has above his poorer brother is, he has more anxieties (but for Christ, who sweetens them) every step he advances up, and therefore would have no personal inducement to get up but the sense of duty, that he may have more abundantly to give to him who needeth, and the guinea dedications and speeches from the rich, would pass out together as no longer needed; for one action of real dedication ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves
... calls "more the friend of the Bishops than of the Church," had, in his opinion, endowed them and the higher clergy too well, and they were sunk in luxury and sloth. The Latitudinarians infused into the Church life, energy, and a sense of duty: they were, he adds, good preachers and acceptable to the king, who, "having little or no literature, but true and good sense," liked sermons "plain, clear, and short." "Incedo per ignes," but it is impossible to refrain ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... faithful of his generals. He stood out apart from men, cold and reserved in manner, though capable of the warmest affections. He seemed conscious of his mission and its obligations, resolved to act from the severest sense of duty, fearless of praise or blame, though not indifferent to either. He had no jealousy of his subordinates. He selected, so far as he was allowed by Congress, the best men for their particular duties, and with almost unerring instinct. So far as he had confidants, they were Greene, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... and one with fearful forebodings of evil. At the end of that time, the husband took up his hat and went out. For a long, long time after, Ellen sat in dreamy, sad abstraction, holding her babe to her breast. From this state, a sense of duty roused her, and laying her infant on the bed,—for they had not yet been able to spare money for a cradle,—she began to busy herself in her domestic duties. This brought ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... added, laying her hand lightly, but affectionately, on the arm of her sister, "is the penalty of experience, and, perhaps, the misfortune of my nature. See," she continued, as if determined to shake off infirmity, in a sense of duty; "look around you, Major Heyward, and tell me what a prospect is this for the daughter of a soldier whose greatest happiness is his ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... possibilities. The mother with the home-making instincts will invite, and aid, and will conceive events, which, though they upset her housekeeping routine, will contribute to the happiness and edification of the home circle. The housekeeper's sense of duty ends when a good dinner is served; the home-maker's real duty and incidentally her pleasure begins, when dinner ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... owned to himself that as a driver he was not much good. The German artillery had got their range to a yard, and it was very trying to have to stand up in the open and spend precious seconds in urging on men who ought to have known better. He was strongly tempted to run for it, but a sense of duty prevailed, and he stayed there dashing about in a futile effort to speed matters up. He shouted, he shrieked, he swore, he has a dim recollection of even kicking at his men in the effort to get on out of the terrible danger ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... South to visit his parents; and looking at the Palace-Gate from afar, he realizes that he is leaving the Capital indefinitely. The thought that he has been a protege of the Great President and that dangers loom ahead before the nation as well as his sense of duty and friendly obligations, charge him with the responsibility of saying something. He therefore begs to take the liberty of presenting his humble but extravagant views for the kind ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... plantations, even in States where the law enforces strict penalties against it. They believe that the slaves, if permitted to learn to read, would be more moral, faithful and obedient; and they cannot reconcile it with their sense of duty to keep from them the ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... from one's kind, and a pariah existence, far away from all centres of civilisation—far beyond the utmost reach of railroad or telegraph—came much more vividly before me; and in Rembrandt masses of shade, with but one small ray of light, just enough to give force and depth to the whole—a sense of duty, a duty that must be done, whether pleasant or otherwise, and about which there was no choice. What a world of anxiety and doubt the consciousness of this saves us!" This exordium reads more like the utterance ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... expect reasonably to see a deepened sincerity on the part of all who in any way stand in the position of teachers. We are dependent upon leaders in a democratic country, and all leaders in whatever place in society would now, one might hope, feel a heightened sense of duty, both to understand and to influence American life, to represent in their own persons and teachings the highest ideals, and indeed to become truly creative forces in society. Boutroux says that Germany is a product of an external ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... Valentine deter him from endeavouring to supplant him in her affections; and although, as it will always be, when people of dispositions naturally good become unjust, he had many scruples before he determined to forsake Julia, and become the rival of Valentine; yet he at length overcame his sense of duty, and yielded himself up, almost without remorse, to his ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... leave the subject without paying tribute to our friend and companion, Joe Creed. Joe is a large resolute dog of an amiable disposition, a dirty yellow coat, and a small bright eye of the same color. He has a keen sense of duty, but never leaves the blind until he sees the game falling, when he proceeds to bring it in. He was undoubtedly born for it. If two birds fall, with almost human intelligence he gets both. Taking the farthest first, stopping on his way in to pick up the other, he comes in with one swinging on ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... more important by far, acceptable to God. The moral being whom the fear of punishment alone would deter from doing evil, by threats would be equally hindered, and perhaps more so, from doing good. And he whom a sense of duty would not urge to right conduct, would not always be led to it by a view of the consequences resulting from doing evil. They who love the law of God will obey it, because of his holy will; and his authority will ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... dignify the connexion in their eyes; but nothing to chill it on either side. The imagination that so completely mastered him when he chose to give her the rein, was kept under most determined control when any of the positive obligations of active life came into question. A high and pure sense of duty presided over whatever he had to do as a citizen and a magistrate; and, as a landlord, he considered his estate as an ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... the engagement than I did even in giving it up, because I should have suffered in my conscience. I have now, as far as such a sentiment is allowable in human nature, nothing to reproach myself with; and if I mistake not, a strong sense of duty is no bad ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... sense of duty rather than from conviction. He seemed to attach great importance to the discovery of this mystery, and to be far from easy in his mind. He was unwilling to let me remain alone in the haunted room, and pretended that I might fall ill again and ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... trip. Dory had eaten his breakfast at five o'clock; and, if he was not hungry, he was faint, and felt the need of food. Mechanically he opened the basket the hotel-keeper had given him. It contained the choicest food from the table of the hotel; and he ate, though rather from a sense of duty than because he felt much interested in the operation. The lunch made him feel better, for it seemed to allay a sort of nervousness that ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... this monthly account of his stewardship, punctually rendered, to be the business weighing on his mind. But no: as he passed out through the park gates, the imp perched itself again behind his crupper, urging him forward, tormenting him with the same vague sense of duty neglected and clamorous. ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... o'clock had come and gone, and still the coach stood in the yard of the inn, Robbie's sense of duty overcame his appetite for what he would have called a "spoag." It was usual for the Carlisle coach to await the coach from Lancaster, and it was because the latter had not yet arrived at Kendal that the former was unable to depart from it. Robbie's ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... severity. Aunt Elizabeth, she fancied, would like to have been kind to her, but she was entirely under the influence of her sister, and there, too, Maggie was generous enough to see that Aunt Anne behaved as she did rather from a stern sense of duty than any real unkindness. Aunt Anne could not feel unkindly; she was too far removed from human temper and discontent and weakness. Nevertheless she had been deeply shocked at the revelation ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... had been a shock. With his sense of duty and family pride, he had, when the news of the frontier disaster first reached him, found it almost impossible to believe that his nephew had been guilty of shameful cowardice; and now it looked as if the disgrace ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... philanthropist; and, if he was drawn into controversy, it was accidentally, and much to his surprise and disappointment. It was not for the sake of defending his own positions that he replied to his critics, but in the name of truth, and from an exacting sense of duty. His gentle, loving, and sympathetic nature unfitted him for intellectual contentions; and he much preferred to devote himself to philanthropies and reforms. In the briefest way The Christian Disciple reported the doings of the liberal churches and men, but it gave much space ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... attended it, was appointed on the committee to prepare appropriate resolutions. These, when reported and modified according to suggestions made by Mr. Adams, were unanimously adopted. When it was intimated to him that his course was regarded as symptomatic of party apostasy, he replied that his sense of duty should never yield to the pleasure ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... well-educated, and refined gentleman, of retired habits, diffident of himself, and a stranger to ambition. He wore an undress rear-admiral's uniform, as a matter of course; but he wore it carelessly, as if from a sense of duty only; or conscious that no arrangement could give him a military air. Still all about his person was faultlessly neat, and perfectly respectable. In a word, no one but a man accustomed to the sea, were it ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... unseen hand, until for an instant that hand has seemed to close and to crush. Death has been imminent upon us. We know that at any moment it may be again. That grim presence shadows our lives, but who can deny that in that shadow the sense of duty, the feeling of sobriety and responsibility, the appreciation of the gravity and of the objects of life, the earnest desire to develop and improve, have grown and become real with us to a degree that has leavened ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... write. If at the first moment it should offend, on reflection, you will approve at least of the motive, and, perhaps, in a better state of mind, thank and bless me. If all the good which I have prayed for, should not be effected by this letter, I have at least discharged an imperious sense of duty. I wish my manner were less exceptionable, as I do that the advice through the blessing of the Almighty, might prove effectual. The tear which bedims my eye, is an evidence of the sincerity with which ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... farewell was more or less perfunctory. Lessingham was almost thankful to escape. There was an unusual flush in his cheeks, a sense of bitter humiliation in his heart. All the fervour with which he had started on his perilous quest had faded away. No sense of duty or patriotism could revive his drooping spirits. He felt himself suddenly an unclean ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... soon followed by others in all the large cites, was a Dominican friar called Torquemada. He was known as the "Inquisitor General." Inaccessible to pity, mild in manners, humble in demeanor, yet swayed only by a sense of duty, this strange being was so cruel that he seems like an incarnation of the evil principle. At the tribunal in Seville alone it is said that in thirty-six years four thousand victims were consigned to the flames, besides the thousands more who endured living deaths by torture, mutilation, ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... instruction for the sons and daughters of its dependents. It takes upon itself