"Obligation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... principle of it, as far as that could be attained; the aesthetic need, the desire to have to do with objects which filled his imagination; the moral need, the desire not to occupy a purely isolated position, but to place himself under some authority, and to feel some obligation, these also, though in the dimmest way, as matters of presentiment rather than clear consciousness, entered into the earliest worship of the heavenly powers. This view has the great advantage over that of Von Hartmann, that it makes the development of ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... the Intriguing Chambermaid; and in which he finds opportunity to pay a noble tribute to the private life of that inimitable hoyden of the stage. "I cannot help reflecting" he writes, "that the Town hath one great obligation to me, who made the first discovery of your great capacity, and brought you earlier forward on the theatre, than the ignorance of some and the envy of others would have otherwise permitted.... But as great a favorite as you at present are with the ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... piece, blessing him in her heart for refraining from putting her under a financial obligation to a stranger. He accepted the money quite simply, and turning away to speak to a porter, he tucked the two-shilling piece into his waistcoat pocket, while an odd, contemplative little smile curved ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... anything you suggest.' We haven't fought a single point. I'd have made those creditors whistle a bit before they saw yon five thousand pounds! But what's my father say? You heard him yourself—'moral obligation'—'might be fought!'—'get it settled.' He's ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... fears, enchantments, hopes, dismays, that broke before this hour as breaks upon the hunter's gaze, amazingly awarded from the hill, savannas boundless, new, unpathed,—from these to grapple back his mind to its schooled thought and ordered habit, to its well-trodden ways of duty, obligation, rectitude. He had not left them. But for that cry of her name wrung from him by sudden application of pain against whose shock he was not steeled, he had answered nothing to her lamentable disclosure. This which he now knew, these violent passions which now he felt, but lit for him more whitely ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... be no larger knowledge of the moral law there is a more universal sense of moral obligation. Those pearls of Oman which Corydon designs for Amaryllis would not have adorned so noble a woman had they circled the neck of the Paphian Venus ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... at the first cock crowing of reason still holds its seat on the oppressed heart of faith before the terror stricken eyes of the multitude. Every thoughtful scholar who loves his fellow men must feel it an obligation to do what he can to remove painful superstitions, and to spread the peace of a cheerful faith and the wholesome light of truth. The theories in theological systems being but philosophy, why should ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... of some earthly potentate. She demanded, with little expenditure of reverence or fear, a supply of all her more pressing wants, and at times her demands approached very near to commands. She felt as if God was under obligation to her, much more than she was to him. He seemed to her benighted vision in some manner bound ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... remainder,[14] there are (as near as I can remember) these remarkable words, "to which we bind ourselves and our posterity for ever." Lawyers may explain this, or call them words of form, as they please: and reasoners may argue that such an obligation is against the very nature of government; but a plain reader, who takes the words in their natural meaning, may be excused, in thinking a right so confirmed, is indefeasible; and if there be an absurdity in such an opinion, he is not to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... indifference to profound knowledge in any, among their own countrymen, may be, they may rest assured that not a fact they may discover, nor a good experiment they may make, but is instantly repeated, verified, and commented upon, in Germany, and, we may add too, in Italy. We wish the obligation were mutual. Here, whole branches of continental discovery are unstudied, and indeed almost unknown, even by name. It is in vain to conceal the melancholy truth. We are fast dropping behind. In mathematics we have long since drawn the rein, and given over a hopeless race. In chemistry ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... said Sauverand. "I never used to read them. What! Is that incredible? Are we under an obligation, an inevitable necessity, to waste half an hour a day in skimming through the futilities of politics and the piffle of the news columns? Is your imagination incapable of conceiving a man who reads nothing but ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... corresponding word in their vocabularies? Nay, how should they have had it there? And that in this absence lies the true explanation is plain from a fact which the same writer records, that, although inveterate askers, they never showed the slightest sense of obligation or of gratitude when they obtained what they sought; never saying more than, 'This will be useful to me,' or, 'This is what I wanted.' Dr. Krapf, after laborious researches in some widely extended dialects of East Africa, has remarked in them the same absence of ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... its food and clothes come down from heaven or are miraculously conjured from empty space by papa. Loathsome as we have made the idea of duty (like the idea of work) we must habituate children to a sense of repayable obligation to the community for what they consume and enjoy, and inculcate the repayment as a point of honor. If we did that today—and nothing but flat dishonesty prevents us from doing it—we should have no idle rich and indeed probably no rich, since there is no distinction ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... on price left a great deal to be supplied by later writers, not because he was in any doubt about the subject, but because the theory was so well understood. 