Famous quotes containing the word obliged:
“He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Men are not only apt to forget the kindnesses and injuries that have been done them, but which is a great deal more, they hate the persons that have obliged them, and lay aside their resentments against those that have used them ill. The trouble of returning favors and revenging wrongs is a slavery, it seems, which they can very hardly submit to.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“A certain kind of rich man afflicted with the symptoms of moral dandyism sooner or later comes to the conclusion that it isn’t enough merely to make money. He feels obliged to hold views, to espouse causes and elect Presidents, to explain to a trembling world how and why the world went wrong. The spectacle is nearly always comic.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)