Obliged Quotes - Page 16

• For books [Charles Darwin] had no respect, but merely considered them as tools to be worked with. ... he would cut a heavy book in half, to make it more convenient to hold. He used to boast that he had made Lyell publish the second edition of one of his books in two volumes, instead of in one, by telling him how ho had been obliged to cut it in half. ... his library was not ornamental, but was striking from being so evidently a working collection of books.

  Francis Darwin

  Book, Cutting, Science

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• Take the American declaration of Independence. It contains no mention of territorial limits. We are not obliged to fix the limits of the State.

  Moshe Dayan

  Israel, Independence, Limits

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• We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention.

  Mark Strand

  Life, Thinking, Pay

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• Offend a Christian and he is obliged to pray for your salvation. Offend a Muslim and he is obliged to murder you.

  Robert Stacy McCain

  Christian, Praying, Murder

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• Guy Nearing told us it's a good idea when hunting mushrooms to have a pleasant goal, a waterfall for instance, and, having reached it, to return another way. When, however, we're obliged to go and come back by the same path, returning we notice mushrooms we hadn't noticed going out.

  John Cage

  Hunting, Mushrooms, Ideas

  John Cage (2012). “El libro de las setas”, p.56, Univ de Castilla La Mancha

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• All film directors, whether famous or obscure, regard themselves as misunderstood or underrated. Because of that, they all lie. They're obliged to overstate their own importance.

  Francois Truffaut

  Lying, Misunderstood, Directors

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• Christ Jesus left you this sweet key of obedience; for He left His Vicar, whom you are all obliged to obey until death. And whoever is outside his obedience is in a state of damnation.

  St. Catherine of Siena

  Sweet, Jesus, Keys

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• All men are brothers, we like to say, half-wishing sometimes in secret it were not true. But perhaps it is true. And is the evolutionary line from protozoan to Spinoza any less certain? That also may be true. We are obliged, therefore, to spread the news, painful and bitter though it may be for some to hear, that all living things on earth are kindred.

  Edward Abbey

  Brother, Men, Secret

  Edward Abbey (1996). “The Serpents of Paradise: A Reader”, p.109, Macmillan

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• You free. Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you.

  Toni Morrison

  "Home". Book by Toni Morrison, May 8, 2012.

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• If one class of society is obliged, in order to live, to take any price for its services, while another can abstain from such action thanks to resources at its disposal which, however, are not necessarily due to any social superiority, the second has an unjust advantage over the first at law. In other words, there cannot be rich and poor a birth without there being unjust contracts.

  Emile Durkheim

  Order, Law, Class

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• A French observer is surprised to hear how often an English or an American lawyer quotes the opinions of others, and how little he alludes to his own; ... This abnegation of his own opinion, and this implicit deference to the opinion of his forefathers, which are common to the English and American lawyer, this servitude of thought which he is obliged to profess, necessarily give him more timid habits and more conservative inclinations in England and America than in France.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  England And America, Law, Giving

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2004). “Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II”, p.235, Bantam Classics

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• What you have been obliged to discover by yourself leaves a path in your mind which you can use again when the need arises.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Math, Mind, Needs

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• During the engagement I tried to throw a strong force through the canon, but I was obliged to use it elsewhere before it had gotten to the supposed location of the village.

  George Crook

  Strong, Use, Engagement

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• As a teacher you are more or less obliged to pay the same amount of attention to everything. That can wear you down.

  Marilyn Hacker

  Teacher, Pay, Attention

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• No man is obliged to be what he might have been.

  David Berlinski

  Men, Might, Has Beens

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• A sermon is a valuable thing now and so impressive when you do hear a good one - and there is a lot of failure in the attempt; it's a difficult form - is because it's so seldom true now that you hear people speak under circumstances where they assume they are obliged to speak seriously and in good faith, and the people who hear them are assumed to be listening seriously and in good faith.

  Marilynne Robinson

  People, Listening, Assuming

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I shall be obliged to wander to the right and to the left, that I may investigate and discover the truth.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  May, Wander, Left

  Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (2015). “The Spirit of Laws”, p.385, Library of Alexandria

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• Hath God obliged himself not to exceed the bounds of our knowledge?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Exceed, Bounds

  Michel de Montaigne (1964). “Selected essays of Montaigne: in the translation of John Florio”

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• When we reflect upon the cruelties daily practised upon such of the animal creation as are given us for food, or which we ensnarefor our diversion, we shall be obliged to own that there is more of the savage in human nature than we are aware of.

  Samuel Richardson

  Animal, Savages, Human Nature

  Samuel Richardson (1755). “A collection of the moral and instructive sentiments, maxims, cautions, and reflexions, contained in the histories of Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison: Digested under proper heads, with references to the volume, ...”, p.109

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• The situation is that of him who is helpless, cannot act, in the event cannot paint, since he is obliged to paint. The act is of him who, helpless, unable to act, acts, in the event paints, since he is obliged to paint.

  Samuel Beckett

  Art, Events, Literature

  Samuel Beckett, Ruby Cohn (1983). “Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment”, Calder Publications Limited

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• Art has always been this--pure interrogation, rhetorical question less the rhetoric--whatever else it may have been obliged by social reality to appear.

  Samuel Beckett

  Art, Reality, Literature

  Samuel Beckett, Ruby Cohn (1983). “Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment”, Riverrun Pr

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• There is nothing so elastic as the human mind. The more we are obliged to do, the more we are able to accomplish.

  Tryon Edwards

  Mind, Able, Accomplish

  Tryon Edwards (1853). “The World's Laconics: Or, The Best Thoughts of the Best Authors”, p.181

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• The duties which a police officer owes to the state are of a most exacting nature. No one is compelled to choose the profession ofa police officer, but having chosen it, everyone is obliged to live up to the standard of its requirements. To join in that high enterprise means the surrender of much individual freedom.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Mean, Discipline, Police

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• If you are obliged to neglect any thing, let it be your chemistry. It is the least useful and the least amusing to a country gentleman of all the ordinary branches of science.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Gentleman, Ordinary

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• Roughly speaking, the more one pays for food, the more sweat and spittle one is obliged to eat with it.... Dirtiness is inherent in hotels and restaurants, because sound food is sacrificed to punctuality and smartness.

  George Orwell

  Sweat, Sound, Pay

  George Orwell (2012). “Down and Out in Paris and London”, p.57, Lulu.com

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