Quotes About Accountability

One blames politicians, not for inconsistency but for obstinacy. They are the interpreters, not the masters, of our fate. It is their job, in fact, to register the fact accompli.

Transparency is not about restoring trust in institutions. Transparency is the politics of managing mistrust.

Modern politics has become little more than shirking responsibility and blaming somebody else.

We all know what Parliament is, and we are all ashamed of it.

Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.

The free market punishes irresponsibility. Government rewards it.

Unlike some politicians, I can admit to a mistake.

This is the new politics. Personal responsibility. Not leaving it to others. I am my planet's keeper.

The first rule of holes: When you're in one stop digging.

If U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned.

If we promise as public officials, we must deliver. If we as public officials propose, we must produce.

Who watches the watchmen?

I have no doubt that the nation has suffered more from undue secrecy than from undue disclosure. The government takes good care of itself.

If politicians lived on praise and thanks they'd be forced into some other line of business.

Political action means taking on responsibility. This cannot happen without power. Power is to serve responsibility.

With freedom goes responsibility, a responsibility that can only be met by the individual himself.

If they are too big to fail, make them smaller.

What politics is all about today. Blah-blah-blah. The day that stops and the quality of our leaders improve, I will have to retire and go away.

I have impeached myself by resigning.

Politics in a democratic society should not be treated like a baseball game, a game show or a soap opera. The times are too serious for that.

Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of honor.

Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.

I don't pick on politicians. They ain't done nothin'.

In politics intentions count for nothing; actions are what matter.