“Duties are ours; events are God's. This removes an infinite burden from the shoulders of a miserable, tempted, dying creature. On this consideration only, can he securely lay down his head, and close his eyes.”

—  Richard Cecil (clergyman)

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 197.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 8, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Duties are ours; events are God's. This removes an infinite burden from the shoulders of a miserable, tempted, dying cr…" by Richard Cecil (clergyman)?
Richard Cecil (clergyman) photo
Richard Cecil (clergyman)29
British Evangelical Anglican priest and social reformer 1748–1810

Related quotes

Hugh Blair photo

“The slave who digs in the mine or labors at the oar can rejoice at the prospect of laying down his burden together with his life; but to the slave of guilt there arises no hope from death. On the contrary, he is obliged to look forward with constant terror to this most certain of all events, as the conclusion of all his hopes, and the commencement of his greatest miseries.”

Hugh Blair (1718–1800) British philosopher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 550.

Benjamin Spock photo

“Man can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet he's potentially more vicious than any other. He is the only one who can be persuaded to hate millions of his own kind whom he has never seen and to kill as many as he can lay his hands on in the name of his tribe or his God.”

Benjamin Spock (1903–1998) American pediatrician and author of Baby and Child Care

Source: Decent and Indecent: Our Personal and Political Behavior (1970), p. 13

Thomas Aquinas photo

“The soul is like an uninhabited world
that comes to life only when
God lays His head
against us.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Cyrano de Bergerac photo

“His ridiculous and diabolical opinions made me shudder. I began to look a little more closely at this person and was amazed to see something frightening in his face that I had not noticed before: his eyes were small and sunken, his skin dark, his mouth big, his chin hairy and his nails black. Oh God, I thought immediately, this miserable creature is condemned already and may even be the Antichrist that people talk about so much in our world.”

Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655) French novelist, dramatist, scientist and duelist

The Other World (1657)

Swami Sivananda photo

“God bestows perfect security on His devotees and removes all sorts of fears. He transforms the sense of insecurity and fear into one of confidence and faith. He saves him from panic and despair.”

Swami Sivananda (1887–1963) Indian philosopher

Conquest of Fear (c-1960)

Elie Wiesel photo

“A destruction only man can provoke, only man can prevent. Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures, it is our gift to each other.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)

Richelle Mead photo

“Because it’s our duty to God to protect the rest of humanity from evil creatures of the night.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Thomas Paine photo

“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1790s, First Principles of Government (1795)
Context: An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

Bertrand Russell photo

“All the time that he can spare from the adornment of his person, he devotes to the neglect of his duties.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Of Sir Richard Jebb, Some Cambridge Dons of the Nineties (1956)
1950s

Jeremy Taylor photo

“God is everywhere present by His power. He rolls the orbs of heaven with His hand; He fixes the earth with His foot; He guides all creatures with His eye, and refreshes them with His influence; He makes the powers of hell to shake with His terrors, and binds the devils with His word.”

Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) English clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 274.

Related topics