Responsibility Quotes

“The hands that help are better far than lips that pray.”
― Robert Green Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. IV

“Responsibility is a unique concept... You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you... If responsibility is rightfully yours, no evasion, or ignorance or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else. Unless you can point your finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible.”
― Hyman G. Rickover

“Tennis taught me so many lessons in life. One of the things it taught me is that every ball that comes to me, I have to make a decision. I have to accept responsibility for the consequences every time I hit a ball.”
― Billie Jean King

“once I gave up the hunt for villains, I had little recourse but to take responsibility for my choices ...Needless to say, this is far less satisfying that nailing villains. It also turned out to be more healing in the end.”
― Barbara Brown Taylor

“You know what my father said about innocent clients? ... He said the scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you fuck up and he goes to prison, it'll scar you for life ... He said there is no in-between with an innocent client. No negotiation, no plea bargain, no middle ground. There's only one verdict. You have to put an NG up on the scoreboard. There's no other verdict but not guilty."

Levin nodded thoughtfully.

"The bottom line was my old man was a damn good lawyer and he didn't like having innocent clients," I said. "I'm not sure I do, either.”
― Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer

“In the end there is nothing to be done but to state clearly what has been done, without shame or regret, and say: Here I am, and this is what I am. Now deal with me as you see fit. That is your right. Mine is to stand by the act, and pay the price.

You do what you must do, and pay for it. So in the end all things are simple.”
― Ellis Peters, Brother Cadfael's Penance

“But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.”
― William Shakespeare, Henry V

“kuhang-kuha natin ang mga katarantaduhan ng hollyeood, pero hindi ang kaunting pagiging responsable ng mga kanluraning bansa sa isyu ng pagtayo sa sariling paa.”
― Bob Ong, Lumayo Ka Nga Sa Akin

“Love was indeed a big responsibility. One must use the word judiciously. One cannot love one day and take away love the next day. It is total caring.”
― Anuradha Bhattacharyya, The Road Taken

“Our whole social order could self-destruct over the obsession with freedom disconnected from responsibility; where choice is imagined to be somehow independent of consequences.”
― Boyd K. Packer

“Panem et Circenses translates into 'Bread and Circuses.' The writer was saying that in return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“Respectfully, sir, the asteroid did not make you leave her. The asteroid is not making anyone do anything. It's just a big piece of rock floating through space. Anything anyone does remains their own decision.”
― Ben H. Winters, Countdown City

“Honor is no phantom. Duty doesn't melt away, no matter how much we might wish it to.”
― Claudia J. Edwards, Taming the Forest King

“If that type of bad God did exist, then we could go on living in good health. If we could push the responsibility for our misery onto God, then we would have that much more peace of mind, wouldn't we?”
― Tatsuhiko Takimoto, Welcome to the N.H.K.

“A human being becomes human not through the casual convergence of certain biological conditions, but through an act of will and love on the part of other people. If this is not the case, then humanity becomes — as it is already to a large extent — no more than a rabbit-warren. But this is no longer a “free-range” warren but a “battery” one, in the conditions of artificiality in which it lives, with artificial light and chemical feed.”
― Italo Calvino, Italo Calvino: Letters, 1941-1985 - Updated Edition

“The speed of modern life is an oppressive thing, and the corporate world is quick to punish those with an honest heart. Qualities such as ‘nice, honest, kind, happy, relaxed, sincere, innocent’ are frowned upon as weaknesses. Yet these values are the essence of a good person. Unfortunately, if you don’t keep the balance, they can be lost like sand through your fingers.”
― Fennel Hudson, Wild Carp: Fennel's Journal No. 4

“I don't really remember making a decision. I don't remember thinking to myself, "Yes, I will do this," or, "No, I will not do that." They tell you what to do, and you do it. You don't reflect on it. You don't ponder its meaning. You don't explore its ambiguities or consider its consequences. These burdens are removed from you. In theory.
But you are still human. Eventually, you do reflect on it. The consequences make themselves known. The results of your actions persist. Eventually, you are struck by their meaning. At some point, an accounting is made. Eventually, if you are human, and sane, you examine what you have done.”
― Stephen Dau, The Book of Jonas

“That level of responsibility drastically conflicts with my belief in self-preservation by inactivity.”
― C.L. Allen, I Am Become Zombie

“A good work ethic is not so much a concern for hard work but rather one for responsibility. There have been a great many men and women who have in fact used work or hustle or selfish ambition as an escape from real responsibility, an escape from purpose. In matters such as these, the hard worker is just as dysfunctional as the sloth.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“You'll get into dreadful trouble and it won't be my fault. You are bad people.”
― Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead

“Now he understood clearly that roads do divide, at the crossroad there is a choice, and blinding oneself to it is a form of choosing, too; it is the fool's way, the coward's way.”
― Erik Christian Haugaard, The untold tale

“It was not enough that food aplenty was within Man’s grasp: he wanted more.

It was not enough that prey surrendered themselves to Man according to the natural order: Man wanted to cook his prey.

Man had discovered fire when lightning stuck and set a tree or two alight, but he was clumsy and greedy and stupid and could not keep the flame alive”
― David Bowles, Along the River: An Anthology of Voices from the Rio Grande Valley

“And the truth is that as a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do....”
― Ursula K Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“The size of the tree you cut determines the weight with which you have to throw the axe.”
― Israelmore Ayivor, Shaping the dream

“I tell my students, who are concerned with the question of betrayal, that when it comes to memoir, there is no such thing as absolute truth—only the truth that is singularly their own. I say this not to release them from responsibility but to illuminate the subjectivity of our inner lives. One person's experience is not another's.”
― Dani Shapiro, Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love

“It is exclusively other people's responsibility to please themselves.”
― Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life

“You are only responsible for the effort, not the outcome.”
― Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life

“You are not responsible for the murderous rampage of an alien psycho, okay?”
― Pittacus Lore, The Fate of Ten

“I didn't want to do my mathematics homework back home. Or mend the fence or mind the chickens. But I did it anyway. Just because a person doesn't want to do a thing doesn't mean they ought to shirk.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home

“Maybe that was the secret to happiness, I thought, being free of the responsibility of yourself.”
― Alexandra Kleeman, You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine