“We must do the thing we must
Before the thing we may;
We are unfit for any trust
Till we can and do obey.”
Willie's Question
The Disciple and Other Poems (1867)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
George MacDonald127
Scottish journalist, novelist 1824–1905Related quotes
“For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing.”
Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics
Book II, 1103a.33: Cited in: Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2005), 21:9
Nicomachean Ethics
Source: The Nicomachean Ethics
Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War
Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter III, Some Implications Of The First Image, p. 69
John Campbell Shairp (1819–1885) British writer
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 195.
Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 6
Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer
Section 9 : Ethical Outlook
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: The frontier of the higher life is everywhere contiguous to the common life, and we can cross the border at any moment. The higher life is as real as the grosser things in which we put our trust. But our eyes must be anointed so that we may see it.
The office of the religious teacher is to be a seer, and to make others see, and thus to win them into the upward way.
Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy
Day of Affirmation Address (1966)
Context: The road toward equality of freedom is not easy, and great cost and danger march alongside us. We are committed to peaceful and nonviolent change, and that is important for all to understand — though all change is unsettling. Still, even in the turbulence of protest and struggle is greater hope for the future, as men learn to claim and achieve for themselves the rights formerly petitioned from others. And most important of all, all of the panoply of government power has been committed to the goal of equality before the law, as we are now committing ourselves to the achievement of equal opportunity in fact. We must recognize the full human equality of all of our people before God, before the law, and in the councils of government. We must do this, not because it is economically advantageous, although it is; not because the laws of God command it, although they do; not because people in other lands wish it so. We must do it for the single and fundamental reason that it is the right thing to do.
