QuoteProject
The rule of joy and the law of duty seem to me all one.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Joy and duty are intertwined and should be considered as one concept.

In this quote, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. expresses the idea that joy and duty are not separate entities but are instead deeply connected. He suggests that fulfilling one's obligations or duties can lead to true happiness, indicating that a joyful life is one that encompasses both personal fulfillment and responsibility to others.

Themes

JoyDutyHappinessFulfillmentResponsibility

In practice

Example use cases

During a speech on community service, one could use this quote to emphasize the joy found in helping others.

More from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

There are many things which we can afford to forget which it is yet well to learn.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
If you don't know what you want, you will probably never get it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
Why should you row a boat race? Why endure the long months of pain in preparation for a fierce half hour that will leave you all but dead? Does anyone ask the question? Is there anyone who would not go through all the costs, and more, for the moment when anguish breaks into triumph or even for the glory of having nobly lost? Is life less than a boat race? If a man will give the blood in his body to win the one, will he spend all the might of his soul to prevail in the other?
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts, but learning how to make facts live.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
Beware how you take away hope from another human being.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read

Similar quotes

The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.
Nikola TeslaRead
The news isn't there to tell you what happened. It's there to tell you what it wants you to hear or what it thinks you want to hear.
Joss WhedonRead
Every time I hear a political speech or I read those of our leaders, I am horrified at having, for years, heard nothing which sounded human. It is always the same words telling the same lies. And the fact that men accept this, that the people’s anger has not destroyed these hollow clowns, strikes me as proof that men attribute no importance to the way they are governed; that they gamble – yes, gamble – with a whole part of their life and their so called 'vital interests.
Albert CamusRead
Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavour to warp and spoil it to their turn.
William PennRead
I doubt if a single individual could be found from the whole of mankind free from some form of insanity. The only difference is one of degree. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people.
Desiderius ErasmusRead
Woes and wonders of power, that tonic hell, synthesis of poison and panacea.
Emile M. CioranRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.