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About this quote

What does it mean?
Focus on immediate duties to clarify future responsibilities.
In plain terms
Do your nearest duty to see your next one.
What can you take from it?
Prioritize immediate obligations.

Where it applies

  • task management
  • decision making
  • daily routine

Putting it to work

  • prioritizing tasks
  • planning workflow

Questions to consider

  • What is your nearest duty?
  • Does action create clarity?

Another view

It assumes duties always lead to greater clarity.

More from Thomas Carlyle

  1. Love not Pleasure; love God.

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  2. As the Swiss inscription says: Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden- 'Speech is silvern, Silence is golden'; or, as I might rather express it: speech is …

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  3. Great men are the inspired (speaking and acting) texts of that divine Book of Revelations, wherof a chapter is completed from epoch to epoch, and by some named…

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