A Quote by Mark Twain

A man's first duty is to his own conscience and honor; the party and country come second to that, and never first.

Mark Twain

Quote Topics

Come Conscience Country Duty First His Honor Man Never Own Party Second

Quote Author

Mark Twain
American - Writer
November 30, 1835 - April 21, 1910

A real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood.

George S. Patton

They talk of a man betraying his country, his friends, his sweetheart. There must be a moral bond first. All a man can betray is his conscience.

Joseph Conrad

The devil comes in many guises-anger in the form of justice-passion in the form of duty. When it first comes, the man knows and then he forgets. Just as your pleaders' conscience; at first they know it is all Badmashi (roguery), then it is duty to their clients; at last they get hardened.

Swami Vivekananda

Ill-luck is, in nine cases out of ten, the result of taking pleasure first and duty second, instead of duty first and pleasure second.

Theodore T. Munger

The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man's first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men.

Ayn Rand

Man's first expression, like his first dream, was an aesthetic one. Speech was a poetic outcry rather than a demand for communication. Original man, shouting his consonants, did so in yells of awe and anger at his tragic state, at his own self-awareness and at his own helplessness before the void.

Barnett Newman

There are two kinds of second class men in business. There is the man who puts money first and service second. There is the man who puts service first and money second, who never has any money. The first class man in business is the man who is made up out of rolling the other two kinds into one man and working them together.

Gerald Stanley Lee

When a woman submits to a man, it's the most precious gift she can give. Herself. Unreservedly. The man has to respect and honor that gift above all else. Even if he respects nothing else in the world, he must respect the woman in his care. It's his sworn duty to protect, honor and cherish his submissive. To take care of her and provide a safe haven. Someone who would put his own needs above his woman's is no man.

Maya Banks

The duties of an officer are the safety, honor, and welfare of your country first; the honor, welfare, and comfort of the men in your command second; and the officer s own ease, comfort, and safety last.

George S. Patton

One of the first duties of a Scout is obedience to authority. He must obey his orders in the first place and put his own amusement or desires in the second.

Robert Baden-Powell

The second that you make a man truly free, he becomes truly good. And it is only that individual who has lost his belief in himself and his own pride of goodness and his own pride of being and his own honor who is dangerous.

L. Ron Hubbard

Even as the leader of the party, my first duty always is to the people who elected me, my first duty always is going to be to represent the people of this riding in Ottawa.

Annamie Paul

If, by one determined purpose, the hearts of all the graduates, the officials, and the men of China were united, our country would rest upon a great rock, and we could defy the world to overthrow us. To attain this object, it is necessary first that every man should fulfill his duty to his parents and elders. The country would then be at peace.

Zhang Zhidong

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resigns his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.

Henry David Thoreau

Patriotism, or the peculiar relation of an individual to his country, is like the family instinct. In the child it is a blind devotion; in the man in intelligent love. The patriot perceives the claim made upon his country by the circumstances and time of her growth and power, and how God is to be served by using those opportunities of helping mankind. Therefore his country's honor is dear to him as his own, and he would as soon lie and steal himself as assist or excuse his country in a crime.