Obliged Quotes - Page 3

• The devotee of truth is often obliged to grope in the dark.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Dark, Truth Is, Devotee

  Mahatma Gandhi (1928). “Young India”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of the disadvantages of being a patrician is that occasionally you're obliged to act like one

  Dalton Trumbo

  Advantages And Disadvantages, Disadvantages

  "Fictional character: Marcus Licinius Crassus". "Spartacus", 1960.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• One might compare the relation of the ego to the id with that between a rider and his horse. The horse provides the locomotor energy, and the rider has the prerogative of determining the goal and of guiding the movements of his powerful mount towards it. But all too often in the relations between the ego and the id we find a picture of the less ideal situation in which the rider is obliged to guide his horse in the direction in which it itself wants to go.

  Sigmund Freud

  Horse, Powerful, Goal

  "New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. Lecture 31 : The Anatomy of the Mental Personality". 1932.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am not carrying on a war of extermination against the Romans. I am contending for honor and empire. My ancestors yielded to Roman valour. I am endeavouring that others, in their turn, will be obliged to yield to my good fortune, and my valour.

  Hannibal

  War, Yield, Honor

  150 Copy quote

• If I write a new play, my point of view may be profoundly modified. I may be obliged to contradict myself and I may no longer know whether I still think what I think.

  Eugene Ionesco

  Writing, Thinking, Views

  7 Copy quote

• And here one must not that hatred is acquired just as much by means of good actions as by bad ones; and so, as I said above, if a prince wishes to maintain the state, he is often obliged not to be good; because whenever that group which you believe you need to support you is corrupted, whether it be the common people, the soldiers, or the nobles, it is to your advantage to follow their inclinations in order to satisfy them; and then good actions are your enemy.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Believe, Mean, Order

  12 Copy quote

• No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is: at least nothing that is worthwhile.

  Mark Helprin

  Dark, Guarantees, Worthwhile

  Mark Helprin (1983). “Winter's Tale”, p.677, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It ought to be an offense to be excruciating and unfunny in circumstances where your audience is almost morally obliged to enthuse.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Cancer, Circumstances, Offense

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Mortality”, p.30, Atlantic Books Ltd

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A certain kind of rich man afflicted with the symptoms of moral dandyism sooner or later comes to the conclusion that it isn't enough merely to make money. He feels obliged to hold views, to espouse causes and elect Presidents, to explain to a trembling world how and why the world went wrong.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Money, Men, Views

  "Money And Class In America: Notes And Observations On Our Civil Religion" by Lewis H. Lapham, 1989.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I realized that I had granted my illness lordship over me. In viewing my depression as a despot subjecting me to its savage fancies, I was able to escape responsibility, to indulge fully my selfish desire to let my ego flourish unfettered, not obliged to anyone. But this wasn't freedom. It was a prison-a cell separating me from those who cared for me and for whom I might have cared.

  Eric G. Wilson

  Depression, Selfish, Responsibility

  Eric G. Wilson (2012). “Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck: Why We Can't Look Away”, p.128, Sarah Crichton Books

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the Southern states. The Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of almost all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily show themselves as enemies.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  War, Struggle, Mean

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1862). “Democracy in America”, p.486

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I regard almost all quarrels of princes on the same footing, and I see nothing that marks man's unreason so positively as war. Indeed, what folly to kill one another for interests often imaginary, and always for the pleasure of persons who do not think themselves even obliged to those who sacrifice themselves for them!

  Mary Wortley Montagu

  War, Sacrifice, Men

  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Isobel Grundy (1997). “Selected letters”, Penguin Group USA

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house; but gradually went through all the Latin poets in those moments.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Happiness, Attitude, Latin

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.167

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The playful kitten, with its pretty little tigerish gambols, is infinitely more amusing than half the people one is obliged to live with in the world.

  Sydney, Lady Morgan

  Cat, People, Half

  Lady Morgan (Sydney) (1829). “The Book of the Boudoir”, p.43

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• My sweetest Joy is to be in the presence of Jesus in the holy Sacrament. I beg that when obliged to withdraw in body, I may leave my heart before the holy Sacrament. How I would miss Our Lord if He were to be away from me by His presence in the Blessed Sacrament!

  Katharine Drexel

  Jesus, Blessed, Heart

  141 Copy quote

• One of my standard - and fairly true - responses to the question as to how story ideas come to me is that story ideas only come to me for short stories. With longer fiction, it is a character (or characters) coming to visit, and I am then obliged to collaborate with him/her/it/them in creating the story.

  Roger Zelazny

  Writing, Character, Ideas

  13 Copy quote

• This is the sense in which I am obliged to be a listener. To listen to the student's doubts, fears, and incompetencies that are part of the learning process. It is in listening to the student that I learn to speak with him or her.

  Paulo Freire

  Teaching, Doubt, Listening

  Paulo Freire (2000). “Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage”, p.106, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• I was obliged, at last, to come to the conclusion that the contemplation of nature alone is not sufficient to fill the human heart and mind.

  Henry Walter Bates

  Nature, Heart, Mind

  Henry Walter Bates (1873). “The Naturalist on the River Amazons: A Record of Adventures, Habits of Animals, Sketches of Brazilian and Indian Life, and Aspects of Nature Under the Equator, During Eleven Years of Travel”, p.253

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Where thou art Obliged to speak, be sure speak the Truth: For Equivocation is half way to Lying, as Lying, the whole way to Hell.

  William Penn

  Art, Truth, Lying

  William Penn (1841). “Fruits of solitude in reflections and maxims relating to the conduct of human life. A new ed”, p.35

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan to indulge in benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds ... I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution.

  Grover Cleveland

  Indulge In, Liberty, Libertarian

  Grover Cleveland (1968). “Grover Cleveland, 1837-1908: Chronology, Documents, Bibliographical Aids”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• As someone who lived under communism for most of my life I feel obliged to say that the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer variants. Communism was replaced by the threat of ambitious environmentalism.

  Vaclav Klaus

  Democracy, Ambitious, Global Warming

  17 Copy quote

• Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and a return of economics and finance to an ethical approach which favours human beings.

  Pope Francis

  Names, Return, Favour

  9 Copy quote

• Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, 'Thou shalt not kill'. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. ...In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression.

  Oscar Romero

  Brother, Names, Order

  338 Copy quote

• Written language must be considered as a particular psychic reality. The book is permanent; it is an object in your field of vision. It speaks to you with a monotonous authority which even its author would not have. You are fairly obliged to read what is written.

  Gaston Bachelard

  Book, Reality, Psychics

  4 Copy quote

• I fear I have not one good word to say this fair morning, though the sun shines so encouragingly on the distant hills and gentle river and the trees are in their festive hues. I am not festive, though contented. When obliged to give myself to the prose of life, as I am on this occasion of being established in a new home I like to do the thing, wholly and quite, - to weave my web for the day solely from the grey yarn.

  Margaret Fuller

  Life, Nature, Morning

  Margaret Fuller, Robert N. Hudspeth (1984). “The letters of Margaret Fuller”, Cornell Univ Pr

  5 Copy quote

  Show source