Quote by George Eliot

If the past is not to bind us, where can duty lie? We should have no law but the inclination of the moment.

If the past is not to bind us, where can duty lie? We should

Summary

This quote questions where our sense of duty comes from if we are not bound by our past. It suggests that if we are not guided by previous experiences, then our only obligation should be dictated by our immediate desires or impulses. It proposes the idea that rules and obligations stemming from personal inclination, rather than societal norms or moral standards, should be the only governing principles in our lives.

Topics

By George Eliot

Liked the quote? Share it with your friends.

Random Quotations

He'd have given me rolling lands, Houses of marble, and bill

He'd have given me rolling lands, Houses of marble, and billowing farms, Pearls, to trickle between my hands, Smoldering rubies, to circle my arms. You- you'd only a lilting song, Only a melody, happy and high, You were sudden and swift and strong- Never a thought for another had I. He'd have given me laces rare, Dresses that glimmered with frosty sheen, Shining ribbons to wrap my hair, Horses to draw me, as fine as a queen. You- you'd only to whistle low, Gayly I followed wherever you led. I took you, and I let him go- Somebody ought to examine my head!

Dorothy Parker, The Choice

Men! She could not understand why so many women feared them.

Men! She could not understand why so many women feared them. Hadn't the gods made them with the most vurnerable part of their guts hanging right out of their bodies, like a misplaced bit of bowel? Kick them there and they curled up like snails. Caress them there and their brains melted.

Without cancer, I never would have won a single Tour de Fran

Without cancer, I never would have won a single Tour de France. Cancer taught me a plan for more purposeful living, and that in turn taught me how to train and to win more purposefully. It taught me that pain has a reason, and that sometimes the experience of losing things

Lance Armstrong

While they were saying it couldn't be done, it was done.

While they were saying it couldn't be done, it was done.

Life Humor Funny

This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature

This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games.

William S. Burroughs

All parents believe their children can do the impossible. Th

All parents believe their children can do the impossible. They thought it the minute we were born, and no matter how hard we've tried to prove them wrong, they all think it about us now. And the really annoying thing is, they're probably right.

Cathy Guisewite

Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to gro

Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.

There's always hope. You can lose everything else in the wor

There's always hope. You can lose everything else in the world, but Jews never lose hope.

One of the greatest things drama can do, at it's best, is to

One of the greatest things drama can do, at it's best, is to redefine the words we use every day such as love, home, family, loyalty and envy. Tragedy need not be a downer.

To me there is no more tragic sight than the average mission

To me there is no more tragic sight than the average missionary. We have given so much, yet not the one thing that counts; we aspire so high, and fall so low; we suffer so much, but so seldom with Christ; we have done so much and so little will remain; we have known Christ in part, and have so effectively barricaded our hearts against His mighty love, which surely He must yearn to give His disciples above all people.

Amy Wilson-Carmichael

Love Christian Disciple Tragic Missionary

Everything is a piece of me, a moment of my life.

Everything is a piece of me, a moment of my life.

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

Thich Nhat Hanh