Quotes About Accountability

"Our country, right or wrong." When right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.

Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when wrong to be put right.

My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.

A minority group has "arrived" only when it has the right to produce some fools and scoundrels without the entire group paying for it.

If you don't perform, you're not credible. And second, transparency. Even when you're not performing well, transparency can help you.

them,"We accept all responsibility. Let us do our job, and then you can judge the results.

Well, you know, I - again, even in the context of BP, I wonder about this government's priorities. The federal government's top priority right now should be the cleanup. And BP certainly has done so many things wrong. They need to be held to account.

The GAO just released a report that said 22 percent of federal programs fail to meet their objectives. The truth is we don't know how taxpayer money is spent in Washington, D.C., which is why I think we ought to put every agency budget up on the Internet for everyone to see.

We need more transparency and accountability in government so that people know how their money is being spent. That means putting budgets online, putting legislation online.

Some people are not used to an environment where excellence is expected

if people do not have responsibility, do not expect them to behave responsibly.

In eighteenth-century parlance, the president was to be a disinterested leader, removed from the tarnishing effects of ambition, greed, and factional wrangling, a check upon the sectional or class interests of lawmakers in the House and Senate.

you aren't a failure until you start to blame. What

No means so. Even if, at first, you thought you meant yes. Even if, at first, it was your fault. Even if, at first, you made yourself available.

Hubris, thy name is Mallory -- she believed she could get away with mouthing off to the chief of D's in front of witnesses. She could not. Coffey could tell that much by the change in the atmosphere -- the dead silence of a room with too many guns in it.

Nobody stopped believing that other people were more guilty than they were. Why do people have so much trouble seeing their own faults but such an easy time seeing everyone else's?

People make their own choices, and sometimes those choices suck.

I don't know if anybody thinks of themselves as bad. We all have excuses.

People create their own little hells. They don't need my help

John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach, says you aren't a failure until you start to blame. What he means is that you can still be in the process of learning from your mistakes until you deny them.

Another way people with the fixed mindset try to repair their self-esteem after a failure is by assigning blame or making excuses.

John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach, says you aren't a failure until you start to blame.

CEOs face this choice all the time. Should they confront their shortcomings or should they create a world where they have none? Lee Iacocca chose the latter. He surrounded himself with worshipers, exiled the critics—and quickly lost touch with where his field was going. Lee Iacocca had become a nonlearner.

in the fixed mindset, you don't take control of your abilities and your motivation. You look for your talent to carry you through, and when it doesn't, well then, what else could you have done? You are not a work in progress, you're a finished product. And finished products have to protect themselves, lament, and blame. Everything but take charge.