Responsibility

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes … 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 responsibility. ~~ Eleanor Roosevelt

One of the difficulties of politics is that politicians are shocked by those who are really prepared to let their thinking reach any conclusion. Political thinking consists in deciding upon the conclusion first and then finding good arguments for it. An open mind is considered irresponsible--and perhaps it really is. ~~ Richard Crossman

When indeed shall we learn that we are all related one to the other, that we are all members of one body? Until the spirit of love for our fellowman, regardless of race, color or creed, shall fill the world, making real in our lives and deeds the actuality of human brotherhood--until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice can never be attained. ~~ Helen Keller

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect. ~~ Eleanor Roosevelt

There are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them come down to this: Deny your responsibility. ~~ Lyndon Baines Johnson

In a free society, all are involved in what some are doing. Some are guilty, all are responsible. ~~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

A large majority of Americans claim that family is the most important thing in life, but surveys show that most people will put their jobs, possessions, and personal freedom before family responsibilities. If you watch what Americans do, traditional family relationships are in trouble. ~~ American Demographics

Democracy is essentially antiauthoritarian--that is, it not only demands the right but imposes the responsibility of thinking for ourselves. ~~ Bergen Evans

Some shrugged their shoulders as if to shake off whatever chips of responsibility might have lodged there. ~~ Helen Hudson

Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment and learn again to exercise … his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals. ~~ Albert Schweitzer

The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. ~~ William Faulkner

Sleep is death without the responsibility. ~~ Fran Lebowitz

An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it. ~~ Don Marquis

The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility. ~~ Vaclav Havel

Responsibility, not to a superior, but to one's conscience, the awareness of a duty not exacted by compulsion, the necessity to decide which of the things ones values are to be sacrificed to others, and to bear the consequences of one's own decision, are the very essence of any morals which deserve the name. ~~ F. A. Hayek

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception, and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful. ~~ Alice Walker

The [human] species was too fond of lying, cheating, envy, ignorance, self-pity, self-righteousness, and utopian visions that always led to mass murder--but until and if it destroyed itself, it harbored the potential to become nobler, to take responsibility for its actions, to live and let live, and to earn the stewardship of the earth. ~~ Dean Koontz [Dragon Tears]

Courage is required not only in a person's occasional crucial decision for his own freedom, but in the little hour-to-hour decisions which place the bricks in the structure of his building of himself into a person who acts with freedom and responsibility. ~~ Rollo May

Democracy is not an easy form of government, calling for a system of checks and balances and the responsibility of every individual. No democracy is safe without the continuing social and economic progress of the people. So it is vital that the leaders in the next millennium remain fully aware of their political and moral responsibilities towards their people and humanity. ~~ His Majesty, King Constantine [of Greece, exiled]

[Nowadays] a great shout of triumph goes up whenever anybody has found some further evidence--in physiology or psychology or sociology or economics or politics--of unfreedom, some further indication that people cannot help being what they are and doing what they are doing, no matter how inhuman their actions might be. The denial of freedom, of course, is a denial of responsibility: there are no acts, but only events; everything simply happens. ~~ E. F. Schumacher

Character--the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life--is the source from which self-respect springs. ~~ Joan Didion

Childhood trauma and suffering does not provide us with an excuse for our problems. It explains the origin of our problems while in no way relieving us of the responsibility to understand and to improve ourselves. The point is not to blame the people in our past, but to use insight into our past to refocus on the good effects and to free ourselves from its harmful ones. ~~ Peter R. Breggin

A chief is a man who assumes responsibility. He says, "I was beaten"; he does not say, "My men were beaten." ~~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed. ~~ William James

What does it mean to say that government might have a responsibility? Government can't have a responsibility any more than the business can. The only entities which can have responsibilities are people. ~~ Milton Friedman

One is responsible for one's own life. Passivity provides no protection. ~~ Madeleine Kunin

[An expert is] somebody who is more than 50 miles from home, has no responsibility for implementing the advice he gives, and shows slides. ~~ Edwin Meese

The great appeal of fatalism… is as a refuge from the terror of responsibility. ~~ Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

People think responsibility is hard to bear. It's not. I think that sometimes it is the absence of responsibility that is harder to bear. You have a great feeling of impotence. ~~ Henry Kissinger

A man who enjoys responsibility usually gets it. A man who merely likes exercising authority usually loses it. ~~ Malcolm S. Forbes

The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces; what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities. ~~ Ursula K. LeGuin

Deceiving someone for his own good is a responsibility that should be shouldered only by the gods. ~~ Henry S. Haskins

I don't think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good. ~~ Oprah Winfrey

It rejects supernaturalism and moral absolutism, and argues that the best possibilities of human beings can be achieved only by a combination of informed intelligence and the candid recognition that man must bear the responsibility for whatever standards he adopts. ~~ Charles Frankel

More and more often he catches himself thinking that there is no way to save humanity. Is that an attempt to rid himself of responsibility? ~~ Elias Canetti

The vast possibilities of our great future will become realities only if we make ourselves responsible for that future. ~~ Gifford Pinchot

