"Idleness is a constant sin, and labor is a duty.
Idleness is the devil's home for temptation
and for unprofitable, distracting musings;
while labor profiteth others and ourselves."
-Anne Baxter

"If you have no friends
to share or rejoice
in your success in life -
if you cannot look back
to those whom you owe gratitude,
or forward to those to whom
you ought to afford protection,
still it is no less incumbent on you
to move steadily in the path of duty;
for your active excretions
are due not only to society;
but in humble gratitude
to the Being who made you a member of it,
with powers to save yourself and others."
-Walter Scott

"Never regard study as a duty,
but as the enviable opportunity
to learn to know
the liberating influence of beauty
in the realm of the spirit
for your own personal joy
and to the profit of the community
to which your later work belongs."
-Albert Einstein

"Our duty is to be useful,
not according to our desires
but according to our powers."
-Henri Frédréic Amiel

"The path of duty lies in what is near,
and men seek for it in what is remote.
The work of duty lies in what is easy,
and men seek for it in what is difficult."
-Mencius

"Never to tire, never to grow cold;
to be patient, sympathetic, tender;
to look for the budding flower
and the opening heart;
to hope always, like God,
to love always -- this is duty."
-H. F. Amiel

"The first duty of love is to listen."
-Paul Tillich