Quotations about Responsibility

If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. ~Abigail Van Buren


"I must do something" always solves more problems than "Something must be done." ~Author Unknown


A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life. ~James Allen


If you mess up, 'fess up. ~Author Unknown


"It's a question of discipline," the little prince told me later on. "When you've finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet." ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, 1943, translated from French by Richard Howard


Responsibility: A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911


Responsibility's like a string we can only see the middle of. Both ends are out of sight. ~William McFee, Casuals of the Sea, 1916


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


Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it's addressed to someone else. ~Ivern Ball


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


We need to restore the full meaning of that old word, duty. It is the other side of rights. ~Pearl Buck


Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off. ~Colin Powell


Ef you take a sword an' dror it,
An' go stick a feller thru,
Guv'ment ain't to answer for it,
God'll send the bill to you.
~James Russell Lowell


Why do children want to grow up? Because they experience their lives as constrained by immaturity and perceive adulthood as a condition of greater freedom and opportunity. But what is there today, in America, that very poor and very rich adolescents want to do but cannot do? Not much: they can "do" drugs, "have" sex, "make" babies, and "get" money (from their parents, crime, or the State). For such adolescents, adulthood becomes synonymous with responsibility rather than liberty. Is it any surprise that they remain adolescents? ~Thomas Szasz


With every civil right there has to be a corresponding civil obligation. ~Edison Haines


When there is hell to pay, it is usually cheaper to pay it than to finance an endless purgatory. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty. ~John D. Rockefeller, Jr.


We have the Bill of Rights. What we need is a Bill of Responsibilities. ~Bill Maher


Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame. ~Erica Jong


The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree
I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed.
I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.
~George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage


When you blame others, you give up your power to change. ~Author Unknown


The ultimate folly is to think that something crucial to your welfare is being taken care of for you. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com



Even when we know what is right, too often we fail to act. More often we grab greedily for the day, letting tomorrow bring what it will, putting off the unpleasant and unpopular. ~Bernard M. Baruch


The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny. ~Albert Ellis


Duty is what one expects from others. ~Oscar Wilde


For me the diamond dawns are set
In rings of beauty,
And all my ways are dewy wet
With pleasant duty.
~John Townsend Trowbridge


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


Mistakes fail in their mission of helping the person who blames them on the other fellow. ~Henry S. Haskins


YYou must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. ~Jim Rohn


ou are not responsible for the programming you picked up in childhood. However, as an adult, you are one hundred percent responsible for fixing it. ~Ken Keyes, Jr.


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


God has entrusted me with myself. ~Epictetus


We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until... we have stopped saying "It got lost," and say "I lost it." ~Sidney J. Harris


When others, a man begins to blame
He'll soon find himself alone,
The same.
~Nigel Bloomfield


You can awaken each day to obligations you never chose - or you can decide now to choose them. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


It is easy to ignore responsibility when one is only an intermediate link in a chain of action. ~Stanley Milgram


When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that four of his fingers are pointing at himself. ~Louis Nizer


Whether or not you have children yourself, you are a parent to the next generation. If we can only stop thinking of children as individual property and think of them as the next generation, then we can realize we all have a role to play. ~Charlotte Davis Kasl, Finding Joy, 1994


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


The commands of democracy are as imperative as its privileges and opportunities are wide and generous. Its compulsion is upon us. ~Woodrow Wilson


No man was ever endowed with a right without being at the same time saddled with a responsibility. ~Gerald W. Johnson


Those who are unwilling to invest in the future haven't earned one. ~H.W. Lewis, Technological Risk, 1990


Dr. Miller says we are pessimistic because life seems like a very bad, very screwed-up film. If you ask "What the hell is wrong with the projector?" and go up to the control room, you find it's empty. You are the projectionist, and you should have been up there all the time. ~Colin Wilson


We all participate in weaving the social fabric; we should therefore all participate in patching the fabric when it develops holes. ~Anne C. Weisberg, Everything a Working Mother Needs to Know, 1994


We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future. ~George Bernard Shaw