Complete the mission, though I be the lone survivor. Never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy.

-Anonymous
  The Ranger's Creed, quoted in the NewYork Times, 25 Oct. The Rangers, a US  Army unit, had stayed to guard the body of a pilot fatally caught in a downed helicopter in Somalia.

Never have a mission.

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
^3  Mr  Jellyby. Bleak House, ch.30.

He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive.

-Heller,Joseph
  OfYossarian. Catch-22, ch.3.

When every fact, every present or past phenomenon of [the] universe, every phase of present or past lifetherein, has been examined, classified, and coordinatedwith the rest, thenthemissionof sciencewill be completed.What isthisbut saying thatthetaskof science canneverend till man ceases to be, till history is no longer made, and development itself ceases?

-Pearson, Karl
  The Grammar of Science, pt.1, ch.5.

I always claim the mission workers came out too early to catch any sinners on this part of Broadway. At such an hour the sinners are still in bed resting up from their sinning of thenight before, so they will be ingood shape for more sinning a little later on.

-Runyon, (Alfred) Damon
  Runyon a'   la Carte,'The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown'.

Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze, Avisitant that while it fans my cheek Doth seem half conscious of the joy it brings From the green fields, and from yon azure sky. Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come To none more grateful than to me; escaped From the vast city, where I long had pined A discontented sojourner: now free, Free as a bird to settle where I will.

-Wordsworth,William
^1805  The Prelude, bk.1, l.1^9 (published1850).