'Not even in St. Thomas can we find a formal discussion of the moral obligation of observing an objective equivalence in contracts of buying and selling. He simply took it for granted, as, indeed, was inevitable, seeing that, up to his time and for long after, all Catholic thought and legislation proceeded on that hypothesis. But that he actually ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... doth the Suta's son keep his promise. Why having repeatedly given his pledge, saying,—The kings of Avanti and Kalinga, Jayadratha, and Chediddhaja and Valhika standing as spectators, I will slay hostile warriors by thousands and tens of thousands,—how will he discharge that obligation? Having distributed his divisions in counter-array and scattering heads by thousands, behold the havoc committed by Bhimasena. Indeed, that moment, when, representing himself as a Brahmana unto the holy and blameless Rama, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... at the poor figure he cut. Lucy kept blushing at intervals as she reflected on the obligation she had laid herself under to a rejected lover. The rejected lover alone seemed to mind his business and nothing else; and, as he was almost ludicrously unconscious that he was doing a chivalrous action, a misfortune to which those ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... his shoulders and put a torn-off petal between his teeth. "I think you are mistaken," he said. "The question is: For what purpose did your committee invite me to come here? I understood, to expose and ridicule the Jesuits. I fulfil my obligation to ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... for he still felt the binding obligation of his apprenticeship, while he tried to satisfy his mind that the unjust conduct of James entitled him to violate the obligation. There was a vessel about to sail for New York. He sold some of his books to pay his passage; and going ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... obligation to you all for discussing my humble question, but I see that we have two Scots gentlemen with us, and I would crave their opinion. For all men know that the Scots soldier has gone everywhere sword in hand, and whether he was in the body-guard of the King of France, or doing his duty ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... age and obligation: 18 years of age for compulsory and voluntary military service; conscript service obligation - two ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... itself, and life only becomes complete when all so-called blemishes are fully displayed in conduct. Their leader "not only allowed his disciples a full liberty to sin, but recommended a vicious course of life as a matter of obligation and necessity; asserting that eternal salvation was only attainable by those who had committed all sorts of crimes.... It was the will of God that all things should be possessed in common, the ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... the two princes were the men who saved his life, he threw himself at their feet, and thanked them for the great obligation he had to them, in words which sufficiently showed his gratitude. Princes, said he, rising up and kissing their hands, with tears in his eyes, God forbid that ever I should attempt any thing against your lives, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... circumstances so turn out that this man who has so rarely proven himself your friend, is himself in some emergency, and you are now in position to help him, as once he helped you, you count it not only an obligation of the highest sort, but the rarest of privileges. And with great joy you come to his help without stopping to count the cost in the doubtful, questioning way. Friendship ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... squirming Montague from the couch, and secured his wrists tightly with a piece of clothes line supplied by the pert servant, who ought to have been ashamed of herself for going back on her promise to help the lovers, but probably felt a deeper obligation to the policeman, who was, no doubt, her sweetheart, which accounted for his very convenient ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... put out on this venture without acknowledgment of my obligation to two scholars, who have had nothing to do with my employment of all that I have borrowed from them, the Oxford editors of the Old Northern Poetry, Dr. Gudbrand Vigfusson and Mr. York Powell. I have still to learn what Mr. York Powell thinks of these discourses. What Gudbrand Vigfusson ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... It is observed by barbarians—a whiff of tobacco-smoke or a string of beads gives not merely binding force but sanctity to treaties. Even in Algiers a truce may be bought for money, but, when ratified, even Algiers is too wise or too just to disown and annul its obligation." Ames was a scholar, and his speeches are more finished and thoughtful, more literary, in a way, than those of his contemporaries. His eulogiums on Washington and Hamilton are elaborate tributes, rather excessive, perhaps, in laudation and in classical allusions. In all the ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... I intrude on you I earnestly ask you to forgive me; but I think that the years between your age and mine as well as my feeling towards the great obligation which I owe you will plead for excuse. There is something I would like to say to you, sir; but I suppose I must not without your permission. ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... the foundation of a sinner's hope. He must be known as a Saviour, before He is studied as an Example. His doing and dying is the center jewel, of which all the virtues of His holy life are merely the setting. But neither must we overlook the Scripture obligation to walk in His footsteps and imbibe His Spirit, for "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... don't know without being told, it proves that your money has spoiled you to that extent. It is because you have no right to entrap Miss Brentwood into an obligation that would make her your debtor for the very food she eats and the clothes she wears. You will say she need never know: be very sure she would find out, one way or another; and she would ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... o' the Friday nicht! But ye hae made it plain frae the poopit that ye hae nae supperstition aboot the first day o' the week, the whilk alane has aucht to dee wi' hiz Christians!