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Obligation   /ˌɑbləgˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Obligation

noun
1.
The social force that binds you to the courses of action demanded by that force.  Synonyms: duty, responsibility.  "Every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty"
2.
The state of being obligated to do or pay something.
3.
A personal relation in which one is indebted for a service or favor.  Synonym: indebtedness.
4.
A written promise to repay a debt.  Synonyms: certificate of indebtedness, debt instrument.
5.
A legal agreement specifying a payment or action and the penalty for failure to comply.



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"Obligation" Quotes from Famous Books



... then, after a pause, he said, aloud and ungraciously enough, "All right. I—I'm very much obliged, of course." And he proceeded to follow them, thinking in his heart, "But it's bad form, all the same, to force an obligation ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... from every obligation, but at the same time she had declared that her whole life would be consecrated to his memory. Richard felt that the release was just as nominal in his own case. He knew that he never could love any woman but ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... the privileges of a wife to upset a man's things, without her legal obligation to put them straight again. [Glances at GERTRUDE.] I wish Bob's sister had the same privileges in my room that ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard

... understand you to advocate, is this: that provided your employment be not contrary to the laws of the state, you are under no obligation to inquire particularly as to its influence upon the public happiness after the products of your labor get out of your own hands. If this be a correct principle for your guidance, it is certainly a correct one for others. Let us apply it ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... to do Colonel Geraldine, his Master of the Horse, one of those services, so common in my profession, which are never forgotten upon either side. I have no need to explain to you the nature of the obligation under which he was laid; suffice it to say that I knew him ready to serve me in any practicable manner. Now, it was necessary for you to gain London with your trunk unopened. To this the Custom House seemed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... good and acceptable in the sight of God, if, when we are bereaved, we employ ourselves occasionally in rehearsing before him the circumstances in his past goodness, which, at the time, made it exceedingly sweet and precious. Our debt of obligation for it is not yet fully paid; nor is it diminished at all by the removal of the blessing. Instead of abandoning ourselves to grief, we do well if we commune with God more frequently respecting his signal acts of favor in connection ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams

... interest fall with him." But when his benefactor heard of this, and of Defoe's "resolution never to abandon the fortunes of the man to whom he owed so much," he kindly urged the devoted follower to think rather of his own interest than of any romantic obligation. "My lord Treasurer," he said, "will employ you in nothing but what is for the public service, and agreeably to your own sentiments of things; and besides, it is the Queen you are serving, who has been very good to you. Pray apply yourself as you used to do; I shall not take ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... all of them. But this right of competence in the legislature, not in the people, is by the legislature itself to be exercised with sound discretion: that is to say, it is to be exercised or not, in conformity to the fundamental principles of this government, to the rules of moral obligation, and to the faith of pacts, either contained in the nature of the transaction or entered into by the body corporate of the kingdom,—which body in juridical construction never dies, and in fact never loses its members at once ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... duties of the limbs, the obligation of which no one doubts, are incomplete without the will of the heart to do them. Hence it follows that there is a duty upon our souls to worship God to the ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... alleging stress of work, in which I readily believed; for though I knew his regular practice had been much neglected during the preceding year, I also knew that there was not an Anarchist within twenty miles who did not expect him to attend on himself and family when in illness or trouble, an obligation with which the doctor willingly complied, though not only did he take no fees, but generally had to provide the patients with all their creature comforts. No sort of change had occurred in our relations to each ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... my Lord. If you knew me to be wrong you would not be so sore with me. Nevertheless I am under deep obligation for kind-hearted hospitality. If an American can make up his mind to crack up everything he sees here, there is no part of the world in which he can get along better." He had already written a long letter home to his friend Mr. ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... and despair passed over her head—a rope made of frail enough strands, God knows: bright eyes alert, small clinging feet, a pair of folded wings. Yet do the frailest threads of love and trust, make a safer rope to which to cling when shipwreck threatens the heart, than the iron chains of obligation and duty. ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... States is not less important than that of the several departments of each of them. We have all of us recently laid ourselves under a sacred obligation to defend and support our Federal and State Constitutions: A principal object in the establishment of the former, as it is expressed in the preamble, was "to form a more perfect Union:" To preserve this Union entire, and transmit it unbroken to posterity, is the duty of the People of United America, ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... of her own, and if she had cared to accept a professional status she might have raked in a small fortune from her seances. She would not take money, however, preferring social recognition; but gifts were pressed upon her by those who, though grateful and admiring, did not care for the obligation to admit the Countess into ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... or, if he was dead, in a guardian[3]; if the woman was married, the power belonged to the husband. The consent of such supervision, whether of father, husband, or guardian, was essential, as Ulpian informs us,[4] under these circumstances: if the woman entered into any legal action, obligation, or civil contract; if she wished her freedwoman to cohabit with another's slave; if she desired to free a slave; if she sold any things mancipi, that is, such as estates on Italian soil, houses, rights of ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... the same way, and that the tradition of a long past suggests to me the inefficiency of a dotage, quite as much as the stimulating aroma of potency which, as in the case of some wines, can only be acquired by the lapse of time. Some will say that this Modernism has no sense of obligation, no sense of veneration, makes no allowance for the idiosyncrasies of others. Well, that may be so. I may plead, on the contrary, that what we call the ancient Church was the youthful Church. The Church of the twentieth century is the ...
— What the Church Means to Me - A Frank Confession and a Friendly Estimate by an Insider • Wilfred T. Grenfell

