Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
To oblige persons often costs little and helps much.
We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.
This country wants to laugh. We want to, and we need to. I'm happy to oblige.
I look upon it as a Point of Morality, to be obliged by those who endeavour to oblige me.
My body has been making women laugh for the last 20 years and I'm happy to continue to oblige.
I am going to oblige all my TV commitments, and if films work out, I will make a graceful exit.
Fans come up to me to talk, shake hands, hug and click photos; I usually oblige because I can see how much they admire me.
I don't want the power. When a project is given to me, and I say yes, I'm gonna oblige everybody who has the power to try to make it work.
Barely a week goes by without me being asked to cut a ribbon somewhere, and I'm usually happy to oblige. Things to do with the Army mostly.
It is another's fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.
The problem is that borrowing money to pay back more borrowed money that will oblige you in the future to borrow even more money doesn't sound kosher. Because it isn't.
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection.
I'm very troubled when editors oblige their film critics to read the novel before they see the film. Reading the book right before you see the film will almost certainly ruin the film for you.
The powers of Congress are totally inadequate to preserve the balance between the respective States, and oblige them to do those things which are essential for their own welfare or for the general good.
We would like to think that when we take a shower, shampoo our hair, or apply makeup, we are doing so without inflicting harm to ourselves. Being clean and pretty should not oblige us to increase our risk of cancer.
The days of noblesse oblige are long behind us, so our elite's entire claim to legitimacy rests on theories of equal opportunity and upward mobility, and the promise that 'merit' correlates with talents and deserts.
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.
A prisoner in the Inquisition is never allowed to see the face of his accuser, or of the witnesses against him, but every method is taken by threats and tortures, to oblige him to accuse himself, and by that means corroborate their evidence.
While at Harvard, I was struck by the palpable sense of noblesse oblige that surrounds their sophisticated outreach and bursary programmes. It is almost as if they view extending opportunity to disadvantaged individuals as their highest mission.
The reason there is no noblesse oblige about Dubya is because he doesn't admit to himself or anyone else that he owes his entire life to being named George W. Bush. He didn't just get a head start by being his father's son - it remained the single most salient fact about him for most of his life.
On the evidence we have, the meritocratic ideal ends up being just as undemocratic as the old emphasis on inheritance and tradition, and it forges an elite that has an aristocracy's vices (privilege, insularity, arrogance) without the sense of duty, self-restraint and noblesse oblige that WASPs at their best displayed.