—We're no a' Jews, though there's a heap o' them upo' this side the Tweed! I, for my pairt, confess nae obligation but to drap workin, and sit doon wi' clean han's, or as clean as I can weel mak them, to the speeritooal table o' my Lord, whaur I aye try as weel to weir a clean and a cheerfu' face—that is, sae far as the sermon will permit—and there's aye a pyke o' mate somewhaur intil 't! ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... Jekyll's "disappearance or unexplained absence for any period exceeding three calendar months," the said Edward Hyde should step into the said Henry Jekyll's shoes without further delay and free from any burthen or obligation, beyond the payment of a few small sums to the members of the doctor's household. This document had long been the lawyer's eyesore. It offended him both as a lawyer and as a lover of the sane and customary sides of life, to whom the fanciful ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Orleans, against the same writers, condemning the opinions which they held concerning the study of the classics. M. Veuillot, following in the wake of M. L'Abbe Gaume, maintained that one of the principal causes of the weakening of faith since the time of the renaissance, was the obligation imposed on youth of studying, almost exclusively, Pagan authors. Mgr. Dupanloup contended rather against exaggerations of this opinion than against the idea itself. But having developed his views in an episcopal letter to the professors of his lesser seminaries, he would not ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... sympathetic, and too understanding of that clan loyalty which would deny him peace until he fulfilled his obligation, to offer arguments in dissuasion, but she stood with trouble riffles in her deep eyes until at ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... refer back to one of those unaccountable visions which come upon us like frightful monsters thrown up by storms from the great black deeps of slumber. A lifeless body, in love and relationship the nearest and dearest, was imposed upon my back, with an overwhelming sense of obligation—not of filial piety merely, but some awful responsibility, equally vague and intense, and involving, as it seemed, inexpiable sin, horrors unutterable, torments intolerable—to bury my dead, like Abraham, out of my sight. In vain I attempted, again and again, to obey the ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... and characteristics differed so widely should ever come to such an agreement. As for the officers; nearly all of them were extravagant, bankrupt, and guilty of some crime: they had not a good enough conscience to put up with any emperor who was not as vicious as themselves and under an obligation for their services. ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... that marriage is more than I considered it, mother. It's an obligation. I intend to live up to my part just as long as Bob lives up to his. If he complained of the fraud we practised on him I'd be willing to leave him; but he doesn't—so the matter is out ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... matter of any importance to me, if I could not afford even to pay you for your work, I should still ask you to share my home, with such comforts as I had to offer, and to help me so far as you could, for the sake of the past. I must always be under an obligation to you which I can never repay," added my father, in his rather elaborate style. "And as to being useful, well, ahem, if you will kindly continue to superintend and repair my linen ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Thee, and derives its happiness and peace from God my Saviour: no merit in myself, but Christ is all in all.—I would this evening offer Thee my heart; give me sincerity O God, and let me know the sacrifice is accepted. I am under deep obligation to Thee for having so far removed the pain from which I suffered May ease be gratefully acknowledged by me, and let my life show forth Thy praise. I bless the Lord for all the good I possess, and am constrained to say, it is ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... dervish condescend to grant me ten of the twenty, which he did with a good grace: and as to the other ten he had left, I embraced him, kissed his feet, and caressed him, conjuring him not to refuse me, but to complete the obligation I should ever have to him, so that at length he crowned my joy, by giving me them also. "Make a good use of them, brother," said the dervish, "and remember that God can take away riches as well as give them, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... Appointed by the Constitution its exclusive legislators, and forming in this particular the only anomaly in our system of government—of the legislative body being elected by others than those for whose advantage they are to legislate—you will feel a superadded obligation to look well into their condition and to leave no cause for complaint or regret. The seat of Government of our associated republics can not but be regarded as worthy ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler
... other. I see that, already, they are all jealous of your independent spirit. Most of your comrades are the dependants and mere vassals of their officers; you are almost the only one amongst them that can say you are free from any obligation to any of them. The officers dread your spirit, and the privates envy your independence; they are most of them actuated by selfish views, while you, on the contrary, are glowing with the amor patriae, and think of nothing but how you can best serve your country. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... Moreover, he had the nicest sense of justice, and he could not but feel the shocking impropriety of accepting a reward that was unquestionably due to his superiors. Indeed, it is but fair to add, he never acquiesced in the obligation, until it was actually forced ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... removed from us, we acknowledge one of the richest gifts of God, in intellectual endowments, pure aspiration, moral courage, and disinterested devotion to the cause of truth, freedom, and humanity, and that in view of this, we feel out increased obligation to Christian fidelity and ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... passion on the one hand as violently as the lack of ideas, resulting from his education, held him back on the other. Paralyzed between these opposing forces, he had not a word to say, and feared to be spoken to, so much did he dread the obligation of replying. Desire, which usually sets free the tongue, only petrified his powers of speech. Thus it happened that Jean-Jacques Rouget was solitary and sought solitude because there alone ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... and ascetic court high rank connoted no pomp or luxury. Julian had dismissed the thousand hairdressers, the innumerable cooks and eunuchs of his Christian predecessor. It probably brought with it only an increased obligation to live on pulse and to do without such pamperings of the body as fine clothes or warmth ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... in this predicament was rather singular, and the scout law on which he based it covered a rather larger field of obligation than was necessary in ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... times when Russia was merely a conglomeration of independent principalities, the Princes were under the moral and political obligation of protecting their subjects, and this obligation coincided admirably with their natural desire to extend their dominions. When the Grand Princes of Muscovy, in the fifteenth century, united the numerous principalities and proclaimed ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... and worship duly performed by the Devotee day after day. This is what the text 'they seek to know through the sacrifice' really means. The conclusion therefore is that in the case of householders knowledge has for its pre-requisite all sacrifices and other works of permanent and occasional obligation. 'As a horse.' As the horse, which is a means of locomotion for man, requires attendants, grooming, &c., so knowledge, although itself the means of Release, demands the co-operation of the different works. Thus ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... the queen, along with all her priests." The English Parliament said, "Persecution was necessary to advance the glory of God." The Scotch Parliament decreed death against Catholics as idolaters, saying "it was a religious obligation to execute them" (Ibid, pp. 67, 68). Cranmer, A.D. 1550, condemned six anabaptists to death, one of whom, a woman, was burned alive, and in the following year another was committed to the flames; this primate ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... obligation of society to identify and register as early as possible all feeble-minded children. All students of social problems will concede that feeble-mindedness is one of the fundamental causes of our numerous social ills. It is a prolific ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews
... and brought him butter and eggs from the royal dairy. This was better fare than the king's son had had since the beginning of his wanderings, and he thanked the fox warmly for his friendship. 'On the contrary,' said the fox, 'I am under an obligation to you; for ever since you came to be my guest I have felt like an honest man.' 'If I live to be king,' said the king's son, 'you shall always have butter and eggs from the royal dairy, and be as ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman
... danger, so that the banks, ordinarily the pillars of financial strength, become at such a time the points of greatest weakness in the financial situation. If many of the customers were not restrained by their sense of personal obligation to the banks, by the strong pressure which the banks can bring to bear upon them, or by the force of public opinion among business men, from withdrawing the balances to their credit in a time of crisis, all commercial banks ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... left Genoa for Florence in 1823, and defrayed up to that date all their expenses. He gave his contributions to the Liberal gratis; and, again by Hunt's own confession, left to him and his brother the profits of the proprietorship. According to Mr. Galt "The whole extent of the pecuniary obligation appears not to have exceeded 500 l.; but, little or great, the manner in which it was recollected reflects no credit either on the head or heart of ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... she shut the door of her room and flung her topi on the bed, and she repeated the word several times with increasing animosity and vigour. She hated Hartley at that moment, and felt under no further obligation to hide her real feelings; and then Mrs. Wilder sat down and ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... Lugudunum, like those at Rome, should expect from those whom fortune had favored some return for the distinctions which they enjoyed. In this way the prosperous in each little town came to feel a sense of obligation to their native place, and this feeling of civic pride and responsibility was strengthened by the same spirit of rivalry between different villages that the Italian towns of the Middle Ages seem to have inherited from their ancestors, a spirit of rivalry ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... the new Tsar was a delightful surprise to the nobility. He published a manifesto freeing the nobles from the obligation of service imposed by Peter the Great, saying that this law, which was wise at the time it was enacted, was no longer necessary, now that the nobility was enlightened and devoted to the service of their ruler. The grateful nobles talked of erecting a statue of gold to ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... no fear. The Regiment made an account of it, reckoning one life of the enemy for each bead. They deposited the beads as a pledge with the regimental clerk. When a man of the guarantors became killed, the number of his beads which remained unredeemed was added to the obligation of the other guarantors, or they elected an inheritor of the debt in his place." [He will understand that. It was all very correct and business-like, Sahib. Our Pathan Company arranged it.] "It was seven weeks before all her beads were ...
