Walter Lippmann Quotes on Duty (2 Quotes)

Upon the standard to which the wise and honest will now repair it is written You have lived the easy way henceforth, you will live the hard way.... You came into a great heritage made by the insight and the sweat and the blood of inspired and devoted and courageous men thoughtlessly and in utmost self-indulgence you have all but squandered this inheritance. Now only by the heroic virtues which made this inheritance, can you restore it again. You took the good things for granted. Now you must earn them again.... For every right that you cherish, you have a duty which you must fulfill. For every hope that you entertain, you have a task that you must perform. For every good that you wish to preserve, you will have to sacrifice your comfort and your ease. There is nothing for nothing any longer.

Without order or authority in the spirit of man the free way of life leads through weakness, disorganization, self-indulgence, and moral indifference to the destruction of freedom itself. The tragic ordeal through which the Western world is passing was prepared in the long period of easy liberty, during which men ... forgot that their freedom was achieved by heroic sacrifice.... They forgot that their rights were founded on their duties.... They thought it clever to be cynical, enlightened to be unbelieving, and sensible to be soft.