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility--I welcome it. ~~ John F. Kennedy

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom. ~~ Bob Dylan

Choice of attention … is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be. ~~ W. H. Auden

I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world. ~~ Georges Duhamel

You may not be responsible for getting knocked down, but you're certainly responsible for getting back up. ~~ Rev. Jesse Jackson

Oh, how I longed to put my arms 'round your neck and beg you to let me take part of the weariness, part of the responsibility and try to make you forget everything else in the assurance of love and loyalty that fills my heart. ~~ Edith Wilson

Liberty trains for liberty. Responsibility is the first step in responsibility. ~~ William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

Over the years, many executives have said to me with pride: "Boy, I worked so hard last year that I didn't take any vacation." I always feel like responding, "You dummy. You mean to tell me you can take responsibility for an eighty-million-dollar project and you can't plan two weeks out of the year to have some fun?" ~~ Lee Iacocca

It is time to break the bad habit of expecting something for nothing, from our government or from each other. Let us all take more responsibility, not only for ourselves and our families but for our communities and our country. ~~ William Jefferson Clinton

With two sons born eighteen months apart, I operated mainly on automatic pilot through the ceaseless activity of their early childhood. I remember opening the refrigerator late one night and finding a roll of aluminum foil next to a pair of small red tennies. Certain that I was responsible for the refrigerated shoes, I quickly closed the door and ran upstairs to make sure I had put the babies in their cribs instead of the linen closet. ~~ Mary Kay Blakely

I have always tried to be true to myself, to pick those battles I felt were important. My ultimate responsibility is to myself. I could never be anything else. ~~ Arthur Ashe

We are all responsible for assuring that children are raised in a nation that doesn’t just talk about family values, but acts in ways that value families. ~~ Hillary Rodham Clinton

[Prediction for the next millennium:] The unrealistic expectations of freedom and rights will destroy the Western civilization unless it is recognized that these ideals are privileges and not necessities and therefore they are accompanied by responsibilities. ~~ Dr. Christiaan Barnard

[On love:] I have no respect for anyone who says they've given up, or that they're not looking or that they're tired. That is to abrogate one's responsibility as a human being. ~~ Harlan Ellison

General opinion is the opinion of one or a few for which the public is held responsible. ~~ Muhammad Hijazi

If one defines the term "dropout" to mean a person who has given up serious effort to meet his responsibilities, then every business office, government agency, golf club and university faculty would yield its quota. ~~ John W. Gardner

It is a lovely thing to have a husband and wife developing together and having the feeling of falling in love again. That is what marriage really means; helping one another to reach the full status of being persons, responsible autonomous beings who do not run away from life. ~~ Paul Tournier

It is the denial of death that is partially responsible for people living empty, purposeless lives; for when you live as it you'll live forever, it becomes too easy to postpone the things you know that you must do. ~~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross [Death: The Final Stage of Growth]

When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again. ~~ Edith Hamilton

Patriotism is a lively sense of collective responsibility. Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on its own dunghill. ~~ Richard Aldington

Man blames fate for other accidents, but feels personally responsible when he makes a hole in one. ~~ Horizons magazine

Would that there were an award for people who come to understand the concept of enough. Good enough. Successful enough. Thin enough. Rich enough. Socially responsible enough. When you have self-respect you have enough, and when you have enough, you have self-respect. ~~ Gail Sheehy

We should see dreaming as one of our responsibilities, rather than an alternative to one. ~~ Mary Engelbreit

Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him. ~~ Booker T. Washington (See Said Who?)

We are responsible for actions performed in response to circumstances for which we are not responsible. ~~ Allan Massie

Responsibility's like a string we can only see the middle of. Both ends are out of sight. ~~ William McFee

There is a necessity in a democracy for an educated public opinion. A democracy means that everybody have responsibility of their government. We must not look at government as something to contribute to our particular interest, but as a means by which we, as individuals, may accomplish the best we can for the whole people. ~~ Eleanor Roosevelt

The fidelity of a dog is a precious gift demanding no less binding moral responsibilities than the friendship of a human being. The bond with a true dog is as lasting as the ties of this earth can ever be. ~~ Konrad Lorenz

If humanity is to have a hopeful future, there is no escape from the preeminent involvement and responsibility of the single human soul, in all its loneliness and frailty. ~~ George F. Kennan

The pressures of being a parent are equal to any pressure on earth. To be a conscious parent, and really look to the little being's mental and physical health, is a responsibility which most of us, including me, avoid most of the time because it's too hard. ~~ John Lennon

A good marriage is like a casserole, only those responsible for it really know what goes into it. ~~ Unattributed

Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right than to be responsible and wrong. ~~ Sir Winston Churchill

You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful. ~~ Marie Curie

Each of us is responsible for ourselves. ~~ Betty Ford

Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or major motion-picture star. ~~ Fran Lebowitz

As far as beauty is concerned, in order to be confident we must accept that the way we look and feel is our own responsibility. ~~ Sophia Loren

