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Exlpore more Duty quotes
"The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die."
"You and I, we must carry on, Gemma. I cannot afford the luxury of love. I must marry well. And now I must look after you. It is my duty.""If you wish to suffer, you do so of your own free will, not on my behalf. Or Father's or Grandmama's or anyone's. You are a fine physician, Thomas. Why is that not enough?""Because it isn't," he says with a rare candor. "Only this and the hope of nothing more? A quiet respectability with no true greatness or heroism in it, with only my reputation to recommend me. So you see, Gemma, you are not the only one who cannot rule her own life."
"If he trips he must be sustained. If he makes mistakes they must be covered. If he sleeps he must not be wantonly disturbed. If he is no good he must be pole-axed."
"Our honor means no more than our lives, so long as the realm is safe."
"Partisanship is our great curse. We too readily assume that everything has two sides and that it is our duty to be on one or the other."
Duty,
"No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe."
"Your fear is, that if you marry AdA le, you will love her. If you have children, you will love them more than anything else in the world, more than patriotism, more than democracy. If your children grow up, and prove traitors to the people, will you be able to demand their deaths, as the Romans did? Perhaps you will, but perhaps you will not be able to do it. You're afraid that if you love people you may be deflected from your duty, but it's because of another kind of love, isn't it, that the duty is laid upon you?"
Explore more quotes by John Mortimer
"I suppose that writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitive fear and dread at the fearful magic of print."
"The worst fault of the working classes is telling their children they're not going to succeed."
"I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward."
"All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting."
"The freedom to make a fortune on the stock exchange has been made to sound more alluring than freedom of speech."
"No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails."
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