Quotes About Responsibility

In foreign affairs we must make up our minds that, whether we wish it or not, we are a great people and must play a great part in the world. It is not open to us to choose whether we will play that great part or not. We have to play it. All we can decide is whether we shall play it well or ill.

If we are to be a really great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the world. We cannot avoid meeting great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is whether we shall meet them well or ill.

It is a mere truism to say that every nation, whether in America or anywhere else, which desires to maintain its freedom, its independence, must ultimately realize that the right of such independence cannot be separated from the responsibility of making good use of it.

Credit should go with the performance of duty, and not with what is very often the accident of glory.

In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The second best thing is the wrong thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

I had always felt that if there were a serious war I wished to be in a position to explain to my children why I did take part in it, and not why I did not take part in it.

No man in public position can, under penalty of forfeiting the right to the respect of those whose regard he most values, fail as the opportunity comes to do all that in him lies for peace.

No amount of charity in spending such fortunes can compensate in any way for the misconduct in acquiring them.

The power of the journalist is great, but he is entitled neither to respect nor admiration because of that power unless it is used aright.

I then held, and now hold, the belief that a man's first duty is to pull his own weight and to take care of those dependent upon him; and I then believed, and now believe, that the greatest privilege and greatest duty for any man is to be happily married, and that no other form of success or service, for either man or woman, can be wisely accepted as a substitute or alternative.

The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able to achieve them in practical fashion.

Let these innocent people be careful not to invest in corporations where those in control are not men of probity, men who respect the laws; above all let them avoid the men who make it their one effort to evade or defy the laws.

To educate a person without teaching ethics is to create a menace to society.

It is inexcusable to refuse to work, to work slackly or perversely, or to mar the work of others.

The most practical kind of politics is the politics of Decency.

While President, I have been President, emphatically; I have used every ounce of power there was in the office.…I do not believe that any President ever had as thoroughly good a time as I have had, or has ever enjoyed himself as much.

I was not going to earn money, I must even things up by not spending it.

There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake.

Just as democratic government cannot be condemned because of errors and even crimes committed by men democratically elected, so trade-unionism must not be condemned because of errors or crimes of occasional trade-union leaders.

However, my first visits to the tenement-house districts in question made me feel that, whatever the theories might be, as a matter of practical common sense I could not conscientiously vote for the continuance of the conditions which I saw. These conditions rendered it impossible for the families of the tenement-house workers to live so that the children might grow up fitted for the exacting duties of American citizenship.

In a moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

Killing a deer from a boat while the poor animal is swimming in the water, or on snowshoes as it flounders helplessly in the deep drifts, can only be justified on the plea of hunger. This is also true of lying in wait at a lick. Whoever indulges in any of these methods, save from necessity, is a butcher pure and simple, and has no business in the company of true sportsmen.

Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.

To sit home, read one's favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men's doing.