If we are not responsible for the thoughts that pass our doors, we are at least responsible for those we admit and entertain. ~~ Charles B. Newcomb

If there ever could be a proper time for mere catch arguments, that time surely is not now. In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and in eternity. ~~ Abraham Lincoln

[Autonomy] is freedom to develop one's self--to increase one's knowledge, improve one's skills, and achieve responsibility for one's conduct. And it is freedom to lead one's own life, to choose among alternative courses of action so long as no injury to others results. ~~ Thomas S. Szasz

One word sums up the responsibility of any vice president, and that word is "to be prepared." ~~ Dan Quayle

With the authority to name reality returned to our own human hands we become at once free and at the same time suddenly responsible. ~~ Maureen O'Hara

Outside the sphere of individual responsibility there is neither goodness or badness… Only where we ourselves are responsible for our own interests and are free to sacrifice them has our decision moral value. ~~ Friedrich A. Hayek

I love war and responsibility and excitement. Peace is going to be Hell on me. ~~ George S. Patton, Jr.

There are two reasons why people fail. One is irresponsibility. The second is fear. ~~ Wally Amos

What's really magical about films is [an actor's] being inappropriate, or being irresponsible, by letting it go, by not caring. And that way the film captures magic. And a film is only as good as a collection of the best magic moments, the best lucky accidents that they happen to catch on film. ~~ Christopher Reeve

An individual is the end product of the decisions he has made. He who fails to make decisions, for the consequences of which he is responsible, is not a person. The ego, the self, the personality--call it what you will--comes into being and grows through the process of making responsible decisions. ~~ Thomas S. Szasz

Government is more than the sum of all the interests; it is the paramount interest, the public interest. It must be the efficient, effective agent of a responsible citizenry, not the shelter of the incompetent and the corrupt. ~~ Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.

Ageism is any discrimination against people on the basis of chronological age--whether old or young. It's responsible for an enormous neglect of social resources. ~~ Maggie Kuhn

In dreams begin responsibilities. ~~ Delmore Schwartz

This administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: "An error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors. ~~ John F. Kennedy

To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man. ~~ Alan Paton

No decision has been made unless carrying it out in specific steps has become someone's work assignment and responsibility. ~~ Peter F. Drucker

Jellinek's disease (alcoholism) is responsible for:
50 percent of all auto fatalities
80 percent of all home violence
30 percent of all suicides
60 percent of all child abuse
65 percent of all drownings
It is estimated that when a woman contracts the disease, her husband leaves her in nine out of ten cases; when a man contracts it, his wife leaves in one out of ten cases. ~~ Kathleen Whalen Fitzgerald

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature. ~~ Tom Robbins

Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves. ~~ Nietzsche

If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves and allow those responsible to salve their conscience by believing that they have our acceptance and concurrence. ~~ Mary McLeod Bethune

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action. ~~ George Washington

One thing you can say for greed: it's responsible for some imaginative rationalizations. ~~ Unattributed

In the final analysis, each of us is responsible for what we are. We cannot blame it on our mothers, who thanks to Freud, have replaced money as the root of all evil. ~~ Helen Lawerson

The new century would be blessed if all of us would more than hitherto stress and live up to the moral principle of any human being's responsibility. ~~ Helmut Schmidt

With a concession of responsibility … we have entrusted our lives and futures to professionals and experts who convince us that we have too little knowledge or wit to make any decisions of importance about the management of society. ~~ Dean Koontz [Fear Nothing]

Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory. ~~ Franklin Pierce Adams

We middle-aged folk have the education of life, truly; we know the multiplication table of anxieties and sorrows, the subtraction table of loss, the division table of responsibility. ~~ Margaret Deland

Marriages are made in heaven, but people are responsible for the maintenance work. ~~ Joe Moore

Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility. ~~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. ~~ Stanislaw Lec

The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escapes all responsibility. ~~ Brooks Atkinson

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. ~~ George Bernard Shaw

You must create your own world. I am responsible for my world. ~~ Louise Nevelson

Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility. ~~ Peter Drucker

A human being's first responsibility is to shake hands with himself. ~~ Henry Winkler

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. ~~ Ronald Reagan

A democratic form of government, a democratic way of life, presupposes free public education over a long period; it presupposes also an education for personal responsibility that too often is neglected. ~~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Never complain about your troubles; they are responsible for more than half of your income. ~~ Robert R. Updegraff

The great thought, the great concern, the great anxiety of men is to restrict, as much as possible, the limits of their own responsibility. ~~ Giosue Borsi

To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible. ~~ Antoine De Saint-Exupery [Wind, Sand, and Stars]

No man is responsible for his father. That was entirely his mother's affair. ~~ Margaret Turnbull

My hope for the future is that mankind shall evolve to a higher spiritual plane whereby we can accept responsibility for our actions--release our need to dominate, control, and exploit one another--and learn to live in true harmony and peace… ~~ Bob Kane

The sea--the truth must be confessed--has no generosity. No display of manly qualities--courage, hardihood, endurance, faithfulness--has ever been known to touch its irresponsible consciousness of power. ~~ Joseph Conrad