“By imposing too great a responsibility, or rather, all responsibility, on yourself, you crush yourself.”
FRANK KAFKA“... life is moral responsibility. Life is several other things, we do not deny. It is beauty, it is joy, it is tragedy, it is comedy, it is psychical and physical pleasure, it is the interplay of a thousand rude or delicate motions and emotions, it is the grimmest and the merriest motley of phantasmagoria that could appeal to the gravest or the maddest brush ever put to palette; but it is steadily and sturdily and always moral responsibility.”
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS“One value that was sewn into the stitching of our character at a very early age had to do with our responsibility to help others....We were expected to be of assistance to our neighbors... “Being neighborly”... was synonymous with being kind, friendly, and helpful to our neighbors and something that we were encouraged to do on a regular basis through firsthand experience. It was a bit like mandatory community service.”
BENECA WARD“My responsibility to myself, my neighbors, my family and the human family is to try to tell the truth.”
TONI CADE BAMBARA“Responsibility finds a way. Irresponsibilty makes excuses!”
GENE BEDLEY“We need to empower our people so they can take more responsibility for their own lives in a world that is ever smaller, where everyone counts...We need a new spirit of community, a sense that we are all in this together...”
BILL CLINTON“To decide, to be at the level of choice, is to take responsibility for your life and to be in control of your life.”
ABBIE M. DALE“Friendship is always a sweet responsibility; never an opportunity.”
KHALIL GIBRAN“We must exchange the philosophy of excuse - what I am is beyond my control - for the philosophy of responsibility.”
BARBARA CHARLINE JORDAN“The only rule is, do what you really, impulsively, wish to do. But always act on your own responsibility, sincerely. And have the courage of your own strong emotion.”
D.H. LAWRENCE“With great power comes great responsibility.”
STANLEY MARTIN LIEBER“One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license.”
P.J. O'ROURKE“Man has responsibility, not power.”
TUSCARORA PROVERB“I believe life is a series of near misses. A lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It's seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future. It's seeing what other people don't see. And pursuing that vision.”
HOWARD SCHULTZ“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW“Respect for intellectual excellence, the restoration of vigor and discipline to our ideas of study, curricula which aim at strengthening intellectual fiber and stretching the power of young minds, personal commitment and responsibility—these are the preconditions of educational recovery in America today; and, I believe, they have always been the preconditions of happiness and sanity for the human race.”
ADLAI E. STEVENSON“People without firmness of character love to make up a fate for themselves; that relieves them of the necessity of having their own will and of taking responsibility for themselves.”
IVAN TURGENEV“I never look at the masses as my responsibility; I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time - just one, one, one. So you begin. I began - I picked up one person. Maybe if I didn't pick up that one person, I wouldn't have picked up forty-two thousand....The same thing goes for you, the same thing in your family, the same thing in your church, your community. Just begin - one, one, one.”
MOTHER TERESA“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. ”
TENZIN GYATSO“Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him. ”
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON“Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.”
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER“If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams.”
LES BROWN“You are the generation about to come into control and must prepare for this responsibility. Do not fill up your leisure with meaningless activity or with causes. Have the courage to stand aside and watch for a little while. It is more important to know where we are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement.”
MABEL NEWCOMER“When heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on any man, it will exercise his mind with suffering, subject his sinews and bones to hard work, expose his body to hunger, put him to poverty, place obstacles in the paths of his deeds, so as to stimulate his mind, harden his nature, and improve wherever he is incompetent. ”
MENG TZU“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.”
ROSS PARMENTER“It's seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future. It's seeing what other people don't see, and pursuing that vision no matter who tells you not to.”
HOWARD SCHULTZ