Quotes About Responsibility

The important conclusion for us is that the groups use the leader sometimes with little regard for him personally, but always with regard to fulfilling their own needs and urges.

everybody has to think and see for himself, or the nations are doomed.

I think if we push the analysis to its ultimate point we have to say that each earthly father accuses us of our impotence if we become truly creative personalities; they remind us that we are born of men and not gods. No living person can give genius the powers it needs to shoulder the meaning of the world.

Our task for the future is exploring what it means for each individual to be a member of earth's household, a commonwealth of kindred beings. Whether we will use our freedom to encapsulate ourselves in narrow, tribal, paranoid personalities and create more bloody Utopias or to form compassionate communities of the abandoned is still to be decided.

We must know the facts and be guided by them...nature does not forgive fools nor does she spare them the penalties of their folly

Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today. It's been that way all this year. It's been that way so many times. All of war is that way.

You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?

Road to hell paved in unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault.

Of all men the drunkard is the foulest. The thief when he is not stealing is like another. The extortioner does not practice in the home. The murderer when he is at home can wash his hands. But the drunkard stinks and vomits in this own bed and dissolves his organs in alcohol.

Until you're grown-up they send you to reform school. After you're grown-up they send you to the penitentiary.

The fun of talk is to explore, but much of it and all that is irresponsible should not be written. Once written you have to stand by it. You may have said it to see whether you believed it or not.

I believe that all the people who stand to profit by a war and who help provoke it should be shot on the first day it starts by accredited representatives of the loyal citizens of their country who will fight it.

Clearly I miss Him, having been brought up in religion. But now a man must be responsible to himself.

Nobody likes to life anchors.

Because she had done the best she could for many years back and the way they were together now was no one person's fault.

You're going to have things to repent, boy,' Mr. John had told Nick. 'That's one of the best things there is. You can always decide whether to repent them or not. But the thing is to have them.

I would not wish to bring either a son or a daughter into this world as this world is. And also you take all the love I have to give

It was not her fault that when he went to her he was already over

When you have a child, the world has a hostage.

But I won't keep a count of people I have killed as though it were a trophy record or a disgusting business like notches in a gun, he told himself. I have a right to not keep count and I have a right to forget them. No, himself said. You have no right to forget anything. You have no right to shut your eyes to any of it nor any right to forget any of it nor to soften it nor to change it.

She said nothing is done to oneself that one does not accept and that if I loved someone it would take it all away.

It evidently made no difference whether I was there to look after things or not.

The earth gets tired of being exploited.

The fun of talk is to explore, but much of it and all that is irresponsible should not be written. Once written you have to stand by it. You may have said it to see whether you believed it or not. On the question you raised, the effects of wounds vary greatly. Simple wounds which do not break bone are of little account. They sometimes give confidence. Wounds which do extensive bone and nerve damage are not good for writers, nor anybody else.-Interview for the Paris Review, 1956