“self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist
Source: The Band That Played On (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 13
“self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist
Steve Turner (1949) British writer
Source: The Band That Played On (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 193
Irving Kristol (1920–2009) American columnist, journalist, and writer
Source: Memorandum to Robert T. Hartmann https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0204/1511691.pdf (1976)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton book The Woman's Bible
The Woman's Bible (1898)
Source: The Woman's Bible: A Classic Feminist Perspective
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
Source: Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), Civil Courage, p. 5.
Context: What lies behind the complaint about the dearth of civil courage? In recent years we have seen a great deal of bravery and self-sacrifice, but civil courage hardly anywhere, even among ourselves. To attribute this simply to personal cowardice would be too facile a psychology; its background is quite different. In a long history, we Germans have had to learn the need for and the strength of obedience. In the subordination of all personal wishes and ideas to the tasks to which we have been called, we have seen the meaning and greatness of our lives. We have looked upwards, not in servile fear, but in free trust, seeing in our tasks a call, and in our call a vocation. This readiness to follow a command from "above" rather than our own private opinions and wishes was a sign of legitimate self-distrust. Who would deny that in obedience, in their task and calling, the Germans have again and again shown the utmost bravery and self-sacrifice? But the German has kept his freedom — and what nation has talked more passionately of freedom than the Germans, from Luther to the idealist philosophers? — by seeking deliverance from self-will through service to the community. Calling and freedom were to him two sides of the same thing. But in this he misjudged the world; he did not realize that his submissiveness and self-sacrifice could be exploited for evil ends. When that happened, the exercise of the calling itself became questionable, and all the moral principles of the German were bound to totter. The fact could not be escaped that the Germans still lacked something fundamental: he could not see the need for free and responsible action, even in opposition to the task and his calling; in its place there appeared on the one hand an irresponsible lack of scruple, and on the other a self-tormenting punctiliousness that never led to action. Civil courage, in fact, can grow only out of the free responsibility of free men. Only now are the Germans beginning to discover the meaning of free responsibility. It depends on a God who demands responsible action in a bold venture of faith, and who promises forgiveness and consolation to the man who becomes a sinner in that venture.
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet
Stanza 8. <br class="br"> Ode to Duty http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww271.html (1805)
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1900s, A Square Deal (1903)
Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974) Indian writer
On the occasion of his coronation, In Jaya Chamaraja Wodeyar http://www.mysoresamachar.com/j_wadiyar_ann1.htm