Obliged Quotes - Page 3

• If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin, they would never have found time to conquer the world.

  Heinrich Heine

  Funny, Life, Education

  As quoted in "The Medical Record", No. 674, October 6, 1883.

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• I may be kindly, I am ordinarily gentle, but in my line of business I am obliged to will terribly what I will at all.

  Catherine the Great

  May, Lines, Gentle

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• For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Change, Thinking, Long

  On the Constitution (1787)

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• He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Leadership, Kindness, Done

  Benjamin Franklin (2016). “Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin”, p.181, Benjamin Franklin

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• However painful it may be for me to accept this conclusion, I am obliged to state it: for the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white.

  Frantz Fanon

  Destiny, Men, White

  Frantz Fanon (1967). “Black Skin, White Masks”, p.12, Pluto Press

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• There are more people than you think who want to have a challenging experience, in which they are obliged to reflect about the past.

  Umberto Eco

  Thinking, Past, People

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• To be obliged to beg our daily happiness from others bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than that of him who begs his daily bread.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Happiness, Poverty, Bread

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.207

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• Out of my desire to complete Iraq's independence and to finish the withdrawal of the occupation forces from our holy lands, I am obliged to halt military operations of the honest Iraqi resistance until the withdrawal of the occupation forces is complete.

  Muqtada al Sadr

  Military, Land, Iraq

  "Moqtada al-Sadr orders halt to attacks on US troops stationed in Iraq". www.theguardian.com. September 11, 2011.

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• We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence... on pain of liquidation.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Pain, Years, Boards

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• An army is a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. Every enactment, every change of rule which impairs this principle weakens the army, impairs its value, and defeats the very object of its existence.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  Military, Army, Men

  "Jealousy is the tribute which mediocrity pays to genius".

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• She asked me why I always had something flip to say. I said that I didn't know, but having been blessed with the gift, I felt obliged to use it.

  Robert Crais

  Blessed, Use, Flip

  Robert Crais (2011). “Stalking the Angel”, p.81, Crimeline

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• Pleasant things to hear, though hearing them from him embarrasses me. I soak up the praise but feel obliged to disparage the gift. I believe that most people have some degree of talent for something--forms, colors, words, sounds. Talent lies around in us like kindling waiting for a match, but some people, just as gifted as others, are less lucky. Fate never drops a match on them. The times are wrong, or their health is poor, or their energy low, or their obligations too many. Something.

  Wallace Stegner

  Lying, Believe, Fate

  Wallace Stegner (2007). “Crossing to Safety”, p.50, Modern Library

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• My misfortune is doubly painful to me because it will result in my being misunderstood. For me there can be no recreation in the company of others, no intelligent conversation, no exchange of information with peers; only the most pressing needs can make me venture into society. I am obliged to live like an outcast.

  Ludwig van Beethoven

  Intelligent, Misunderstood, Needs

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• I should be very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your pocket. An Eley's No. 2 is an excellent argument with gentlemen who can twist steel pokers into knots. That and a tooth-brush are, I think, all that we need.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Thinking, Gentleman, Twists

  Arthur Conan Doyle, General Press (2016). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All 56 Stories & 4 Novels”, p.128, GENERAL PRESS

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• He liked cheap women, fast cars, late nights, and hard liquor, especially all together. In Jack's view, you are obliged to sin on Saturday night so you'd have something to atone for Sunday morning. Otherwise, you'd be putting the preacher out of business.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Morning, Sunday, Night

  Lisa Kleypas (2015). “The Travis Family Series, Books 1-3: Blue-Eyed Devil, Smooth Taking Stranger and Sugar Daddy”, p.56, St. Martin's Press

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• The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Bible, Christian, Biblical

  "The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical". Book by Shane Claiborne, 2006.

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• The fact would seem to be, if in my situation one may speak of facts, not only that I shall have to speak of things of which I cannot speak, but also, which is even more interesting, but also that I, which is if possible even more interesting, that I shall have to, I forget, no matter. And at the same time I am obliged to speak. I shall never be silent. Never.

  Samuel Beckett

  Interesting, May, Matter

  Samuel Beckett (2012). “The Unnamable”, p.5, Faber & Faber

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• He was at his own request and through his own complicity driven out of all his happinesses one after the other; and he had this sorrow, that after having lost Cosette wholly in one day, he was afterwards obliged to lose her again in detail.

  Victor Hugo

  Sorrow, One Day, Details

  Victor Hugo (2010). “The Works of Victor Hugo”, p.2050, BookCaps Study Guides

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• And that was all the part of it - the way you were obliged to live. You stifled a groan, you lied about your love, you deceived your legal wife, and all in the name of honour. That was the damned paradox of it - in order to behave well, you have to behave badly.

  Julian Barnes

  Love You, Order, Names

  Julian Barnes (2010). “Arthur & George”, p.308, Random House

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• Since, in the long run, every planetary society will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring — not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive.

  Carl Sagan

  Running, Responsibility, Space

  "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space".

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• The more clearly one sees this world; the more one is obliged to pretend it does not exist.

  John Irving

  Doe, World, This World

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• It's all about who's where on the food chain. When I'm the story editor, I expect my writers to follow my vision. When I'm working for another editor, I'm obliged to follow their vision.

  Len Wein

  Editors, Vision, Stories

  "Speaking with...LEN WEIN". Interview with Marv Wolfman, www.marvwolfman.com.

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• Religion is as necessary to reason as reason is to religion. The one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose his reason, in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature, had he not a Supreme Being to refer to; and well has it been said, that if there had been no God, mankind would have been obliged to imagine one.

  George Washington

  Imagine, Reason, Said

  George Washington (1855). “Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious”, p.342

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• Our behavior toward each other is the strangest, most unpredictable, and most unaccountable of all the phenomena with which we are obliged to live. In all of nature, there is nothing so threatening to humanity as humanity itself.

  Lewis Thomas

  Humanity, Threatening, Behavior

  Lewis Thomas (1990). “A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays”

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• The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from. That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge.

  Albert Camus

  Artist, Judging, Community

  ALBERT CAMUS (1971). “NOBEL PRIZE LIBRARY”

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