— The Eyes of Asia • Rudyard Kipling
... done it is necessary to take out a Game License, which may be obtained without difficulty at either of these two centres. This license (which costs 50 pounds) imposes an obligation on the sportsman to make a return before he leaves the country of every animal shot by him. By obtaining a special license two elephants, a giraffe, greater kudu, buffalo and eland may be shot; but there are various stipulations and fees attaching to ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... but have killed the body, but this boy—this fore-front fighter in the devil's battle—did much to ruin many an immortal soul. He systematically, from the very first, called evil good, and good evil, put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. He openly threw aside the admission of any one moral obligation. Never did some of the Roslyn boys, to their dying day, forget the deep, intolerable, unfathomable flood of moral turpitude and iniquity which he bore with him; a flood, which seemed so irresistible, that the influence of such boys as Montagu and Owen to stay its ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... born, Whom wisdom, conduct, fame adorn, Thou for thy honoured father's sake Shouldst Rama's righteous counsel take. All debts to Queen Kaikeyi paid, Thy sire his home in heaven has made, So virtuous Rama we would see From filial obligation free." Thus gave each royal sage advice, High saint, and bard of Paradise; Then quickly vanishing from view Each to his proper home withdrew. Then Rama's face his rapture showed, And his full heart with joy ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... them to forsake their errors. Always they got the same simple, faithful, patriotic reply. They served their Queen, their country, their captain. What these believed, they believed, and held to be right. Faith with them was a matter of national obligation and faithfulness to their leaders and comrades. To deny the faith was to deny the principles that had ruled their lives. Such treason to country and conscience was impossible. They thanked the priests for their ministrations, ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... youngest belonging to officers of the College. Parents brought two, and even three, little ones, that the man of God might place upon their foreheads the seal of their consecration, and in solemn and tender words they were reminded of the meaning and obligation of ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 7. July 1888 • Various
... me pass the day in peace: let me pass the night in peace, O Lord, who hast no Lord! There is no strength but in Thee: Thou alone hast no obligation. Under Thy hand I pass the day! under Thy hand I pass the night! Thou art my Mother, ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." Persons such as these might admit the miracles of Christ, without being immediately convinced that they were under obligation to make a public profession of Christianity at the risk of all that was dear to them in life, and ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... attend the dying bed of a friend, so I was clearly bound to remain where I was, and wait for the last moments of this my more than Christian friend; and the circumstance that his death was to be shocking and harrowing to the friendly heart was not enough to absolve me from the heavy obligation. I therefore kept my place, and awaited with patience ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... from parental rule when he arrives at years of discretion does not exempt him from the honour he is bound by the law of God and nature to pay to his parents.[19] The son is under a perpetual obligation to honour his father by all outward expressions, and from this obligation no state can absolve him. 'The honour due to parents' (says Locke) 'a monarch on his throne owes his mother, and yet this lessens not ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the representatives of Mr. Innys, bookseller, in St. Paul's Church-yard [F-10], proceeded from a very worthy motive. He told Sir John Hawkins, that his father having become a bankrupt, Mr. Innys had assisted him with money or credit to continue his business. 'This, (said he,) I consider as an obligation on me to be grateful ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... the year 1484 it became known in Spain. To another Dominican, John de Torquemada, the court of Rome owed this obligation. As he was the confessor of Queen Isabella, he had extorted from her a promise, that if ever she ascended the throne, she would use every means to extirpate heresy and heretics. Ferdinand had conquered Granada, and had expelled from the Spanish ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Burchard was intensely excited by conflicting emotions and the discussion within himself concerning his duty. Could he retain the money and give information to the police? No. Did the fraud of Malcolm vitiate his obligation to him? In some particulars, but not in all. Did his oath to be faithful to his client prevent him from withdrawing from the case till at least he had returned what he had received? Yes; but how could he return it, since it was doubtful ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... and clearer, as she addressed the throng. "I do, and so do officers and gentlemen who'd be shamed to have to shake hands with such as he. He's got my husband's note about him now, and what my husband wrote was this—'I charge myself with every dollar you charge to Field, and with the further obligation of thrashing you on sight'—and, mark you, he'll ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... my gratitude is due," returned Ada. "And I would lay myself under a still further obligation, by asking you to tell me what ship I am on board, how I came here, and to ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... have done may seem a light thing to you, Captain Brice," she said. "That is apt to be the way with those who have big hearts. You have put upon Colonel Colfax, and upon me, a life's obligation." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... who the guilty man was, and, knowing that, knowing that his action in defending the man charged with the murder of an old friend would weigh with the jury, he took up the case because he felt there was a moral obligation on him to get Birchill off. His conduct of the defence, during which he attacked the moral character of your father, was remarkable, coming from him—the friend of the dead man. As the action of defending counsel it was perfectly legitimate. It gave ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... perjury in breaking their oath of allegiance, since brought against the officers of the Army and Navy who resigned their commissions to render aid to the South, it need only be stated that, in their belief, the resignation of their commissions absolved them from any special obligation. They then occupied the same position towards the Government as other classes of citizens. But this charge was never brought against them till the war was ended. The resignation of their commissions ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... impressionable; and the future is always in their hands. The first and most imperative duty of parents is to give their children the best attainable preparation for life, no matter at what sacrifice to themselves. There are hosts of fathers and mothers who recognize this obligation but do not know how to discharge it; who are eager to give their children the most wholesome conditions, but do not know how to secure them; who are especially anxious that their children should start early and start right on that ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... aware how deep an obligation he has conferred upon my aunt, and we should have been glad if we could have avoided making his duty irksome," said Miss Carlyon in a low, deep voice, while the colour came into her cheeks for an instant and then fled, leaving ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... quiet, all of you. Here's something about Dorothy: 'I know that my dear daughter Dorothy is faithful and loving, albeit somewhat quick of speech and restive under obligation. I would have thee remind her that an unwillingness to accept help from others argues a want of Christian Meekness. Entreat her from me not to conceal her needs from our neighbors, if so be she find her work oppressive. ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... army entered Spain, we might if we chose have visited that measure by a war. But we were not then bound to interfere on behalf of Spain, as we now are bound to interfere on behalf of Portugal, by the obligation of treaty. And such a war would not in these days have been the proper method of restoring the balance of power, which varies as civilization advances and new nations spring up. To take a leaf from the book of European policy in the times of William III., or of Queen Anne, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... England's sake—leaving her to the angels;—not, I say, absolving thee from that sin, but pausing yet to decide what penance and atonement to fix to its committal, I do in the name of the Power whose priest I am, forbid thee to fulfil the oath; I do release and absolve thee from all obligation thereto. And if in this I exceed my authority as Romish priest, I do but accomplish my duties as living man. To these grey hairs I take the sponsorship. Before this holy cross, kneel, O my son, with me, and pray that ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... reasonableness or impartiality in conduct, requiring the individual to act on a maxim which he can "will to be law universal." No state of desire or situation calling for action means anything morally except in the light of this obligation. Thus certain principles of thought and action are said to be implicit in all experience. They are universal and necessary in the sense that they are discovered as the conditions not of any particular experience, but of experience in general. This implicit or virtual presence in experience ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... do no Wrong, by means of Instructions may obtain a Right to do Wrong: for that the Prerogative extends not to do any Injury, never has and never can be denyd. Therefore this House are clearly of Opinion, that your Honor is under no Obligation to hold the General Court at Cambridge, let your Instructions be conceivd in Terms ever so peremptory, in as much as it is inconvenient and injurious to the province.—As to your Commission, it is certain, that no Clause containd in that, inconsistent with the Charter can be binding: To suppose, ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... note, p. 438.] (which Spain rejected) modifying the portions which placed the contracting Powers on an unequal footing. By this step he forced the Spanish monarchs to resign any pretence of having treated him generously or having placed him under an obligation; and the step itself was significant of the increased confidence he had acquired in the stability of his own position. In December Maximilian was married by proxy to Anne—whom he had never seen—and not long afterwards she assumed the ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... right to ride where I please?" He had saved her life, of course, and she was very grateful to him, but that was no reason why he should presume to speak familiarly to her. She really believed—in spite of the obligation under which he had placed her—that she ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of Mrs. Hanway-Harley's guns, left that wife and mother with a depleted opinion of Mr. Harley. She could not respect one who failed to give her battle, being offered proper provocation; and in that Mrs. Hanway-Harley was one with all the world. To fight is now and then an obligation. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... amount sufficient to purchase and pay for a comfortable home. You have to pay the rent. This you say you cannot avoid and be honest. Well, you cannot be honest with your family unless you make a reasonable attempt to provide them a home of their own in case anything should happen to you. And the obligation to do this should be as strong as the one to pay rent or provide the other necessaries for the comfort of your family. When you own a home you feel a direct interest in public affairs that otherwise you might ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... Besides, there is no good portrait accessible to him, and the engraving in the 'Lee Family' I think would be an injury to any book. His recent proposition of inserting my portrait where the family history is given takes from it a part of my obligation, and if it were believed that such an addition would add to the interest of the book, I should assent. I have so told him, and that I would write to you for your suggestions, and to ask whether you could send him a portrait worth inserting. ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... perspective glass the danger she was in, and if Prince Houssain's tapestry had not brought you so soon. Your perspective glass, Prince Ali, informed you and your brothers that you were like to lose the Princess your cousin, and there you must own a great obligation. ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... making the matter up—a hope, which, though general on the side of America, had never entered the head or heart of the British court. Their hope was conquest and confiscation. Good heavens! what volumes of thanks does America owe to Britain? What infinite obligation to the tool that fills, with paradoxical vacancy, the throne! Nothing but the sharpest essence of villany, compounded with the strongest distillation of folly, could have produced a menstruum that would have effected a separation. The Congress in 1774 administered an abortive medicine to independence, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... faculty was so special, so much a gift out of hand, that I have often wondered why she fell below that distinction. This was doubtless because the transaction, in her case, had remained incomplete; genius always pays for the gift, feels the debt, and she was placidly unconscious of obligation. She could invent stories by the yard, but she couldn't write a page of English. She went down to her grave without suspecting that though she had contributed volumes to the diversion of her contemporaries she had not contributed a sentence to the ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... commissioned me to relieve you of that responsibility. From that moment it was your aim to become perfect soldiers, with your minds and consciences deposited in my hands for safe-keeping. From that day forth you no longer had minds nor consciences—your whole duty was summed up in the obligation to obey orders. That is the soldier's only duty. And I know, my children, that you are perfect soldiers and that you stand ever ready to do that duty. Soldiers in other armies may occasionally forget their ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... shall build no hopes upon it, and consider this no precedent for future favours:—and it is nonsense to talk about putting yourself under obligations to me when you must know that in such a case the obligation is entirely on my ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... lad was exactly obeying him. He thought it over, but could not understand it, and did not like it, for he was fond of authority. Gibbie in fact did whatever was required of him from his own delight in meeting the wish expressed, not from any sense of duty or of obligation to obedience. The minister had no perception of what the boy was, and but a very small capacity for appreciating what was best in him, and had a foreboding suspicion that the time would come when ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... to that end he was frugally gathering all the money he could. As he had carried the fox skin through the wilderness when a boy, so now he carried the thought of that debt in his mind, and no robber in the form of pleasant indulgence should prevent him from meeting his obligation. ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... occurred to him it was odd that Brown should come all the way from the schoolhouse to invite him, a Parrett's junior, to his feast; nor did it occur to him either that the invitation put him under any obligation to his would-be host. ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... shall I rob him, if I can? Where shall I murder him, if I must?" The secret of his dead friend was in no hazard from Vendale's lips; but just as his friend had died of its weight, so did he in his lighter succession feel the burden of the trust, and the obligation to follow any clue, however obscure. He rapidly asked himself, would he like this man to be the real Wilding? No. Argue down his mistrust as he might, he was unwilling to put such a substitute in the place of his late guileless, outspoken childlike partner. He rapidly asked himself, would ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... bad, Harry—too bad!" said my uncle, with a smile and a shake of the head. "I am no sooner free of one obligation than I am under another; and so now, on the strength of that money, ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... contest, degenerating at times into a game of hide and seek: while they assured us how splendid the banquet or parade was going to be, we tried to explain how much we should prefer a quiet walk in the streets. I, not being a member of the Delegation, felt less obligation than my companions did to attend at propaganda meetings where one knew the speeches by heart beforehand. In this way, I was able, by the help of neutral interpreters, mostly English or American, to have many conversations with casual people whom I met in the ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I seek or why I exclude company. Then, again, do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... they both imply obligation, should not be used indiscriminately. Ought is the stronger term; what we ought to do, we are morally bound to do. We ought to be truthful and honest, and should be respectful to our elders and kind ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... leapt into the gulf, had he been so drunk as not to know what he was about. The will which depends on unscrupulousness is like the benumbed hand or intoxicated soul. Quench conscience, as a sense of right and obligation, and you can, of course, do a great deal from which another would shrink—and therefore be called "weak-minded" ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... aspirations; moreover there existed, in regard to Italy, the obligations established by the Pact of London. That is why in the statements of the Entente Powers of Europe the restoration of Montenegro is regarded as an obligation; mention is made of the necessity of driving the Turks out of Europe in order to enable Russia to seize Constantinople; and as to Poland, there are only vague allusions, namely, the reference made to the Tsar's intentions as ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... I understood what was meant. She didn't want to rest under an obligation, and so I was to be paid up for what I had done by promotion. It made me grit my teeth, and if I hadn't taught myself not to swear, because of my position, I could have given sheriff Gunton points on cursing. I wanted to speak ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... of commerce had been contracted, the treaties themselves were to be considered binding as between the nations, and particularly whether the stipulation of guarantee to France of her possessions in the West Indies, was binding upon the United States to the extent of imposing upon them the obligation of taking side with France in the war. As the members of the Cabinet disagreed in their opinions upon these questions, and as there was no immediate necessity for deciding them, the further consideration of them was postponed, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... having done so on to his own shoulders. And yet, though this document is in theory the most important which any one can sign in his whole life, they will have him commit himself to it at an age when neither they nor the law will for many a year allow any one else to bind him to the smallest obligation, no matter how righteously he may owe it, because they hold him too young to know what he ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... times "not many well-educated, not many influential, not many nobly born were called"; and in our own age the two least responsive strata in society are the topmost and the bottom-most—those so well off that they often feel no pressure of social obligation, and those without the sense of social responsibility because they have nothing. It is the interest of spiritual religion to do away with both these strata, placing social burdens on the former and imposing social privileges on the ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... Province holds to-day is to a considerable extent owing to this large and influential body of Christians. They built the first house devoted to public worship in the Province; through their zeal and energy, the people were stirred up to a sense of their religious obligation; their activity infused life and action into other denominations. The people generally throughout the country had the bread of life broken to them with regularity, so that in the year of Grace 1830 a new order of things was inaugurated. But with all this, ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... commendable; I can enter into your feelings. I should like to show my obligation ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... passions," what they mean is great barbaric passions, passions far enough along in the process of socialization to be subject to the interactions of wealth, caste, and established religion, and still free from the obligation of politeness. But the life of the American Indian provides no such conditions, and, moreover, in the factor which makes conspicuously for the degree of complication called Plot, is notably wanting,—I mean in the factor ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin
... in the sweat of his brow is the original punishment of mankind; the indolence of the savage shrinks from the obligation, and looks out for methods of escaping it. Corn, wine, and oil have no charms for him at such a price; he turns to the brute animals which are his aboriginal companions, the horse, the cow, and the sheep; he chooses to be a grazier rather than to till the ground. ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... COMMAND will be excluded from his vocabulary, still more those of DUTY and OBLIGATION; but the words strength, necessity, weakness, and constraint must have a large place in it. Before the age of reason it is impossible to form any idea of moral beings or social relations; so avoid, as far as may ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... head and limbs. 'No; I really have the power of pardoning, and I am bound to; for among my debts to him, this present exemption, that is like liberty dragging a chain, or, say, an escaped felon wearing his manacles, should count. I am sensible of my obligation. The price I pay for it is an immovable patch-attractive to male idiots, I have heard, and a mark of scorn to females. Between the two the remainder of my days will be lively. "Out, out, damned spot!" ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... There is an obligation on a man to persevere when a woman has encouraged him in love-making. It is like riding at a fence. When once you have set your horse at it you must go on, however impracticable it may appear as you draw close to it. If you have never looked at the fence at ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope |
