Selected responsibility quotes

1. Follow the three Rs: Respect for self, Respect for others and Responsibility for all your actions.

2. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

3. No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

4. I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.

5. You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

6. You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

7. Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

8. I've been accused of every death except the casualty list of the World War.

9. Our success or failure is not in the hands of our leaders. It is in our hands.

10. Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.

11. A fate is not a punishment.

12. The ethic of Reverence for Life prompts us to keep each other alert to what troubles us and to speak and act dauntlessly together in discharging the responsibility that we feel. It keeps us watching together for opportunities to bring some sort of help to animals in recompense for the great misery that men inflict upon them, and thus for a moment we escape from the incomprehensible horror of existence.

13. To the man who is truly ethical all life is sacred, including that which from the human point of view seems lower in the scale. He makes distinctions only as each case comes before him, and under the pressure of necessity, as, for example, when it falls to him to decide which of two lives he must sacrifice in order to preserve the other. But all through this series of decisions he is conscious of acting on subjective grounds and arbitrarily, and knows that he bears the responsibility for the life which is sacrificed.

14. We cannot abdicate our conscience to an organization, nor to a government. 'Am I my brother's keeper?' Most certainly I am! I cannot escape my responsibility by saying the State will do all that is necessary. It is a tragedy that nowadays so many think and feel otherwise.

15. Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will - his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals.

16. Whoever is spared personal pain must feel himself called to help in diminishing the pain of others. We must all carry our share of the misery which lies upon the world.

17. A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with - a man is what he makes of himself.

18. When Bush says that Abu Ghraib was the work of a few, he forgot to mention that he was one of them.

19. Dying is the most embarrassing thing that can ever happen to you, because someone's got to take care of all your details.

20. I would suggest respectfully to the president that he is not the sole decider. The decider is a shared and joint responsibility.

21. I am bewildered by the death of love. And my responsibility for it.

22. It's good to know that if I behave strangely enough, society will take full responsibility for me.

23. Before my eyes are many miserable scenes, the suffering of others and myself forces my hands to move. I become a machine for writing.

24. The headlong stream is termed violent But the river bed hemming it in is Termed violent by no one.

25. Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.

26. I cannot shift the blame for Chechnya, for the sorrow of numerous mothers and fathers. I made the decision, therefore I am responsible.

27. If you want to do your duty properly, you should do just a little more than that.

28. The reality is that the media are probably the most powerful of all our institutions today and they, or rather we [journalists], too often are squandering our power and ignoring our obligations. The consequence of our abdication of responsibility is the ugly spectacle of idiot culture!

29. All political power is a trust.

30. I have killed no one and I have ordered no one to be killed.

31. Did we not aid the grisly Taliban to achieve and hold power? Yes indeed 'we' did. Well, does that not double or triple our responsibility to remove them from power?

32. The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.

33. If you're going to condemn a people based on the actions of the worst of its ranks; take a good look at the worst of your people first and judge yourself.

34. Neither the few nor the many have a right to act merely by their will, in any matter connected with duty, trust, engagement, or obligation.

35. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

36. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.

37. No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.

38. One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In stopping to think through the meaning of what I have learned, there is much that I believe intensely, much I am unsure of. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

39. Modern man is weighed down more by the burden of responsibility than by the burden of sin. We think him more a savior who shoulders our responsibilities than him who shoulders our sins. If instead of making decisions we have but to obey and do our duty, we feel it as a sort of salvation.

40. There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses.

41. 'And we'll be watching you / No matter what you do / And you can do your part / By watchin' others too.' - 'Leave the Driving'

42. [Minding one's own business] is a cheap and second rate virtue, much extolled in certain circles, over estimated by the world at large; in constant use as an excuse for laziness; an alibi for indifference coldness and neglect; the slacker's refuge; the sluggard's sure defense.

43. It is not you talking, but innumerable ancestors talking with your mouth. It is not you who desire, but innumerable generations of descendants longing with your heart. Your dead do not lie in the ground. They have become birds, trees, air. You sit under their shade, you are nourished by their flesh, you inhale their breathing. They have become ideas and passions, they determine your will and your actions. Future generations do not move far from you in an uncertain time. They live, desire, and act in your loins and your heart. In this lightning moment when you walk the earth, your first duty, by enlarging your ego, is to live through the endless march, both visible and invisible, of your own being.

44. God is imperiled. He is not almighty, that we may cross our hands, waiting for certain victory. He is not all-holy, that we may wait trustingly for him to pity and to save us. Within the province of our ephemeral flesh all of God is imperiled. He cannot be saved unless we save him with our own struggles; nor can we be saved unless he is saved. We are one. From the blind worm in the depths of the ocean to the endless arena of the Galaxy, only one person struggles and is imperiled: You. And within your small and earthen breast only one thing struggles and is imperiled: the Universe.

45. Every man has his own circle composed of trees, animals, men, ideas, and he is in duty bound to save this circle. He, and no one else. If he does not save it, he cannot be saved. These are the labors each man is given and is in duty bound to complete before he dies. He may not otherwise be saved. For his own soul is scattered and enslaved in these things about him, in trees, in animals, in men, in ideas, and it is his own soul he saves by completing these labors.

46. The war is simply an obscenity, a depraved act by weak and miserable men, including all of us who have allowed it to go on and on with endless fury and destruction - all of us who would have remained silent had stability and order been secured.

47. Say, take Rachel Corrie, local young woman, she was extremely courageous. She's a martyr for peace and justice. We happened to kill her too, even if we don't like to admit it. She was killed by U.S. sent equipment, which is Caterpillar... [Q: you draw that line right back to you and me sitting here?] Absolutely, we're responsible for it. I mean, we didn't drive the bulldozer, but why is it there? What's it doing? Who provides the military, economic, and diplomatic support for destroying the occupied territories?

48. Throughout history, people have lived in poverty and misery. They have been degraded by hunger and ignorance, they have tormented each other and been driven into war. Yet, not everything has remained the same: The difference is that we have acquired greater knowledge. The difference is, above all, that we are beginning to display a willingness to take responsibility for each other. Therefore, it is not without meaning when we react, take a stance and, to the best of our ability, try to influence human development.

49. Oh well it's only the fate of the world.

50. [This] isn't my home [she] felt his words like an accusation: you rooted yourself here without thought of whether I could live in this soil. But it's not my fault, she wanted to answer - you're the one who's leaving, not me.

51. You're a fool. If people only react to the way that others treat them, then nobody is responsible for anything. If your sins are not your own to choose, then how can you repent?

52. I blame on you only what you did. You started a fire on a hot, dry, windy day, despite all the warnings. I blame you for that, and if you hold yourself responsible for all the consequences of your own acts, then you are truly unworthy of human society and I hope you lose your freedom forever.

53. That means you, more than any of the others, stand to lose something truly beautiful and fine if we don't succeed in our endeavors.

54. Failing to try and stop a murder that you might easily stop - how is that not murder?

55. When you don't understand the consequences of your acts, how can you be blamed for them? You don't take the blame. But you still take the responsibility. For healing the wounds you caused.

56. Somebody has to roll the dice. Mine are the hands that hold those dice. I'm not a bureaucrat, placing my career above the larger purposes I was put here to serve. I will not put the dice in someone else's hands, or pretend that I don't have the choice I have.

57. No place is comfortable, when you are waiting for someone else to do a job you think of as your own.

58. [He] was young, too young to see the consequences of his actions, too young to contain his feelings.

59. Could she help it that she has been given a combination of genes that gave her an extraordinary memory, an enormous capacity for grasping and understanding ideas, and a mind that was able to make connections that no one else could see?

60. You take responsibility for us all. Without ever waiting to be told. So do all good people. That's what it means to be a good person. And I am a good person.

61. Such children. So young, so playful. I'm glad they can still be that way. Someday, when the real adult responsibilities settle on them, they'll lose that. It will be replaces by a slower, quieter kind of play. But for now, they can cast away care and remember how good it is to be alive.... That's what happiness means, isn't it?

62. Sometimes those who care for the whole community must act in a way that harms the individual. For a good man it never becomes easy and he avoids it when he can; but when people need him to be harsh, he will be harsh indeed, and he won't shrink from it, he'll do it with his own hand and let it be known what he does.

63. Ansset watched, keeping his promise but wishing with all his heart that somewhere in his mind there was a wall he could hide behind. Unfortunately, he was too sane.

64. I began to suspect that the ultimate sacrifice isn't death after all; the ultimate sacrifice is willingly bearing the fullest penalty for your own actions.

65. To be without Doon, that was what frightened Jason the most. Doon was the foundation for his life, for good or ill; ever since Doon had found him, Jason had known nothing could go wrong in his life - Doon was watching. Now when he stumbled, who would lift him up? This was freedom after all, Jason realized, because from now on no one would save him from the consequences of his own acts. It wasn't freedom that I yearned for, was it? It was childhood that I wanted, and Doon is barring me from my refuge; he has been my father all these years, and now he's thrusting me away. 'Ill never forgive you for this'

66. This theatre is your theatre. You are responsible for its creation and its progress.

67. And the Third World will continue to beckon to the First, reminding it of the Galilean vision of Christian solidarity.

68. Keep the boss aware. Bosses, after all, are held responsible by their own bosses for the performance of their subordinates. They must be able to say: 'I know what Anne [or John] is trying to do.' -- Managing for the Future: The 1990's and Beyond (1992)

69. One of the great movements in my lifetime among educated people is the need to commit themselves to action. Most people are not satisfied with giving money; we also feel we need to work. That is why there is an enormous surge in the number of unpaid staff, volunteers. The needs are not going to go away. Business is not going to take up the slack, and government cannot. -- 'New Priorities' Dancing Toward The Future, Context Institute, (1992)

70. It does not matter whether the worker wants responsibility or not, ...The enterprise must demand it of him. -- The Practice of Management (1954)

71. In the modern corporation the decisive power, that of the managers, is derived from no one but the managers themselves controlled by nobody and nothing and responsible to no one. It is in the most literal sense unfounded, unjustified, uncontrolled and irresponsible power. -- The Future of Industrial Man (1942)

72. Political freedom is neither easy nor automatic, neither pleasant nor secure. It is the responsibility of the individual for the decisions of society as if they were his own decisions--as in moral truth and accountability they are. -- The Future of Industrial Man (1942)

73. Love of liberty is laudable and logically the chief political end of man, so long as it is hitched to responsibleness. Eighteenth century man, politically educated and understanding the major implications of what was going on in his environment, made a fairly responsible voter. Today, common man insists on his right to vote and insists, equally, on the right not to have to know what he is voting about. This folly is pitching all common men rapidly toward the rocks. The current war is a mere reef we are now grating over. What lies beyond may be the greater disaster.

74. Faites votre devoir, et laissez faire aux dieux.

75. Qui peut tout doit tout craindre.

76. Deep in the man sits fast his fate To mould his fortunes, mean or great.

77. To live without duties is obscene.

78. 'The world is the most dangerous place it's ever been now because of what our country has done, and is doing, and we have to take it back.'

79. People respond to responsibility.

80. If I have some celebrity, I hope I can use it to make a difference. The true social reward is that I can speak my mind and share my thoughts about the environment and civilization itself. There's so much shit happening with people who are exploiting their positions and creating a lot of negativity.

81. You know the best part of having kids? ...making them.

82. The practical implication is that one's goal is to live each moment with freedom, honesty and responsibility.

83. The daimonic power does not merely take the individual over as its victim, but works through him psychologically, it clouds his judgment, makes it harder for him to see reality, but still leaves HIM with the responsibility for the act.

84. The smoke from burning marijuana contains many more cancer causing substances than tobacco. And if that isn't enough it leads to bronchitis and emphysema. If adults want to take such chances that is their business. But surely the communications media ... should let four million youngsters know what they are risking.

85. My conscience compels me to make the following declaration. In the solitude of my prison cell I have come to the bitter recognition that I have sinned gravely against humanity. As Commandant of Auschwitz I was responsible for carrying out part of the cruel plans of the 'Third Reich' for human destruction. In so doing I have inflicted terrible wounds on humanity. I caused unspeakable suffering for the Polish people in particular. I am to pay for this with my life. May the Lord God forgive one day what I have done.

86. No matter how you try to blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough?

87. We should not worry defeat, we should worry failure to perform our duties.

88. Burden not the back of Aries, Leo, or Taurus, with thy faults, nor make Saturn, Mars, or Venus, guilty of thy Follies.

89. We must overcome difficulty by constant practice. We must learn that nothing can happen to us unless we make ourselves susceptible to it.

90. Karma is the eternal assertion of human freedom. If we can bring ourselves down by our karma, surely it is in our power to raise ourselves by our own karma.

91. We have to go back to philosophy to treat things as they are. We are suffering from our own karma. It is not the fault of God. What we do is our own fault, nothing else. Why should God be blamed?

92. Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each one of us individually.

93. There should be a notice ahead of the movie that says 'This movie is PG. Can you read? You are a Parent. Do you understand what Guidance is? Or are you just another stupid toddler who thinks they're an adult simply because they've grown older and, unfortunately, have developed fully-functioning sexual organs? Would you like some committee somewhere to decide *everything* for you? Get a damn grip, will you? And shut the wretched kid up !'

94. 'The only decent marriage would be one allowing each partner to lead an independent life, in which, instead of a fusion derived from an enforced community of economic interest, both freely accepted mutual responsibility.'

95. Wrong no man by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

96. Make it a rule never to accuse without due consideration any body or association of men.

97. What he did wasn't entertainment. I love the Dodgers, and it wasn't right for him to stomp on the doll with the uniform. There were a lot of kids there, and he's showing them violence. He didn't need to do that.

98. You have got to stop seeing yourself as a victim, take control and take responsibility.

99. What I want you to take seriously is what we have to do for the youth.

100. It's not just about you taking care of your child. It's about you taking care of these children.