Imperfect Duty

Famous quotes containing the words imperfect and/or duty:

    I ... observed the great beauty of American government to be, that the simple machines of representation, carried through all its parts, gives facility for a being moulded at will to fit with the knowledge of the age; that thus, although it should be imperfect in any or all of its parts, it bears within it a perfect principle the principle of improvement.

    Frances Wright (1795–1852)

    Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the book-worm.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)