... to save it from Atlee's rapacity, had amused Walpole; but then these things were all done in the spirit of the honest familiarity that prevailed between them—the tie of true camaraderie that neither suggested a thought of obligation on one side nor of painful inferiority on the other. Here it was totally different. These men did not live together with that daily interchange of liberties which, with all their passing contentions, so accustom people to each ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... because you couldn't do a thing badly. It isn't in you. You're a superlative sort of person. But that's no reason for being any of those things. If you won't admit a debt to humanity, surely you'll acknowledge you've an obligation to yourself." ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... shipbuilders of Liverpool gave to the English Cabinet in 1863-64. These perplexities, as is well known, caused the passage of the first "Neutrality Act," which first formulated and has since served to establish the principle of international obligation in such matters, and has been the basis of all subsequent legislation upon the subject not only in this country but also ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... and the delicacy of your conduct, Mr Forster; and I will candidly acknowledge, that, could I accept it, there is no one to whom I would more cheerfully be under an obligation; but the ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... offices of the trio marked with a sufficient distinction. Just as the Intellect concerns itself with Truth, so Taste informs us of the Beautiful, while the Moral Sense is regardful of Duty. Of this latter, while Conscience teaches the obligation, and Reason the expediency, Taste contents herself with displaying the charms, waging war upon Vice solely on the ground of her deformity, her disproportion, her animosity to the fitting, to the appropriate, to the harmonious, ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... saved from deadly wound, Not only will Parisians hold you dear; But habitants of all the countries round: Nor speak I only of the nations near; For city there is none on Christian ground. But what has citizens beleaguered here; So that to you, for vanquishing the foe, More lands than France will obligation owe. ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... the note itself, for, thus mutilated, it will show, if necessary, that he had not received anything, and that, through patriotism, he had undoubtedly wished to force a contribution from a merchant, but, finding him insolvent, had humanely canceled the written obligation.[33116]—Such are the precautions taken in this business. Others, less shrewd, rob more openly, among others the mayor, the seven members of the military commission surnamed "the seven mortal sins," and especially their president, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... my associates to my better satisfaction. My sole motives are those before expressed, as governing the first Administration in chalking out the rules of their proceeding, adding to them only a sense of obligation imposed on me by the public will to meet personally the duties to which they have appointed me. If this mode of proceeding shall meet the approbation of the heads of Departments, it may go into execution without giving them the trouble of an answer. If any other can be suggested which would answer ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. • James D. Richardson

