Quotes About Accountability

In creating this self-protective structure, Rockefeller could run Standard Oil while simultaneously sidestepping responsibility, erasing incriminating evidence, and avoiding contact with his victims.

When confronted with well-documented cases of terror tactics used by subordinates, he blandly conceded some few indiscretions by overly zealous employees and cast himself as a helpless spectator.

Father was never willing to pay a bill which he did not know to be correct in all its items.

Has anyone given you the law of these offices? No? It is this: nobody does anything if he can get anybody else to do it.… As soon as you

At the heart of quantum mechanics is a rule that sometimes governs politicians or CEOs— as long as no one is watching, anything goes.

At the heart of quantum mechanics is a rule that sometimes governs politicians or CEOs—as long as no one is watching, anything goes. Systems

I wish my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me;

Had the Chinese been more open about the disease when it first appeared, many people might have spared.

Bin Laden señalaba..«¿Cómo podéis pedirle a la gente que ahorre energía cuando todo el mundo puede ver vuestros espléndidos palacios iluminados noche y día? —preguntaba—. ¿No tenemos derecho a preguntaros, oh rey, adónde ha ido a parar todo el dinero? No os molestéis en responder: todos saben cuántos sobornos y comisiones han acabado en vuestros bolsillos.»

There were reasons for the cover-up of SARS, including the fear, typical of repressive systems, of passing bad news up the ranks; a tangled bureaucracy; and the singular priority of economic growth over all other considerations; but the naked fact stood that the Chinese government was willing to sacrifice its own people and place the entire world in jeopardy, risking millions of lives, simply to avoid accountability for the outbreak.

He found people respond to crises in two ways. Some get to work fixing the problem. Others, proving the problem wasn't their fault. Reacher liked the first kind. Rutherford seemed like the first kind. It was nice to see someone not dumping on him for a change.

Because mistakes of a certain type have the kind of consequences that people with consciences don't like to live with.

Cops are the same the world over. Once they commit to a position in public they never back down. Trying to make them is a waste of time. Reacher knew that from personal experience. But still, there are standards to uphold.

It's something they teach you in the army. The only thing under your direct control is how hard you work. In other words, if you really, really buckle down today, and you get the intelligence, the planning, and the execution each a hundred percent exactly correct, then you are bound to prevail." "Sounds empowering." "It's the army. What they really mean is, if you fail today, it's completely your own fault.

This is an event horizon, colonel. This is where it all goes wrong. Possibly for nothing. Possibly for some little thing other guys have gotten away with. But you're going to crash and burn. Best case, you're going to stall. Best case, you're going to get an asterisk against your name forever. As in, we can't be sure about that guy.

that it's easy enough to shoot a man. But there's absolutely no way to unshoot one.

They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.

I don't see how his welfare suddenly becomes my responsibility, just because he chose to attack my welfare first.

Muller scanned one scrap of paper after another. Griezman's output was prodigious. Most of it was normal ass-covering bullshit. Trivia from below to be shoveled up above. Standard practice. Everyone did it. No one ever wanted the buck to stop with him. No one ever wanted to be at an official inquiry, saying, "Yes, it was me who judged it not worth passing on. So it's all my fault." There

the smart money never bets on the DoD having gotten exactly what it paid for. The

Targeting individuals, while ignoring larger system failures, oversimplifies the problem and does little to prevent its recurrence.

Three men dead, two people injured, and a civilian traumatized by having to kill a man. The department is probably facing tens of millions of dollars in lawsuit settlements. Tell me why I shouldn't walk out of here with somebody's badge in my pocket for this?

Someday, you know, we're going to be shown the great ledger of our recorded decisions-a dread concept you nonetheless know in your deepest soul is true.

You said yourself they didn't hurt your girl." Waiting, Davy asked, "How many times does a dog have to bite before you put him down?