Quotes About Accountability

Many a committee meeting ends with "We need more data." Everybody nods, breathing a sigh of relief, happy that the decision has been deferred. A week or so later, when the data are in, the group is no further ahead. Everyone's time is wasted on another meeting, on waiting for even more data. The culprit is a negative error culture, in which everyone lacks the courage to make a decision for which they may be punished.

Do not ask what the Government can do for you. Ask why it doesn't.

Promises are like the full moon, if they are not kept at once they diminish day by day.

Israel, from its inception in 1948, has been given the most wonderful opportunity to behave itself, and it clearly has not done so. It's flouted every single law, it's behaved outrageously, it's made a travesty of international and humanitarian law. On what basis should this state continue to be a member of the United Nations?

It is always easy to break one's word to oneself.

As for myself, I always willingly acknowledge my own self as the principal cause of every good and of every evil which may befall me; therefore, I have always found myself capable of being my own pupil, and ready to love my teacher.

Power – any form of power – is acceptable only if it's transparent and clean, if it's exercised in a way that is equal for everybody.

Le parole sono anche atti, dei quali è necessario fronteggiare le conseguenze.

Un fantasma si aggira per l'Italia: l'idea che tutto sia dovuto, che non ci si debba impegnare per ottenere risultati e che la colpa dei nostri problemi sia sempre degli altri. Questo atteggiamento mentale autoassolutorio si traduce quasi naturalmente nell'offesa rispetto ai titolari dei privilegi, veri o presunti.

My grandfather often quoted it, and said that the rule of moral balance is the opposite of the behaviour described in that sentence. It means not lying to ourselves about the significance of, and the reasons for, what we do and what we don't do. It means not looking for justifications, not manipulating the account we make of ourselves to anyone, including ourselves.

quella che il giusto prova davanti alla colpa commessa da altrui, e gli rimorde che esista, che sia stata introdotta irrevocabilmente nel mondo delle cose che esistono, e che la sua volontà buona sia stata nulla o scarsa, e non abbia valso a difesa".

When you keep someone waiting you give him time to count up your faults.

It sucks the way the world works. You can do a hundred things for people, but you do one bad mistake and everyone crucifies you and that's all they want to remember.

Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.

My mother had always told her kids: if you're about to do something, and you want to know if it's a bad idea, imagine seeing it printed in the paper for all the world to see.

There are consequences to your desires that you will regret, no matter how much you imagine your evils are unintended.

Showing up begins long before you stand at the start. Prove yourself an exception in a world where people talk more than act. Intent without follow-through is hollow. Disappoint yourself enough times and empty is how you feel. Make yourself proud. Fill yourself up. Show up.

Those who walk the talk get the work.

If you've broken any promises you've made to yourself, now is the time to make up for it.

In any case, if they don't do it to you, they do it to someone else...if you let them do it to others, you become an accomplice, intentionally or not

there is no head of state in the world today who is not in virtuality a criminal . Those who shoulder the dreary mantle of sovereignty know that their turn may come to be branded a criminal by their colleagues. We certainly will not be the ones to complain. For the sovereign, who freely consented to donning the executioner's clothes, is now finally manifesting his originary kinship with the criminal.

Por lo que tengo que deciros, señoras mías, que a quien te la hace se la hagas; y si no puedes, que no se te vaya de la cabeza hasta que lo consigas, para que lo que el burro da contra la pared lo mismo reciba.

Whenever they are reproached for such actions and for the many other disgraceful things they do, they think they can unload the heaviest charges by replying, 'Do as we say and not as we do'—as if constancy and steadfast behavior came more easily to the sheep than to their shepherds.

Possiamo sempre fare qualcosa": massima che andrebbe scolpita sullo scranno di ogni magistrato e di ogni poliziotto.