... 'What, Sir, (said she,) are you so unfeeling, as not even to offer to go to my brother in his distress; you who have been so much obliged to him?' And that Johnson answered, 'Madam, I owe him no obligation; what he did for me he would have done ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... Government of the College to go on any errand, not judged improper by an officer of the government, or in study hours, for any of the other classes, the Senior having the prior right to the service.... The privilege of claiming such service, and the obligation, on the other hand, to perform it, doubtless gave rise to much abuse, and sometimes to unpleasant conflict. A Senior having a claim to the service of a Freshman prior to that of the classes below them, it had become a practice not uncommon, for a Freshman to obtain ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... Sir Charles with the respect due to a patron saint. No traditions were dearer to him than those of Trinity Hall. Speaking at the College annual dinner, he impressed upon the reforming Fellows their obligation, in the college interests, to retain its exclusive teaching and qualifications for fellowship as laid down by its founder, "for the study of the canon and civil law." [Footnote: A scrap of the menu of the dinner of June 19th, 1878, is preserved, which shows these toasts: '"The ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... brokenly, "you mean that—now—after what has happened between us—the duty of pressing forward at whatever cost is far more imperative than any other obligation that I may be under; that the innocent must not be sacrificed to ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... of the boon companions of the Prince of Wales—considerably higher in type, it is true, yet low enough to accept usage for law, and measure his obligation by the custom of his peers: duty merely amounted to what was expected of him, and honour, the flitting shadow of the garment of truth, was his sole divinity. Still he had a heart, and it would speak,—so long ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... they both imply obligation, should not be used indiscriminately. Ought is the stronger term; what we ought to do, we are morally bound to do. We ought to be truthful and honest, and should be respectful to our elders and kind to ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... Fir-cone, with this moral: "Sic ad virtutem et honestatem et laudabiles actiones non nisi per labores ac varias difficultates perveniri potest, at postea sequuntur suavissimi fructus." He acknowledges his obligation for this moral to the proverb of Plautus: "Qui e nuce nucleum esse vult, ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... taken up,' he said, 'and I was particular who took 'em. There's mighty few of those shares will be sold unless I say the word. Most of the folks that bought those shares are under consider'ble obligation to me.' Just what he meant by that I don't know, of course, but I can guess. Raish makes it a point to have people under what he calls 'obligations' to him. It comes in handy for him, in politics and other ways, to have 'em that way. He lends money and holds mortgages ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... that is, no church services could be held there, not even to shrive the dying or bury the dead. For a while John was scornful, but at length his accumulating troubles forced him to kneel submissively to the Pope, surrender his crown, and receive it back as a vassal of the papacy under obligation to pay heavy tribute. By the same weapon of an interdict Innocent forced the mighty Philip Augustus to take back a wife whom he had divorced without papal consent. And in Germany Innocent twice secured the creation of an emperor of his own ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... but his gloomy countenance contradicted his words when he attempted to utter a similar sense of obligation. Sir John Monteith was eloquent in his thanks. And Sir William Maitland was not less sincere in his gratitude, than Wallace was in joy, at having given liberty to so near a relation of Helen Mar. The rest of the captive Scots, to the number of several hundred, were ready to kiss the feet of the ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... this you will be seventy years old. I cannot forbear writing you a line to express the obligation which all the American people are under to you. As a diplomat you have come in that class whose foremost exponents are Benjamin Franklin and Charles Francis Adams, and which numbers also in its ranks men like Morris, Livingston, and ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... birthday your guardianship will end, and you will then, with the keys that I give you now" (and he placed them on the table) "open the iron box, and let him see and read the contents, and say whether or no he is willing to undertake the quest. There is no obligation on him to do so. Now, as regards terms. My present income is two thousand two hundred a year. Half of that income I have secured to you by will for life, contingently on your undertaking the guardianship—that is, one thousand a year remuneration to yourself, for you will have to give up your ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... "Let the trial proceed, gracious Sovereign. Your Highness's generous interest in one accused of a crime so awful, comprising the death, not of a subject only, but of a friend, does but add to the heavy weight of obligation already mine, and would of itself excite the wish to live, to prove that I am not so utterly unworthy; but I feel that not to such as I, may the Divine mercy be so shown, as to bring forward the real murderer. The misery of the ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... turned the check over to Hamlin and told him to manage it. The days went by. There was an excursion of the young people to Wales, and another to Scotland, and besides Jack had gone down to Devonshire, bonded the place he liked, paid L1,000 down, and was to meet the remainder of the obligation—L9,000—when the titles were all looked up and transferred to him. Meanwhile, June and the better part of July were gone when one morning Jack went to the bank and drew a check for a few pounds which he needed for spending money. The cashier as he paid the check, informed Browning that the directors ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin

... dated the next day, thanks him for his sympathy and offers him her gratitude, "agreeing that of all the commerce from Tyre to Carthage, the exchange of sympathy for gratitude is the most princely thing." And she craves a lasting obligation in that he shall suggest her master-faults in poetry. She does not pretend to any extraordinary meekness under criticism, and possibly might not be at all obedient to it, but she has such high respect for his power in Art, and his experience as an artist. She refers to Mr. Kenyon as her friend ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... francs per head a day and the pooling of our rations, she undertook to provide us with lunch and dinner, thereby establishing a "Mess" of our own. Many such fraternities there were in the absence of a regular regimental mess. But these arrangements were more private than military, the only obligation on the ordinary householder being the furnishing of billets. Occasionally the cobbled streets became the scene of an unwonted animation when young French recruits celebrated their call to the colours by marching down the streets arm-in-arm singing ribald songs, or a squad of sullen ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson

... so soon to happen. Brian was very kind, very good to her; she wished with all her heart that she had loved him better; yet it seemed to her that she did love him—a little. Surely this feeling was love, this keen sense of obligation, this warm admiration for his generous and loyal conduct. Yes, this must be love. And why, loving him, should she feel this profound melancholy at the idea of a marriage ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... out of the barrel. She wore her seal-skin cloak to the Good Templars' Lodge, the first night after taking it out, and they were going to turn her out of the Lodge on the ground that she had violated her obligation. ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... son keep his promise. Why having repeatedly given his pledge, saying,—The kings of Avanti and Kalinga, Jayadratha, and Chediddhaja and Valhika standing as spectators, I will slay hostile warriors by thousands and tens of thousands,—how will he discharge that obligation? Having distributed his divisions in counter-array and scattering heads by thousands, behold the havoc committed by Bhimasena. Indeed, that moment, when, representing himself as a Brahmana unto the holy and blameless Rama, Vikartana's ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... satirist found what the careless ingratitude of a court had denied: but in the record of literary glory, the patron's name should be inscribed by the side of the literary character: for the public incurs an obligation whenever a man of ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... greater obligation to me, sir, if she is: I am sure, if I had thought you would have endeavoured to ruin your family, I would have seen you hanged before you should have had ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... merit. A man of genius, who associated with them in his youth, rendered them this homage: many among them are men possessing "the most amiable characters and minds of the highest order."[3331] Indeed, for most of them, military service was not a career of ambition, but an obligation of birth. It was the rule in each noble family for the eldest son to enter the army, and advancement was of but little consequence. He discharged the debt of his rank; this sufficed for him, and, after twenty or thirty years of service, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... obligation which the craftsmen of painting owe to nature, who serves continually as model to those who are ever wresting the good from her best and most beautiful features and striving to counterfeit and to imitate her, should ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari

... remains of boisterous humour, which still clings to any collection of young men, jars painfully on their morbid sensibilities; and they beat a hasty retreat to resume their perfunctory march along Princes Street. Flirtation is to them a great social duty, a painful obligation, which they perform on every occasion in the same chill official manner, and with the same commonplace advances, the same dogged observance of traditional behaviour. The shape of their raiment is a burden almost greater ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... soldier. In it another husband, the Marquis d'Espard, suffers from the selfishness of his wife, one of the worst characters in the range of Balzac's fiction. That she may keep him from alienating his property to discharge a moral obligation she endeavors to prove him insane. The legal complications which ensue bring forward one of Balzac's great figures, the judge of instruction, Popinot; but to appreciate him the reader must go to the marvelous book ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... in theory alone that in families man is the only bread-winner, and it is false to suppose that single women have no obligations to make and to save money as sacred as those which are imposed on a man by marriage; while there is this difference, that a man may avoid such obligation if he pleases, by refraining from marriage, while the poverty of parents, or the dependence of brothers and sisters, are circumstances over which a woman obliged to work for others has ...
— Women and Politics • Charles Kingsley

... if the "physical and organic" laws of Nature possessed the same authority and imposed the same obligation as the "moral" laws of Conscience and Revelation; and as if the breach or neglect of the former were punishable in the same sense, and for the same reason, as the transgression ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... the greater the sartorial obligation," retorted Hippopopolis, who, for a Greek and a guide, had, as will be seen, a vocabulary of most remarkable range. "Just as it happens that our King here, like H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, has to be provided ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs

... rank and affluence; and I love you far too well to regard my own happiness more than your welfare. If, therefore, in your extreme youth you have made a promise which you now regret, as far as it is in my power to absolve you from that engagement, you are released. On my side, the obligation is sacred and eternal. It is not likely that I shall ever return to my country. While I am banished from your presence, all ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott

... truth or honesty of the cause, and, when he did so, used all his energy for the bad, as he did for the good cause. There seems to be special accusation made against him on his head, as though, the very fact that he undertook his work without pay threw upon him the additional obligation of undertaking no cause that was not in itself upright. With us the advocate does this notoriously for his fee. Cicero did it as notoriously in furtherance of some political object of the moment, or in maintenance of a friendship ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... obligation to work is introduced for the purpose of eliminating the parasitic strata of society and organizing the economic ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... and notes to his translation of Pufendorf's treatise De Jure Naturae et Gentium. In fundamental principles he follows almost entirely Locke and Pufendorf; but he works out with great skill the theory of moral obligation, referring it to the command or will of God. He indicates the distinction, developed more fully by Thomasius and Kant, between the legal and the moral qualities of action. The principles of international law he reduces to those of the law of nature, and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... have passed thirty years in this province of the discalced Franciscans of San Gregorio of Filipinas, and, since I am a father of this province, I regard it as my obligation to advise your Majesty of its present condition; so that, since you are the one who sends the ministers at the cost of your royal treasury, you might apply the corrective that necessity demands. It is a fact that, although the said province has been established by the discalced ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various

... jurisdiction and control of the United States, the Constitution and constitutional laws of the latter are, as we have already said, the supreme law of the land, and when they conflict with the laws of the States they are of paramount authority and obligation. This is the fundamental principle on which the authority of the Constitution is based, and unless it be conceded in practice as well as theory the fabric of our institutions, as it was contemplated by its founders, can not stand. The questions involved have respect not more ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson

... Aberdiswnwy to Abercorris. The farmer, from a small beginning, rapidly became, like Job, a man of substance, possessed of thriving herds of cattle—a very patriarch among the mountains. But, alas! wanting Job's restraining grace, his wealth made him proud, his pride made him forget his obligation to the elfin cow, and fearing she might soon become too old to be profitable, he fattened her for the butcher, and then even she did not fail to distinguish herself, for a more monstrously fat beast was never seen. At last the day of slaughter came—an eventful day in the annals of ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... belief of a God, what will become of the sacredness of oaths? How shall we oblige a man to speak the truth, who cannot seriously call the Deity to witness what he says? But, does an oath strengthen our obligation to fulfil the engagements contracted? Will he, who is not fearful of lying, be less fearful of perjury? He, who is base enough to break his word, or unjust enough to violate his engagements, in contempt of the esteem of men, will ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... were clothes. In dress as in manners, he knew no obligation of precedent; and as to fashion, the word made ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... seemed resolved not to move out of the house; made some Difficulties to accept an Election Sermon lest it should be an obligation to her. The coach staying long, I made some excuse for my stay. She said she would be glad to wait on me till midnight provided I should solicit her no more to ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... regard to my wishes about the place being kept on, on its present lines, remember that it is only a wish, and not to be regarded as a binding obligation or undertaken against your judgment. I trust you fully in this, as I have always trusted you; and I will just thank you, once and for all, for all that you have done and been. I shall always think of you with deep gratitude and lasting affection. ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... no legal obligation to inform the police as to the cause of the illness of a person which has been due to an illegal operation, either in a case where the patient recovers or in a case where the patient dies. He is, of course, under an obligation to insert in the certificate of death which he ...
— Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Various Aspects of the Problem of Abortion in New Zealand • David G. McMillan

