Quotes About Responsibility

We weten dat hij nooit een concentratiekamp, laat staan een vernietigingskamp heeft bezocht. Dat liet hij over aan Himmler, de baas van de SS en de politie. Laat ik aannemen, dat hij op een dag besloot in Auschwitz te gaan kijken naar de dagelijkse vergassing van duizenden mannen, vrouwen en kinderen, die hij had bevolen. Hoe had hij op die aanblik gereageerd? Maar daarvoor moet ik zijn karakter veranderen, want dat is nu juist wat hij nooit gedaan heeft, en dan had ik hem weer niet begrepen.

Why should "Honor thy father and thy mother" be a commandment, and "Honor thy child" not?

Wie het gedaan heeft, heeft het gedaan en niet iemand anders.

There is no self that exists independent of the forces that created it, and thus you cannot be held personally, or perhaps I should say morally, accountable for what you did or didn't do.

Most of the problems a President has to face have their roots in the past.

The White House is the finest prison in the world.

Politics sure is the ruination of many a good man.

The atom bomb was no 'great decision.' It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness.

The buck stops here.

I would rather have peace in the world than be President.

A president either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt that I could let up for a moment.

Some of the Presidents were great and some of them weren't. I can say that, because I wasn't one of the great Presidents, but I had a good time trying to be one, I can tell you that.

When a leader is in the Democratic Party he is a boss, and when he is in the Republican Party he is a leader.

The American President] has to take all sorts of abuse from liars and demagogues.… The people can never understand why the President does not use his supposedly great power to make 'em behave. Well, all the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

I come to the office each morning and stay for long hours doing what has to be done to the best of my ability. And when you've done the best you can, you can't do any better.

A President cannot always be popular.

But we are only termites on a planet and maybe when we bore too deeply into the planet there'll be a reckoning. Who knows?

The President may have a great many powers given to him by the Constitution and may have certain powers under certain laws which are given to him by the Congress of the United States; but the principal power that the President had is to bring people in and try to persuade them to do what they ought to do without persuasion.

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?

Human life is something that comes to us from beyond this world, and the purpose of our society is to cherish it and to enable the individual to attain the highest achievement of which he is capable

Mama and Papa are more to blame (for delinquency) than the kids; parents should stay home and raise their children and spend less time in taverns.

The responsibility of the great states is to serve and not to dominate the world.

My definition of a leader in a free country is a man who can persuade people to do what they don't want to do, or do what they're too lazy to do, and like it.

Poor Ike. He'll say do this and do that and nothing at all will happen.