Quotes About Responsibility

This was, I sometimes thought, the last gift my father gave me. And the best: His death stood out as the supreme-o excuse for fucking up, for being a successful fuck-up.

Accountability ought to mean being held responsible for one's actions. But by a sort of linguistic sleight of hand, accountability has come to mean demonstrating success through standardized measurement, as if only that which can be counted really counts.

Dopóki cz?owiek nie musi siebie sprawdzi? w czynie, mo?e si? oszukiwa? bez ?adnych ogranicze?.

is up to the parents to consider this fundamental question: "Am I genuinely able to give my child what they want and feel good about it—and not expect anything in return?

It is much better for us and our children when we aim to be ourselves rather than try to "do the right thing". Parents who are authentic are better parents than those who try to be theoretical parents. Parents who make mistakes and take responsibility for their mistakes are better parents than those who try to be perfect. Parents who strive for perfection will always make their children feel like failures and children who feel like failures often end up failing.

è difficile immaginare che relazioni tra adulti e figli basate su uguale dignità possano causare problemi. Credo invece che a determinarli siano l'irresponsabilità e l'autosufficienza.

Men in packs can do terrible things, things they wouldn't have the hate to do alone. It's no excuse, just something you should know.

In our neighborhood, the problem wasn't the person who made the mistake; it was the person who acknowledged the truth.

In my study, there are stacks of papers to grade, books I should have read & reviewed months ago, but I have no concentration: the time slips through my fingers like water.

What kind of wife would I be if I left your father simply because he was dead?

Three things are required of you: the wishes you made when you first knew the breadth of this life; the contract you signed when you decided your wishes were not true or possible; and the exacting of the punishment you agreed to when you knew you would break the contract of your life.

You live your life, you try to live compassionately, and that's the end of it. You do a little more than you should have to in order to be a good person, but you don't go making big changes in the world, trying to fix things. It presumes too much to do so. There's only this: if everyone acts quietly, compassionately, things will go a little better than they would have otherwise. But people will still suffer.

I asked him if he had bothered to have children. He said yes, he had children. I said why if this is the result. He said I beg your pardon. I said if it leads to this, where you're a skin bag full of putrescent failing organs, and time passes quickly, it passes so quickly, and he knew that, then why have kids.

Our knowledge about ourselves is our least reliable knowledge. Yet, so thoroughly do we ordinarily champion our own cause that it is acknowledged effective to believe that a person who deems it impossible to any further champion his/her own cause must be guilty.

There is a feeling that we are things in common not alone. That I am myself in terms of you, and you you in terms of others. Together we make a world and go on in this sea of days and months. In this picture no one is their own--everyone is everyone else; our bodies are the possession of our society. We might own things but never ourselves. Yet I think there is a different duty.

These things have happened so often that it becomes clear: a man like this did not die because of what he did but because of what he was. We are the ones who have the privilege of having things happen to us because of what we do. Not everyone is so lucky.

We felt lucky to have had him, and lucky to become the ones who were continually with him, caring for him. I have read some books of philosophy in which the freedom of burdens is explained, that somehow we are all seeking some appropriate burden. Until we find it, we are horribly shackled, can in fact scarcely live.

See, being a grown-up is all about priorities, Typo. It's all about deciding what's important to you, because it can't all be. You can't be a grown-up and a perfect person at the same time.' 'What do you know about it? You're sixteen years old.' 'I was raised by grown-ups. I know more about grown-ups than I ever wanted to know.

Adrian: "I've made my position clear, Mr. Skerry. It's not my job to protect people from their own stupidity." Resonator: "And I like to give hand granades to babies ... let's be friends!?

Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.

The relationship between the prophet and the President, the priest and the President, is a sacred one.

If there are occasions when my grape turned into a raisin and my joy bell lost its resonance, please forgive me. Charge it to my head and not to my heart.

you may not be responsible for being down. but you are respinsible for getting up.

As much as some people hate to admit it, and as angry as it makes many black people, the undeniable fact is that the greatest enemies to black progress today are within the black community itself, not in American society at large.