the discharge of duties imposed on parents by Divine Law, just as if fathers and mothers had lost their natural instincts as well as sense of duty; just as if the State had all the intelligence, virtue, and forethought of the public in her keeping. It dispenses parents from a duty from which God will never dispense them. It has usurped the office of teacher; ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... "The sense of duty in parents and teachers may be strengthened and elevated by contemplating the high standard which is here held up to them. The style has the great merit of being an earnest one, and there are many passages which rise into genuine eloquence and the ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... but there was no way to avoid it. He had offered to compromise, but nothing would satisfy his relentless captor. The punishment was to be inflicted in the spirit of revenge rather than from a sense of duty, which made it all the more intolerable to think of. He was not to be whipped for his own or the public good, but to satisfy the malice and revenge of ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... with ladies'-maids. But from habit Jonathan still carried himself as a mute on all ordinary occasions—never indulging in an approximation to mirth, except when he perceived that his master was in high spirits, and then rather from a sense of duty than from ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... walk, said it was because we minded our own affairs, and respected property and were law-abiding. This (he said) was the cause of our prosperity and of the futile envy with which foreigners regarded the homes of our working men. Not so the other: he thought that it was the Plain English sense of Duty that did the trick: he showed how this was ingrained in us and appeared in our Schoolboys and our Police: he contrasted it with Ireland, and he asked what else had made our Criminal Trials the model of the world? All ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... work. We followed him into the stable, and found the horse looking oppressed by care, its head lowered and motionless; it had evidently got no appetite. His master began a pathetic oration, looking tenderly at the animal, as if to arouse it to a sense of duty, and then taking its head, and kissing it lovingly, he put it into the manger, but to no purpose. Then the man began to weep bitterly, but in such a way that I had the greatest difficulty to prevent myself laughing, for I could see that ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... for undertaking this work, chief among them, however, being because I have for many months, felt it to be a duty to my God, and to my fellow-man. Nay, I may put it in a yet more concise form; and simply say, because of a sense of duty to my God, for I believe the two to be inseparable. As the green calyx of the rosebud holds within its embrace everything required to make up the perfect rose in all its beauty of form, texture, tint and perfume, so my duty to my God embraces my whole duty to my fellow-man in all its beauty ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... your faults you are a great nation, because although these latter years seem often to have destroyed the sense of duty in the individual in regard to his own life, the ingrained sense of it had become a habit and the habit still continues in regard to the community—you are not likely to have upheavals of great magnitude here. Now all other countries are moved by different spirits, some by patriotism and ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... man of you will be guided by his own sense of duty, without regard to what others may think of his action. I will not allow any man to suffer from any reproach or indignity on account of what he does in this matter, if by any means I can prevent it," continued Captain ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... quickly to England, with the uncertainty of its being carried safely by so small a vessel; and assured that the Revolutionaire, which he had again spoke that morning, would not fail to meet Sir J. Colpoys, he gave up the hope of distinction to a sense of duty, and made sail for Falmouth. He arrived late in the evening of ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... not love you, it is your own fault. They can not help loving you if you will be kind and friendly. If you are not loved, it is a good proof that you do not deserve to be loved. It is true that a sense of duty may, at times, render it necessary for you to do that which will displease ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... proletariate of Rome and Italy still believed, as their ancestors had always believed, that state and individual would alike suffer unless the gods were properly propitiated; and that in order to keep them quiet and comfortable the sense of duty to the gods must be kept alive even among those who had long ceased to believe in them. It was fortunate indeed for Augustus that he found in the great poet of Mantua one who was in some sense a prophet as well as a poet, who could urge the Roman by an imaginative example to return to ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... disobliging and unamiable in her disposition. If your companions do not love you, it is your own fault. They cannot help loving you if you will be kind and friendly. If you are not loved, it is good evidence that you do not deserve to be loved. It is true that a sense of duty may at times render it necessary for you to do that which is displeasing to your companions. But if it is seen that you have a noble spirit; that you are above selfishness; that you are willing to make sacrifices of your own personal convenience to promote the happiness of your associates, ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... as low as she could. The downcast head, the burning cheeks, the quick heaving of the breast, the pendent arms, with tensely interlacing fingers and palms turned downward, all told the story of a shy and sensitive girl submitting from a sense of duty to a painful ordeal. ...
