The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right.
Henry David Thoreau in Civil Disobience
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
Assume They Lie
Today...
With various masks worn,
To disguise and hide.
Assume people lie.
Even those first introduced.
Assume they lie.
Relieve yourself,
From listening to future excuses.
Until someone has won your trust.
With a thorough scrutiny,
Only time affords one they can safely give up.
Don't try to analyze someone first met.
Assume they lie.
Assume they disrespect.
Assume they gossip like all the rest.
Today...
With various masks worn,
To disguise and hide.
Assume people lie.
When meeting someone fresh upon the scene,
Assume they lie...
Until your honesty and dignity given,
Has not corrupted your willingness to trust.
Don't sit in denial with tears to cry.
Until that time has come,
And you are convinced...
You have met someone different,
Than those who have rushed away...
After crushing your trust.
Assume they lie.
Don't even try to wonder.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Who is obligated?
Obligated to take care,
Obligated to spare,
Obligated to be awake,
Obligated to sacrifice,
Obligated to worry,
Obligated to keep smile,
Obligated for life,
Obligated for the name,
Obligated for giving birth,
Obligated for the initial,
Obligated with responsibilities.
What obligation do they have,
When they disown them?
What obligation do they have,
when they abandon them?
What obligation do they have,
when they torture them?
What obligation do they have,
when they walk over them?
What obligation do human have,
when they are alone?
poem by Veeraiyah Subbulakshmi
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.
quote by Ernest Hemingway
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Go Go Go
Raise your hands
Raise your hands high
Dont take a seat
Dont stand aside
This time
Dont assume anything
But go go go
I am a problem child
Ive been wild all my days
All my anger and my rage
My senses said it would lead me astray
I said go go go
Raise your hands
Raise your hands high
Dont take a seat
Dont stand aside
This time
Dont assume anything
This time
Dont assume anything
I said this time
Dont assume anything
One two three four
Jump jump jump so high
Watch me let you down
If I stumble I will stumble
If I fall I will fall
Try to hold it like rain in the river
But everything is getting bigger
Better this wont last forever
Touch me and fall
Yeah
song performed by by Indigo Girls
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself. False guilt is guilt felt at not being what other people feel one ought to be or assume that one is.
quote by R.D. Laing
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Leader of the Opposition's constitutional obligation - the obligation to Parliament - it's the reason we did the merger! - is to make sure Canadians have an alternative for government.
quote by Stephen Harper
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force... If we assume that life is worth living, if we assume that mankind has the right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war.
quote by Martin Luther King
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Vulnerabilities
Do not 'assume' I am not aware,
Of the nonsense you pass under my nose.
Or with your doing of it makes it okay.
My eyes and ears are never closed to your doings.
Underestimating with an undermining done,
From the comfort of your couch...
Does not mean you have the keys,
That have opened the door to my vulnerabilities.
Do not 'assume' I am not aware,
Or that I am not prepared...
To use the tools I've learned to entrap fools,
Believing my mind is out to lunch.
Do not 'assume' I am not a collector of fools,
To munch and crunch as a preference.
Nor should you perceive my tolerance level,
To be so high as to allow a sneak to weaken me.
Do not assume I use an approach,
That can be effectively encroached upon.
But I will say this...
Your attempts will teach us both a few lessons.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The president does not have any obligation to make a consensus appointment here. What the president's obligation is, is to pick a judicial conservative, and I believe that's what he's gonna do.
quote by Jay Alan Sekulow
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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We not only have a legal obligation to honor our commitments, we have a moral obligation to provide the coverage we promised to provide to these people.
A judge can't have any preferred outcome in any particular case. The judge's only obligation - and it's a solemn obligation - is to the rule of law.
quote by Samuel Alito
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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He has the obligation to society that any human being has. I don't think a satirist has any greater obligation to society than a bricklayer or anybody else.
quote by Shel Silverstein
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It is the aim of public life to arrange that all forms of power are entrusted, so far as possible, to men who effectively consent to be bound by the obligation towards all human beings which lies upon everyone, and who understand the obligation. Law is the quality of the permanent provisions for making this aim effective.
quote by Simone Weil
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
quote by Walt Whitman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Tainted Obligation
I saw the shoals at night, with the moon above.
I felt an obligation, and heard your voice again.
If you were here once, you were here a hundred times.
If I reached out tonight, I found I couldn't fight it.
If you were here once, you were here a hundred times.
Ohhhhhh
Best as a wishing star, I saw you better far away,
and I felt obligation, and heard your voice again.
Hear the rush of water, passing over the shoals.
Hear my heartbeat rather, if I reached out tonight.
If I reach out tonight and find I can't fight it,
and look to the stars, and wander towards a
heartfelt obligation, a place that you called home
and heard your voice again, but it's too late.
You left long ago, and now you're probably dead and gone,
and I'm left here with the water and the shoals and a tainted obligation.
Ohhhhhh
song performed by by REM
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Social Security represents an $11 trillion unfunded obligation. And when I say unfunded obligation, I mean we have to come up with $11 trillion at some point to make the system whole.
quote by John W. Snow
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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All writers … have an obligation to our readers: it's the obligation to write true things, especially important when we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were — to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.
quote by Neil Gaiman
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Problem Child
I am a problem child
Ive been wild all my days
All my anger and my rage
My senses said it would lead me astray
I said go go go
Raise your hands
Raise your hands high
Dont take a seat
Dont stand aside this time
Dont assume anything
But go go go
Five generations running fast
These things will not pass
This debtors blood runs in my veins
I cant change anything
I said no no no
Raise your hands
Raise your hands high
Dont take a seat
Dont stand aside this time
Dont assume anything
But go go go
So youve learned to cry
But you dont know why
So youve learned to laugh
What are we laughing at
So I am a problem child
Ive been wild all my days
All my anger and my rage
My senses said it would lead me astray
And I said go go go
Go go
Raise your hands
Raise your hands high
Dont take a seat
Dont stand aside this time
Dont assume anything this time
Dont assume anything
I said go go go
song performed by by Indigo Girls
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Volunteering+Reciprocation=(not) Obligation
If you are volunteering your services,
That is exactly what that means.
Your services are consciously volunteered.
IF you are volunteering with accompanied expectations...
You set yourself up for disappointment.
And those who do this are not empathized at all.
Very few are dedicated to reciprocation.
Since to do so is not an obligation.
And some folks select to enforce a connection,
Between these disconnections.
Volunteering+Reciprocation=(no t) Obligation.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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There Is A Reason And Rhyme That Connects
No one should assume,
They know someone so well...
As to take their expression of concern,
For granted.
Or believe they have stopped doing it,
Because that person is in an attitude...
And has exclusively to them shown this.
For no apparent reason.
And they have expressed this 'moodiness',
Before in the past to them.
If someone is taken for granted like that,
With beliefs that have not been validated.
But has been treated indifferently as time progresses,
By those with unfounded beliefs they hold onto...
They can also assume,
That a concern once expressed...
Will not again be addressed,
By someone who has stopped caring...
Less,
What it is that they believe.
Eventually those assumptions held in their minds,
Will connect to find...
Someone that has been dismissed,
To them has been genuine.
There is a reason and rhyme that connects,
To everything with time given it that takes place.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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