Obliged

Famous quotes containing the word obliged:

    When a man of sense happens to be in that disagreeable situation in which he is obliged to ask himself more than once, What shall I do? he will answer himself, Nothing. When his reason points out to him no good way, he will stop short, and wait for light. A little busy mind runs on at all events, must be doing; and, like a blind horse, fears no dangers, because he sees none. Il faut scavoir s’ennuïer.*
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

    Art has always been this—pure interrogation, rhetorical question less the rhetoric—whatever else it may have been obliged by social reality to appear.
    Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)

    If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government becomes only a hired man, or clerk, to perform menial or indifferent services.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)