— A Positive Romance - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... which the dreadful nature of the late events had very naturally reduced him, and which would have rendered it utterly impossible for him to appear in court, but for his indomitable will, and the high sense of duty, which had led him to think it, under the circumstances ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... group in whom the sense of duty is almost completely lacking, or rather fails to govern action. Ordinarily these are spoken of as lacking moral fiber, but in reality the organizing energy of character and the inhibition of the impulse to seek pleasure and present desire is feeble. Sometimes ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... life, he was engaged in endeavoring to persuade others to adopt his policies, regardless of the fact that opposed policies might be supported by as much if not even by more logic. Bismarck always justified his opportunism by saying that his sense of duty was superior to his private feelings of love or hate; however, his attitude was uniformly directed for or against conditions in proportion as, to his mind, they were charged with good or evil ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... which the worthy manager of the Maranon estate related to me the coming of the supposed anarchist. He meant to keep him—out of a sense of duty to the company—and the name he had given him would prevent the fellow from obtaining employment anywhere in Horta. The vaqueros of the estate, when they went on leave, spread it all over the town. They did not know what an anarchist was, nor yet what Barcelona meant. ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... now grew fainter; what was worse, they were heard at longer intervals, and this showed us that Captain Bennet was losing heart; that he was giving us up; that he despaired of finding us, and was now firing only an occasional gun out of a mournful sense of duty. This thought reduced us to despair. It seemed as if all our efforts had only served to take us farther away from the ship, and deprived us of all motive for rowing any harder than was barely necessary ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... saddest part of it all is that she is not marrying the man she loves. Oh, it is terrible. Marrying from a sense of duty! I think it is perfectly wicked, and I told her so. I have felt so strongly on the subject that although I was the only person outside of blood relations who was to have been asked to the wedding I would not let her invite me, for I should not ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... waste of time; and as for married women, she expects to join that holy army of martyrs in the course of time, and will then be quite contented with the same treatment as she has meted out to others. The politeness which springs from a sense of duty to others is little known to the Australian girl. If she likes you, she will make herself very pleasant; but if you are not worth wasting powder and shot on, you must expect to realize that disagreeable truth in all ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... lawyer by profession, he had resigned this position with regret to accept appointment, on January 1, 1903, as secretary of public instruction. He did not desire the governor-generalship and made a strong but unsuccessful effort to avoid accepting the position, which he finally took from a sense of duty. He was a good lawyer, with a big heart, and a keen insight into human nature. He thoroughly understood the Filipinos, and he made an excellent governor-general. It was during his term of office that the Philippine ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... Counter-Reformation had produced in Central Europe a scheme of persecution, which stopped short of tragedy, and laboured to accomplish, by infinite art and trouble, what the readier methods of the Holy Office and the Penal Law were expected to do. Ferdinand II was a slow, laborious, friendly man, with a sense of duty and a certain strictness of private life, but without initiative ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... be welcome to any average ship's crew, and the lad had no doubt that they would use no scruple in dealing with a youngster of his age. He must know who they were and whether they intended crossing the island. There was no feeling of mere adventure in his heart now. It was purely sense of duty that drove his trembling legs down the hillside. He shivered miserably in the night air and felt for his pistol-butt, ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... question often put to Mary Ellen. She would always say, "I love my heavenly Father best, and my dear father and mother next." Her first and best affections were freely given to her Maker, not from a sense of duty alone did it seem, but from a heart overflowing with love and gratitude; and never, at the hour of retiring, would she forget to kneel and offer up her evening prayer. ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... have possessed many valuable qualities; and, had he not been engaged, by a sense of duty, in this long contest, he would, in all probability, have been a ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... except an old priest, who entirely neglected his education; and of all that is contained in books he is absolutely ignorant, and he has no enthusiasm of character. On the other hand, he has excellent practical sense; has been a judicious observer of all that passed before his eyes; has a nice sense of duty, which, in its unfailing, minute activity, may put most enthusiasts to shame; a very sweet temper, and great native refinement. His love for me has been unswerving and most tender. I have never suffered a pain that he could relieve. His devotion, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... daydream of all his boyhood, and much of his youth. As yet, however, the project hovered before him at a great distance, and the path to its fulfilment offered him but little entertainment. His studies did not seize his attention firmly; he followed them from a sense of duty, not of pleasure. Virgil and Horace he learned to construe accurately; but is said to have taken no deep interest in their poetry. The tenderness and meek beauty of the first, the humour and sagacity and ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... with our quiet country life. I know you love your home now, but I fear lest a life in town should spoil you, and make you no longer our little Ruth, but a grown-up young lady, who would feel herself above our simple joys and pleasures, and only bring herself to tolerate them from a sense of duty." ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... sense of duty, too; loves those whom she ought to love, and despises those whom she ought to despise. She always has done, from her infancy up to the time when she loved me and despised public opinion ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... good humor, and its local and geographical details, which are frequently instructive and entertaining. The snatches of common-place sentimentality, which the author appears to indulge in both as a matter of taste and from a sense of duty, might ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... honte; for, though the son of an Irish peer, of two months' creation, the family was not strictly Irish, and he had very little ambition to figure in this manner. From what I saw of him subsequently, I do believe that nothing but a sense of duty to his order made him respect these privileges of rank at all, and that he would really just as soon go to a dinner-table last, as first. In the present case, however, he was soon relieved by Herman Mordaunt; who had been ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... faith in Jesus. At least he must say some word on behalf of the innocent man whom his fellow-members were determined to destroy. It was a testing-time for Nicodemus, and sore was the struggle between timidity and a sense of duty. The storm in the court-room was ready to burst; the council was about taking violent measures against Jesus. We know not what would have happened if no voice had been lifted for fair trial before condemnation. But then Nicodemus arose, and in ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... came, in calm, gentle tones; "No, Horace; 'perfect love casteth out fear,' and I cannot judge you hardly for what may have been only a mistaken sense of duty, and has been so ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... service, as in his providence he should call for them. No shuffling pretences, no pitiful evasions, when a fair demand was made upon the hallowed store; and no frigid affectation in determining the quality of the demand. A sense of duty was the prompter, candor the interpreter, and good sense the judge. Her disbursements were proportioned to the value of the object, and were ready at a moment's warning, to the very last farthing.* How pungent a reproof to those ladies of opulence and fashion who sacrifice so largely to their ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... the orange-coloured sunshine, each unit of which was thoroughly unfitted for any duties whatsoever. It makes me perpetually sorrowful in London to meet with people doing their duty. I find them everywhere. It is impossible to escape from them. A sense of duty is like some horrible disease. It destroys the tissues of the mind, as certain complaints destroy the tissues of the body. The catechism has a ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... looking a long way into the future—was Rafferty. That winter he took out his naturalization papers and soon afterwards he began an active campaign for the Common Council. It was partly my interest in him and partly a new sense of duty I felt towards the whole game that made me resolve to have a hand in this. I owed that much to the ward in which I lived and which was doing ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... impartial smile which falls, like the rain from Heaven, on good and bad indifferently. "SO charmed to see you again, Dr. Cumberledge!" she bubbled out, with a cheerful air—she was always cheerful, mechanically cheerful, from a sense of duty. "It IS such a pleasure to meet dear Hugo's old friends! AND Miss Wade, too; how delightful! You look so well, Miss Wade! Oh, you're both at St. Nathaniel's now, aren't you? So you can come together. What a privilege for you, Dr. Cumberledge, ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... conviction that he possessed the power which he undertook to exercise. Of the officer holding the principal station, I think it proper to observe that he accepted it with reluctance, in compliance with the invitation given him, and from a high sense of duty to his country, being willing to contribute to the consummation of an event which would insure complete protection to an important part of our Union, which had suffered much from incursion and invasion, and to the defense of which ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... a sense of duty. His master was apparently sleeping, with his prairie hat drawn over his face. The dog crouched at his feet, struggling hard to keep his eyes open, and remain alert while the other rested from his labors. But the ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... familiarity between Ida and the Fraeulein—a young person always open to suspicion as a stranger in the land—how her fears had been confirmed by the conduct of an unknown man in the church; and how, urged by her keen sense of duty, she had employed Mrs. Jones's boy ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... quicken your souls to a livelier sense of the transcendent importance of this matter. I feel sure that many of you do read. You love your Bible because it tells you of your sin and your Savior, of your cross and your crown. But how is it with many? They read some, no doubt; partly from a sense of duty and to quiet their consciences; but not, I fear, with a deep and inmost desire to ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... probably erroneous, that the reports which found their way into the English papers, gave information to the enemy injurious to the service—he would have had many a gallant deed, and his stern uncompromising sense of duty, emblazoned to the world. His health at last suffered so severely, that he was obliged to return home, shortly before the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... insist, even beneath the sweepers, and possibly beneath the jackals—come the English, looking boldly on whatever their eyes desire and tasting out of curiosity the fruit of more than one forbidden tree, but obsessed by an amazing if perverted sense of duty. They rule the land, largely by what they idolize as "luck," which consists of tolerance for things they do not understand. Understanding one another rather well, they are more merciless to their own offenders than is Brahman to chandala, for they will hardly let them live. But they are ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... quis ahus) was created. This intrigue disturbed even his dying hours. He deserves the credit of having raised the Empire from a condition of anarchy and decay at a time when it was threatened on all sides by new dangers. No emperor devoted himself more laboriously or with a greater sense of duty to the task of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... that she had taken up. By the side of her livelier sister he had regarded her as a quiet and retiring girl, and was sure that to her these midnight outings by stealth must have been very terrible, and that only from the very strongest sense of duty would she have undertaken them. Now her open avowal of Christianity, when she must have known what were the penalties that the confession entailed, seemed ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... interest in your present and eternal welfare that I am willing thus publicly to address you. Some of you have loved me as a relative, and some have felt bound to me in