To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that, without any other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however proper, however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations.... For the maxim lacks the moral import, namely, that such actions be done from duty, not from inclination.
Immanuel Kant in Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics
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Related quotes
The next level in moral behavior higher than that exhibited by the baboon is that in which duty and loyalty are shown toward a group of your own kind too large for an individual to know all of them. We have a name for that. It is called "patriotism." Behaving on a still higher moral level were the astronauts who went to the Moon, for their actions tend toward the survival of the entire race of mankind. The door they opened leads to the hope that H. sapiens will survive indefinitely long, even longer than this solid planet on which we stand tonight. As a direct result of what they did, it is now possible that the human race will never die. Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But the astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong's first words in stepping down onto the soil of Luna: "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
quote by Robert Heinlein
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There is one moral duty that moralists underrate almost criminally - the duty to enjoy god's world.
Now here is a departure from the first principle of true ethics. Here we find ideas of moral wrong and moral right associated with something else than beneficial action. The consequent is, we lose sight of the real basis of morals, and substitute a false one.
quote by Francis Wright
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Duty And Work!
Sun rises and sets everyday;
Moon rises and sets everyday;
Plough man ploughs the field;
Poets love to compose poems!
Some love to do duty well;
But many do only for profit.
How duty has to be done?
What do duty, work mean?
Duty is done expecting none;
Work is done expecting some.
Duty and work all have to do;
But duty, works are different!
Duty is life work for everyone;
Work is done to live life here!
poem by Ramesh T A
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Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. It is also aware of the ineluctable tension between the moral command and the requirements of successful political action. And it is
unwilling to gloss over and obliterate that tension and thus to obfuscate both the moral and the political issue by making it appear as though the stark facts of politics were morally more satisfying than they actually are, and the moral law less exacting than it actually is.
quote by Hans Morgenthau
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When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery.
quote by Maxim Gorky
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When work is a pleasure, life is a joy When work is a duty, life is slavery.
quote by Maxim Gorky
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Justice is the sum of all moral duty.
quote by William Godwin
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Love, not Duty
Thought may well be ever ranging,
And opinion ever changing,
Task-work be, though ill begun,
Dealt with by experience better;
By the law and by the letter
Duty done is duty done
Do it, Time is on the wing!
Hearts, ’tis quite another thing,
Must or once for all be given,
Or must not at all be given;
Hearts, ’tis quite another thing!
To bestow the soul away
Is an idle duty-play!
Why, to trust a life-long bliss
To caprices of a day,
Scarce were more depraved than this!
Men and maidens, see you mind it;
Show of love, where’er you find it,
Look if duty lurk behind it!
Duty-fancies, urging on
Whither love had never gone!
Loving if the answering breast
Seem not to be thus possessed,
Still in hoping have a care;
If it do, beware, beware!
But if in yourself you find it,
Above all things mind it, mind it!
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
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Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is more or less strong tendency ordered to an intrinsic moral evil, and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.
quote by Pope Benedict XVI
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Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.
quote by George Washington
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Import and Export
Import the things more the country really need
For its economic development
Such as food, raw materials for various industries
Technology, electric power and so on.
Export the things that are surplus and competitive
And whose demand is in the foreign countries.
With a view to boost export
The government should minimize export duty
And encourage the exporters
By reducing tariff on import of associated raw materials.
The government must discourage import of nonessential items
By imposing higher import duty
And encourage production of luxury items in the country.
In the modern world international trade can play a vital role
In the economic development of any country
That’s why the governments must emphasize on it evermore.
poem by Asif Andalib
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Duty
Duty that’s to say, complying,
With whate’er’s expected here;
On your unknown cousin’s dying,
Straight be ready with the tear;
Upon etiquette relying,
Unto usage nought denying,
Lend your waist to be embraced,
Blush not even, never fear;
Claims of kith and kin connection,
Claims of manners honour still,
Ready money of affection
Pay, whoever drew the bill.
With the form conforming duly,
Senseless what it meaneth truly,
Go to church the world require you,
To balls the world require you too,
And marry papa and mamma desire you,
And your sisters and schoolfellows do.
Duty ’tis to take on trust
What things are good, and right, and just;
And whether indeed they be or be not,
Try not, test not, feel not, see not:
’Tis walk and dance, sit down and rise
By leading, opening ne’er your eyes;
Stunt sturdy limbs that Nature gave,
And be drawn in a Bath chair along to the grave.
’Tis the stern and prompt suppressing,
As an obvious deadly sin,
All the questing and the guessing
Of the souls own soul within:
’Tis the coward acquiescence
In a destiny’s behest,
To a shade by terror made,
Sacrificing, aye, the essence
Of all that’s truest, noblest, best:
’Tis the blind non-recognition
Or of goodness, truth, or beauty,
Save by precept and submission;
Moral blank, and moral void,
Life at very birth destroyed.
Atrophy, exinanition!
Duty!
Yea, by duty’s prime condition
Pure nonentity of duty!
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
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I think copyright is moral, proper. I think a creator has the right to control the disposition of his or her works - I actually believe that the financial issue is less important than the integrity of the work, the attribution, that kind of stuff.
quote by Esther Dyson
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I think coercive taxation is theft, and government has a moral duty to keep it to a minimum.
quote by William Weld
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Intangible Tigers
There's a moral in this: tho' I own that the preaching
Of moral and maxim in season and out
Grows stale; yet these days of depressions far-reaching
Demand any means to put worry to rout.
So in that menagerie now populated
By home-coming chickens and wolves upon mats
Consider, when finally doubt's dissipated
How often our tigers turn out to be cats.
Three-fourths of our troubles some Frenchman has told us,
But seldom occur. Tho' the ills of the mind
Loom forth as fierce tigers while doubts yet unfold us,
They turn into cats once we've put them behind.
How often the dread of some darkened tomorrow
Has ruined today; till, at Time's urgent call,
Tomorrow's false fears become yester's small sorrow
Innocuous cats, and not tigers at all.
So, here is the moral - just take it or leave it.
It doesn't much matter, you'll scorn it, no doubt.
Yet here is a truth and, if men don't receive it
I've still done my duty in pointing it out.
False troubles, false tigers engender false fearing;
So use the grey matter close under your hat
And, as you fare forth thro' life's dark forests peering,
Go armed against tigers - but still expect cats.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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To provoke dreams of terror in the slumber of prosperity has become the moral duty of literature.
quote by Ernst Fischer
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When men take pleasure in feeling their minds elevated with strong drink, and so indulge their appetite as to disorder their understandings, neglect their duty as members of a family or civil society, and cast off all regard to religion, their case is much to be pitied.
quote by John Woolman
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Undoubtedly it is our duty, and for our best good, that we occupy and improve the faculties, with which our creator has endowed us, but so far as prejudice, or prepossession of opinion prevails over our minds, in the same proportion, reason is excluded from our theory or practice. Therefore if we would acquire useful knowledge, we must first divest ourselves of those impediments and sincerely endeavor to search out the truth: and draw our conclusions from reason and just argument, which will never conform to our inclination, interest or fancy but we must conform to that if we would judge rightly.
quote by Ethan Allen
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The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.
quote by John Ruskin
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