... but there. Why? Gale absolutely could not doubt that the Indian had heart as well as mind. Yaqui had from the very first stood between Gale and accident, toil, peril. It was his own choosing. Gale could not change him or thwart him. He understood the Indian's idea of obligation and sacred duty. But there was more, and that baffled Gale. In the night hours, alone on the slope, Gale felt in Yaqui, as he felt the mighty throb of that desert pulse, a something that drew him irresistibly to the Indian. Sometimes he looked around to find the Indian, to dispel these strange, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... forming some definite plan for her future life became every day a more pressing obligation, whilst every day the needful exertion grew more painful to her. Until now she had met with no difficulty in deciding what she ought to do: her path of duty had been clearly traced for her. But there was neither call of duty now nor any strong inclination ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... Neither were my notions of the theological positions to which my Catechism bound me, at all accurate; for, I have a lively remembrance that I supposed my declaration that I was to "walk in the same all the days of my life," laid me under an obligation always to go through the village from our house in one particular direction, and never to vary it by turning down by the wheelwright's or ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... in his blunt, coarse manner. "And therefore your lordship need not lay yourself under any obligation to the Jew, who, after all, is a ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... duke, throughout his letter, takes a remarkably businesslike view of the situation. He does not allow the question of "right" to be raised, or suppose at all that the government could lie under any kind of obligation to a person in the position ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... patriotic feeling runs, says Veblen (97), the thinner may be the moral sanction that satisfies the public conscience. On the other hand moral sentiment may often be strong and deep in the minds of the masses of people in a nation, and the public feeling of obligation to enter a war may be strong, but in general such moral feeling does not lead to war. Righteous indignation lacks initiative. Honor as moral obligation requires the aid of honor as national pride and dignity. The relations among allies may at first thought seem to be moral ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge

... beauty (as such), or of manifesting what we call the poetic feeling. And still more is this so when we look at the further interval that lies between any perception of physical phenomena, any reasoning in the abstract, or investigation of mathematical truth, and the overmastering sense of obligation to the "moral law," or the action of the soul in its instinctive possession of the conception of a Divine Existence external to itself. It is because of this felt difference that we talk of the "spiritual" as something beyond and above ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell

... indeed, recovered from the intoxication of treasure and recalled to realizing the obligation that was upon them. They had swerved from it but now they pressed forward to finish the appointed journey. The canoe moved down to the fork of the waters with the light cock-boat skittering in its wake and perhaps the unhappy Blackbeard, stranded in the swamp, hurled after them ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... company was perfectly welcome to Messrs. Pendennis and Bows, and that the visit of the former was intended for himself. He expressed himself greatly pleased with that mark of poloightness, and promised, in his own mind, that he would repay that obligation at least—which was not the only debt which the captain owed in life—by several visits to his young friend. He entertained him affably with news of the day, or rather of ten days previous; for Pen, in his quality of journalist, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Danger (in), under obligation to, in the power of, Dawed, v tr., revived, intr. dawned, Deadly, mortal, human, Deal, part, portion, Debate, quarrel, strife, Debonair, courteous, Deceivable, deceitful, Defaded, faded, Default, fault, Defend, forbid,; defended,; forbidden, Defoiled, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... to praise a little more than is exactly just, lest the thin-skinned animal fall into that most deplorable of all diseases—heart-breaking despondency of himself. Dare I, sir, already immensely indebted to your goodness, ask the additional obligation of your being that friend to ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various

... justice and all other virtues? But do you wish to live for the sake of your children, that you may rear and educate them? What then? Will you take them to Thessaly, and there rear and educate them, making them aliens to their country, that they may owe you this obligation too? Or, if not so, being reared here, will they be better reared and educated while you are living, though not with them, for your friends will take care of them? Whether, if you go to Thessaly, will they take care of them, but ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato

... Puritan and persecuting forefathers said and believed; what does history say now? The world is growing wise enough to understand that God has no slaves. He endows men and women with a conscience. The supreme obligation is to be true to this. When any one who has passed the bounds of childhood says to us, 'I don't think this is right,' we take an awful responsibility, we probably are guilty of usurpation, if we substitute our will for his. In our sincerity we may argue, reason and entreat, but in ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... obligations for smaller amounts, in one case for fifty, and in another for eighty, instead of a hundred. These two cases are submitted as specimens: others were treated in a similar way. Of course the steward could not obtain from these debtors any obligation in his own favour for the portion remitted, which could be enforced in a court of justice; for the proof of the claim on the one side would have revealed his guilt on the other: but it was assumed between the parties ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... altogether. I can feel for a country like that, if it be insulted or oppressed by a powerful neighbour; but all that sympathy may exist without my being able to convince myself that it is the duty of this country to enter into the serious obligation of a war in defence of the rights of that country. The noble Lord the Member for Tiverton is one of the very few men in this House, or out of it, who are bold enough to insist upon it that there is a growing strength in the Turkish Empire. There was a ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... minds have contributed to these pages. Such sources of suggestion and insight have been indicated wherever they could be identified. In especial I must record my grateful sense of obligation to Professor Irving Babbitt's Rousseau and Romanticism. The chapter on Naturalism owes much to its brilliant and ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... marked among the nobility some are so addicted to the service of the prince and commonwealth, as they look not for spoil; such are to be honoured and loved. There are others which no obligation will fasten on; and they are of two sorts. The first are such as love their own ease; or, out of vice, of nature, or self-direction, avoid business and care. Yet these the prince may use with safety. ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... West, gravely: "it was a free gift to me. I repay it by a natural, not a legal obligation;" and he laid the two twenty-pound notes upon the table. "Next," he resumed, "I have to pay a debt of gratitude. I owe my life to your father. Thus in a manner I have become his adopted son. Thus," he continued impetuously, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... that the Town has receivd the Approbation of so many of their respectable Brethren in the Country, & particularly the Inhabitants of Littleton. The agreable manner in which you have communicated to us their Sentiments lays [us] under great obligation. We heartily joyn with you in wishing that Peace & Unity may be established in America, upon the permanent Foundations ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... were helped on to fortune; and the Sleeping Beauty was rescued from her dull little home, and taken about to see the world. It is wonderful what fairy deeds can be accomplished by a kind heart and a full purse, and the recipients of Mrs Chester's bounty were relieved from undue weight of obligation by the transparent evidence that her enjoyment was even greater than ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... to God and His faith, and to your Majesty, and the fidelity of a vassal, which I particularly owe, through the obligation placed upon me by being bishop, I say that this man has no good in him; nor is there anything bad lacking, to make him in the highest degree a bad governor. Every instant that the remedy is delayed will bring on more surely the wrath ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair

... to China, you wish Chinese interests to have the right of way. And whatever you can do to promote such interests, however small and humble your part may be in advancing them, it is your part nevertheless, and the obligation to fulfil it rests upon you with overwhelming insistence. As I told you before, China is overrun with "advisers." Consequently we all feel ourselves "advisers," more or less, all capable of giving advice ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte

... on the practical side, that the much-boasted support given to America by the French in America's Revolutionary War, in a degree helped to bankrupt the French government; but Americans have forgotten or wink at this plain financial obligation. ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... discovered, accidently, that his young inmate was suffering annoyance from his inability to discharge a pressing demand. He waited on Lieutenant Wellesley, told him that he was apprised of his embarrassments, mentioned that he had money unemployed, and offered a loan, which was accepted. The obligation was soon afterwards duly repaid; and the young aid-de-camp was enabled in a few years to present his humble friend to an honourable and lucrative situation. Nor did death cancel the obligation; the Duke's patronage, after his parent's death, was extended to the son of his early friend, ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... L48. They are in reality a probationary class, and become Women Clerks automatically after two years' service. The introduction of this class was not considered by the Department to be an administrative success, as the obligation to make them Women Clerks in two years prevented their being employed in sufficiently large numbers to effect any appreciable economy. The scheme for the introduction of the grade of Assistant Woman Clerk involved the abolition of the ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley

... to rid his house and the neighbourhood of Arthur Heigham, his guest and his daughter's lover. It was not a task he liked, but the unearned cheque in his breeches- pocket continually reminded him of the obligation ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... negative to the wishes of her heart; but they had determined to demand a year of trial both from her and her lover, during which time they should have no intercourse with each other, should exchange no letters, and should consider themselves as free from every mutual obligation; and that then again after this interval of time, if they two, the Major and Eva, still wished it, the question of their union might again he brought forward. This middle path had been proposed by Elise, who, through a progressively inward, and more perfect fulfilment of duties, had ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... glimpse of the old Davie back again, and John was as happy as a child in the vision. Into his heart came at once Dr. Morrison's assertion that David must have some regular duty to keep his life erect. It was evident that the obligation of a trust had ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... among them, a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries; for they reason thus, that whoever makes ill returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of mankind, from whom he hath received no obligation, and therefore such a man ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... of the earth and tendered to my master, having previously engaged a free negro man to take take his security for it, as I was the property of my master, and therefore could not safely take his obligation myself. What was wanted in redeeming myself, my master agreed to wait on me for, until I could procure it for him. I still continued to work for Col. Smith. Ther was continually some interest accruing on my master's note to my friend the free negro man above named, which I received, ...
— A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of • Venture Smith

