Fundamental Values Project

Quotes on Responsibility

My belief is that personal freedom cannot grow beyond personal responsibility. The more people that learn to be fully accountable for their lives, the more freedom each of us can enjoy and the more fulfilling all of our lives will be.
--Reed Konsler

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. – Albert Einstein

Becoming responsible adults is no longer a matter of whether children hang up there pajamas or put dirty towels in the hamper, but whether they care about themselves and others -- and whether they see everyday chores as related to how we treat this planet. – Eda Leshan

My will shall shape the future. Whether I fail or succeed shall be no man's doing but my own. I am the force; I can clear any obstacle before me or I can be lost in the maze. My choice; my responsibility; win or lose, only I hold the key to my destiny. – Elaine Maxwell

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it? – Eleanor Roosevelt

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one. – Eleanor Roosevelt

This is the duty of our generation as we enter the twenty--first century -- solidarity with the weak, the persecuted, the lonely, the sick, and those in despair. It is expressed by the desire to give a noble and humanizing meaning to a community in which all members will define themselves not by their own identity but by that of others. – Elie Wiesel

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to this country and to mankind is to bring up a family. – George Bernard Shaw

Everyone should carefully observe which way his heart draws him, and then choose that way with all his strength. – Hasidic Saying

Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander. – Holocaust Museum

Think of giving not as a duty but as a privilege. – John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Make it a point to do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain. –Mark Twain

There is no duty we so underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world. – Robert Louis Stevenson

The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far--reaching consequence of submission to authority. – Stanley Milgram

Creative ability and personal responsibility are strongest when the mind is free from supernatural belief and operates in an atmosphere of freedom and democracy. – Anonymous

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. – Voltaire

The price of greatness is responsibility. –Winston Churchill

The ancient Romans had a tradition: whenever one of their engineers constructed an arch, as the capstone was hoisted into place, the engineer assumed accountability for his work in the most profound way possible: he stood under the arch.
-- Michael Armstrong

Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life. -- Dalai Lama

Let every man shovel out his own snow and the whole city will be passable.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

What a man does defiles him, not what is done by others.
-- William Golding

Responsibility is the price of freedom.
-- Elbert Hubbard

Only lies and evil come from letting people off.
-- Iris Murdoch

We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.
-- John Henry Newman

The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.
-- Theodore Roosevelt

You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
-- Antoine de Saint--Exupéry

A warrior takes responsibility for his acts, for the most trivial of acts. An average man acts out his thoughts, and never takes responsibility for what he does.
-- Carlos Castaneda

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.
-- Viktor Frankl

Responsibility walks hand in hand with capacity and power. – Josiah Holland

Nobody can do it for you. -- Ralph Cordiner

In dreams begin responsibility. -- William Butler Yeats

Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them. -- Tom Stoppard

Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will -- his personal responsibility. -- Albert Schweitzer

I will not surrender responsibility for my life and my actions. -- John Enoch Powell

When we have begun to take charge of our lives, to own ourselves, there is no longer any need to ask permission of someone. – George O'Neil

Each is responsible for his own actions. – H.L. Hunt

No alibi will save you from accepting the responsibility. -- Napoleon Hill

Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else. -- Les Brown

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

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you, never excuse yourself. -- Henry Ward Beecher

Must is a hard nut to crack, but it has a sweet kernel. -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

If you haven't the strength to impose your own terms upon life, you must accept the terms it offers you. –T.S. Eliot

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

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. –Jim Rohn

We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions. –Ronald Reagan

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

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

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today. –Abraham Lincoln

The reason people blame things on the previous generations is that there's only one other choice. –Doug Larson

Each player must accept the cards that life deals him or her. But once in hand one must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game. –Voltaire

Don't spend your precious time asking 'Why isn't the world a better place?' It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is 'How can I make it better?' To that there is an answer. –Leo Buscaglia

Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility ... In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have ... is the ability to take on responsibility. –Michael Korda

A weakened sense of responsibility does not weaken the fact of responsibility. – William Bennett

Within each of us lies the power of our consent to health and sickness, to riches and poverty, to freedom and to slavery. It is we who control these, and not another. – Richard Bach

Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the high road to pride, self--esteem and personal satisfaction. – Brian Tracy

We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self--discipline, and effort. – Jesse Owens