Christian sympathy, and Gospel fellowship; and even when compelled by a strong sense of duty, to break those outward bonds of union which bound us together as members of the same community, and members of the same religious denomination, you were generous enough to give me credit, for sincerity as a Christian, though you believed I had been most strangely deceived. I thanked you ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... soon became a splendid nurse. She was quite fearless—not with dash, but with the steady fearlessness that comes from an ever-present sense of duty, which is the best. She was kind and tender, but she was a little absent. In spirit she was nursing at Capoo; with us she was only in ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... have known have had in a high degree both physical and moral courage and have shown a sense of duty unparalleled in the Courts of Europe; it is this that has given them their stability; and added to this their simplicity of nature has won ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... however, was a sense of moral duty. When we finally broke camp for good, on the great hill of Lucania, Herbert Spencer, relieved from his job, bolted like a shot. As far as we could see him he was running at top speed. If he had not possessed a sense of duty, he would have done ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... contriving it that he shall be as far as possible, from first to last, his own historiographer; and I have therefore willingly expended the time that would have sufficed for writing a dozen books on what will be no more than the compilation of one. A stern sense of duty—that kind of sense of it which is combined with the feeling of his actual presence in a serene state of elevation above all terrestrial and temporary views—will induce me to touch the few darker points in his life and character as freely as the others which were so predominant; ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... may be wholly free of weakness or vanity, and, without the least personal wish or ambition in public life, may take part in politics solely from a commanding sense of duty, and yet find himself and his efforts not only unavailing for his own purposes, but ludicrously and hopelessly perverted to serve those of others. Honestus was such a man: in the truest sense a patriot in feeling, ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... the way he walks." Mr. Van Wyk took him up in a perfectly cool and undoubting tone. "The question, however, is whether your sense of duty does not carry you too far from your true interest. After all, I too could do something to serve you. You know who ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... only say that divisions are almost invariably caused by a want of the sense of duty." Lady Louisa's voice was stern. "And if people are over-indulged they become selfish, and then, of course, they ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... don't believe this). But, inasmuch as it is something out of himself, beyond himself, to which the religious element of his nature aspires—that highest element in the human creature, since it combines the sense of reverence and the sense of duty, no matter how distorted or misapplied—it is an idea of a God, it is a manifestation of the germ of those capacities which, enlightened and cultivated, have made (be it with due respect spoken) the God of Fenelon ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... House I was on your side: I was for giving you a full hearing." I should at the same time be able to assure my Conservative constituents that I never had supported and never would support the Charter. But, Sir, though this course would be very convenient, it is one which my sense of duty will not suffer me to take. When questions of private right are before us, we hear, and we ought to hear, the arguments of the parties interested in those questions. But it has never been, and surely it ought not to be, our practice ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... held up her lovely face to be kissed, and he bent his handsome head and gave her the caress she coveted; but for him was gone all the old rapture that a kiss from those flower-like lips would have brought. By Hubert Varrick, at this moment, it was given only from a sense of duty, as love ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... presented specimens of all the familiar characters of boarding-house life. There was the lawyer, sharp, observant, talkative, ready for a joke or an argument. There was the solemn man of business, who ate from a sense of duty, and scowled at the lawyer's bad puns. Near him, with an absurdly youthful wig and opaque goggles, sat the Unknown; his name, occupation, resources, and tastes alike a profound mystery. Several ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... consolation, but with the unalterable determination to learn the cause of your suffering. I will not go away without knowing what misfortune it is that has so long deprived me of your love. No matter how much I may venerate you and respect your silence, the sense of duty is greater even than veneration. I must—I will—know ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... in most cases, be ascribed to supernal agency, and a command imposed on them, in this manner, would be obeyed with religious scrupulousness. Thus men might be imperiously directed in the disposal of their industry, their property, and even of their lives. Men, actuated by a mistaken sense of duty, might, under this influence, be led to the commission of the most flagitious, as well as the most heroic acts: If it were his desire to accumulate wealth, or institute a new sect, he ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... your pardon, sir, but really I cannot, consistently with my sense of duty, adopt the course you propose. I think it right to insist, as far as I can with propriety, on these men ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... little girl that only as a gentleman should be courteous, had been my courtesy to Rachel. And then for the first time, I told Marjie of her father's dying message. I had wanted her to love me for myself. I did not want any sense of duty to her father's wishes to sway her. I knew now that she did love me. And I closed the affectionate missive ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... a gasp of helplessness. It had been difficult to speak, but a sense of duty had driven her on, and now it was too late to stop. "Don't—don't talk to him so much. Don't look at him." (Did Pixie realise how instinctively her eyes sought Stephen's for sympathy and appreciation?) "Don't sit by the fire ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... meal she was unusually preoccupied, puzzling, pondering, struggling, longing to be alone with herself, and yet held to her post by her sense of duty. At last, however, the hungry appetites were satisfied, the chattering children had gone back to their play, the dishes were washed and piled away in the cupboard, and Tabitha slipped away to the little room which she shared with Gloriana and ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... position the approach of his master's enemy. Neco hereupon sent ambassadors to persuade Josiah to let him pass, representing that he had no quarrel with the Jews, and claiming a divine sanction to his undertaking. But nothing could shake the Jewish monarch's sense of duty; and Neco was consequently forced to engage with him, and to drive his troops from their position. Josiah, defeated and mortally wounded, returned to Jerusalem, where he died. Neco pressed forward through Syria to the Euphrates; and carrying all before ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... Reluctantly, impelled by a sense of duty, I have dealt with this theory more fully than with the others. Should any godly people fear that I am lightening an awful deterrent to sin let me say what long experience has taught me of the danger of ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... most others of her sex, a strong sense of duty. She determined to do something for my noble friends, and finally she planned a lovely little dinner whereat Judge Trask and Colonel Flail and Mr. Bisland were to be regaled with choicest viands of Alice's ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... cheerfulness, sweetness and joy of their victims has ever been, and will ever be, a perplexity to oppressors. It was so now to Mr Ruthven, after an act of tyranny perpetrated, as most acts of tyranny are, under a mistaken, an ignorant and arrogant sense of duty. Not only did the widow stand up with others for the closing psalm—her voice was the firmest, sweetest, clearest in the assembly—so sweet and clear that it came back even upon her own ear with a sort of surprise. As for others, all ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... be the first to retire. He was not infirm. With him too the life on board ship seemed to agree; but from a sense of duty, of affection, or to placate his hidden fury, his daughter always accompanied him to his state-room "to make him comfortable." She lighted his lamp, helped him into his dressing-gown or got him a book from a bookcase fitted in there—but this ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... England early in December; and though, if "he had been consulted beforehand, he would have been inclined to dissuade the dismissal of the last ministry as premature and impolitic," he did not consider it compatible "with his sense of duty" to decline the charge which the King laid upon him, and at once accepted the office of Prime-minister, being fully aware that by so doing he "became technically, if not morally, responsible for the dissolution of the preceding government, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... continual effort to keep up appearances cost him little or nothing; but to the Duchess's nicer tact it was martyrdom to be compelled to submit to the semblance of affection where there was no reality. Ah, nothing but a sense of duty, early instilled and practically enforced, can reconcile a refined mind to the painful task of bearing with meekness and gentleness the ill-temper, adverse will, and opposite sentiments of those with whom we can acknowledge no feeling ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... it is making me do what I want to do; it is a vaguely or actively unpleasant one if it is making me act against desire. In the end, however, if I act against desire in pursuance of reason or a sense of duty, the feeling of pleasure in the victory of my better self is asserted. And feeling cannot ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... world in general it was given out that they were going to raid French Hispaniola, which was really the only expedition that could have afforded Colonel Bishop any sort of justification for leaving Jamaica at all at such a time. His sense of duty, indeed, should have kept him fast in Port Royal; but his sense of duty was smothered in hatred—that most fruitless and corruptive of all the emotions. In the great cabin of Vice-Admiral Craufurd's flagship, the Imperator, the Deputy-Governor got drunk ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... person for whom Eleanore Leavenworth stood ready to sacrifice herself was one for whom she had formerly cherished affection, I could no longer doubt; love, or the strong sense of duty growing out of love, being alone sufficient to account for such determined action. Obnoxious as it was to all my prejudices, one name alone, that of the commonplace secretary, with his sudden heats and changeful manners, his odd ways and studied self-possession, ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... that the flaw in his work had not been corrected. It rained incessantly, the gap yawned wide, the boarding greedily drank in the water, the wood was bound to rot. If the winter cold increased, the water would freeze in the wood and injure the slate. The town, which trusted to his sense of duty, would suffer harm through him. Each night the stroke of two awakened him from sleep. Shadows mingled with his fever-dreams. The reproaches of his inward and outward yearning for purity blended. The open wound cried aloud for justice, the open grave for him who would ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... children be left to his sole care by the roadside! It is a beautiful sight to see the sagacious, the faithful creature, watching while they sleep, and lying upon the outer fold of the blanket that enwraps them. Has he not a sense of duty—a sort of bastard conscience? And what is truly wonderful, is, that animals have often a sense of duty against their instincts. If it be said that they act through fear of punishment, it is a punishment their instincts would teach them to avoid; and, after all, this fear of punishment ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... unaffected expense, to which my air of negligence gave a lustre, and by my great alms and bounty, which, though very often secret, had the louder echo; whereas, in truth, I had acted thus at first only in compliance with inclination and out of a sense of duty. But the necessity I was under of supporting myself against the Court obliged me to be yet more liberal. I do but just mention it here to show you that the Court was jealous of me, when I never thought myself capable of giving them the ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... Llanfeare without Isabel as a burden would no doubt be preferable, but he was quite ready to marry Isabel to-morrow, if Isabel would only accept him. The game he had to play was for Llanfeare. It was to be Llanfeare or nothing. The position offered to him was to come, not from love, but from a sense of duty on the part of the old man. If he could keep the old man firm to that idea, Llanfeare would be his own; but should he be excluded from that inheritance, there would be no lesser prize by which he might reconcile himself ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... passing through the Prussian territory in Poland. This request is such as might have been expected from our Emperor and his Minister. Whether, however, the tone in which this curious negotiation with a neutral power was begun, or that, at last, the generosity of the Russian Monarch awakened a sense of duty in the Cabinet of Berlin, the arrival of our pacific envoy was immediately followed with warlike preparations. Fortunate, indeed, was it for Prussia to have resorted to her military strength instead of trusting any longer to our friendly assurances. The disasters ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... safe associate of children. Perhaps with his boisterous spirits he is prone sometimes to be over-zealous in the pursuit of trespassing tabbies and in assailing the ankles of intruding butcher boys and officious postmen. These characteristics come from his sense of duty, which is strongly developed, and careful training will make him discriminative ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... the afternoon at the Court, hearing all the final arrangements for the ball, and bearing with Miss Raeburn in a way which astonished herself, came home full of a sense of duty done, and announced to her mother that she was going to Mr. Wharton's meeting in ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... regarded his Lordship as one of the most dangerous ministers England could possibly have, and that his views had not undergone the slightest change. He felt that it would be doing violence to his own sense of duty, and injuring his own character for consistency in the eyes of his countrymen, to profess to act with a minister to whom he had all along been opposed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... and abound" (1 Thess. 3:12), and to "abound more and more" (4:1, 10) in the graces of the Christian life. The fact that there is always danger of contracting defilement by contact with a sinful world, and that there is, in the life of the true Christian, an ever increasing sense of duty and an ever-deepening consciousness of sin, necessitates a continual growth and development in the graces and virtues of the believer's life. There is such a thing as "perfecting holiness" (2 Cor. 7:1). God's gift to the church of pastors and teachers is for the purpose ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... also she received an answer, though after a little interval. Mr. Dillwyn wrote, he regretted Lois's determination; regretted that she thought it necessary; but appreciated the straightforward, unflinching sense of duty which never consulted with ease or selfishness. He himself was going, he added, on business, for a time, to the north; that is, not Massachusetts, but Canada. He would therefore not see Mrs. Barclay until after ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... transformation until it has alighted on and accepted a new general belief: until this juncture it is perforce in a state of anarchy. General beliefs are the indispensable pillars of civilisations; they determine the trend of ideas. They alone are capable of inspiring faith and creating a sense of duty. ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... genius. The sight of the Black Hand on their throats now roused his righteous indignation. The patience with which they endured was to him amazing. The Southerner he had found to be the last man on earth to become a revolutionist. All his traits were against it. His genius for command, the deep sense of duty and honour, his hospitality, his deathless love of home, his supreme constancy and sense of civic unity, all combined to make him ultraconservative. He began now to see that it was reverence for authority as expressed in the Constitution under ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... day," he exclaims, in his lonely chamber, "on which I was born! Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man-child is born to thee, making him very glad! Why did I come forth from the womb that my days might be spent in shame?" A great and good man may be urged by the sense of duty to declare truths which he knows will lead to martyrdom; but no martyr was ever insensible to suffering or shame. All the glories of his future crown cannot sweeten the bitterness of the cup he is compelled to drain; even the greatest of martyrs prayed in his agony that the cup might pass ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... "But your sense of duty is an exaggerated one—peculiar. I notice that it takes the form of any practices which you consider will advance your ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... I do not know, for I could not see. I am willing, however, to wager that a dog of his loyalty, dignity, and sense of duty did just what a dog of quality would do. No awkward springing at his master's chest with his dusty paws leaving marks on his vest front; no rushing around chairs and tables in mad joy at being let in, alarming waitresses and children. Only a low whine and ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... voices in any gathering, and no doubt that clear-cut method of syllabification which was so marked a characteristic of Christina’s conversation, but which gave it a sort of foreign tone, was inherited from the father. Her affinity to the other two members of the family was seen in that intense sense of duty of which Gabriel, with all his generosity, had but little. There was no martyrdom she would not have undertaken if she thought that duty called upon her to undertake it, and this may be said ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... the Count and I reciprocally studied each other. I learned with astonishment that Comte Octave was but thirty-seven years old. The merely superficial peacefulness of his life and the propriety of his conduct were the outcome not solely of a deep sense of duty and of stoical reflection; in my constant intercourse with this man—an extraordinary man to those who knew him well—I felt vast depths beneath his toil, beneath his acts of politeness, his mask of benignity, ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac |
