Just days after Paris fell to the Nazis, Winston Churchill called his compatriots to do their duty in the familiar words of the first quote below, delivered in the House of Commons on this day in 1940. I've chosen a few other quotes on Duty to go with it.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.'
– Winston Churchill, 1874 – 1965
I know of only one duty, and that is to love.
– Albert Camus, 1913 – 1960
To keep the body in good health is a duty … otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.
– Siddhartha Gautama, 563 – 483 BC
The one predominant duty is to find one's work and do it.
– Charlotte Perkins Gilman
A task becomes a duty from the moment you suspect it to be an essential part of that integrity which alone entitles one to assume responsibility.
– Dag Hammarskjöld, 1905 – 1961
We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it.
– Thomas Henry Huxley, 1825 – 1895
Eagle Watch knows my favorite Churchill quote by heart. 😉