... after Easter at Arles. It was a bright and joyous spring day. I went to the cathedral at nine o'clock and found a good congregation there, listening to a sermon on the obligation of observing the Sunday. It was dull, and I left. But I may here observe what a great change has taken place in France of late years relative to this observance. I can remember when I was a boy how that every shop was open, and business went on much as on other days. ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... as accomplices before the true facts could become known. They realized quite well that they had a big responsibility to the unarmed population of Johannesburg, and it was with the object of fulfilling that obligation that they decided to arm as many men as possible and to fortify and defend the place if attacked, but, in view of the impossibility of aggressive measures being successful, to take no initiative against the Boers. It would in any case have ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... Hamilton," said Norman, blandly, slightly moving as if to arrest Hamilton's progress towards the door, "you entirely misunderstand me. Master Mortimer and I now understand each other better. Indeed, I am laid under a weighty obligation to Master Louis for my acquaintance with your royal self and various members of your court; and could not possibly have any intention of quarrelling with so kind a benefactor. As for you, I have made up my mind to know and like you. Shake hands, ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... must be instantly responded to. No danger and no peril to life or limb must be allowed to deter either of them when the cry for help or deliverance was heard. Each was to regard the interests of the other as identical with his own, and as long as life lasted, the obligation to succour in every time of need could ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan

... undertaken by Dr. Bache and carried out under his guidance. Many, even, of the pilots of our Southern fleets are men who have been employed upon this work, and owe their knowledge of the coast to their former occupation. It is a singular fact, that at this very time, when the whole country feels its obligation to the men who have devoted so many years of their lives to these investigations, a proposition should have been brought forward in Congress for the suspension of the Coast-Survey on economical grounds. Happily, the almost unanimous rejection of this proposition has shown the appreciation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... you are right—but I admire him, too. He is determined to test himself to the full. His ambition is boundless and ruthless, but his mind has a scientific turn—the obligation of energy to apply itself, of intelligence to engage itself to the farthest limit. But service ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... conceal her feelings. Just now she felt no inclination to do it, and she gave Wade dance after dance, with reckless disregard of her engagements and of the ill-concealed anger of some of the men she threw over with utter carelessness of social obligation. ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... to get the army across. "Tell Xenophon, if he will do his best for me in this matter, he will not regret it." Xenophon answered: "The army is in any case going to cross; so that, as far as that is concerned, Seuthes is under no obligation to me or to any one else; 6 but as soon as it is once across, I personally shall be quit of it. Let Seuthes, therefore, as far as he may deem consistent with prudence, apply to those who are going to remain and will have a voice ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... fathers pledged their property, their lives, and sacred honor. No, sir, this would be a central Government, raised on the destruction of all the principles of the Constitution, and the first, the highest obligation of every man who has sworn to support that Constitution would be resistance to such usurpation. ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis

... ladies. To be sure, the Irishman who enlists in the British army would be treated in the same way at his old home, but as he usually leaves never to return, the case is materially different. Chance, or the obligation of supporting aged parents or a helpless family of young brothers and sisters, usually determines the question, and the young Irishman enters the constabulary, thenceforth to be a social leper, for the constable is hated by his countrymen with ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.

... boats with men and women servants to come and fetch her. But my child was at the time not quite over her illness, and that is why she has not yet started. I was, this very moment, cogitating to send my daughter to the capital. And in view of the obligation, under which I am to you for the instruction you have heretofore conferred upon her, remaining as yet unrequited, there is no reason why, when such an opportunity as this presents itself, I should not do my utmost to find means ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... sense of duty and actuated by the highest motives, you have prepared for transmission to the German Government a note in which I cannot join without violating what I deem to be an obligation to my country, and the issue involved is of such moment that to remain a member of the Cabinet would be as unfair to you as it would be to the cause which is nearest my heart; namely, the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various



Words linked to "Obligation" :   cd, burden of proof, noblesse oblige, personal relationship, floater, personal relation, prerequisite, guardianship, bond, document, civic duty, obligate, note, state, civic responsibility, line of duty, holy day of obligation, social control, bond certificate, liability, responsibility, debt, note of hand, certificate of deposit, oblige, promissory note, white man's burden, debt instrument, safekeeping, written agreement, indebtedness, legal duty, financial obligation, imperative, demand, moral obligation, job, requirement, cash equivalent, filial duty, incumbency, keeping



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