Quotes About Responsibility

Don't steal sweet rolls.

In spite of Stepan Arkadyevitch's efforts to be an attentive father and husband, he never could keep in his mind that he had a wife and children.

The social conditions of life can only be improved by people exercising self-restraint.

he was one of those diplomats who like and know how to work, and, despite his laziness, he occasionally spent nights at his desk.

He was not to blame for being born with an irrepressible charachter and a mind some how constrained.

If you get a hard word from any one, keep silent, and his own conscience will accuse him.

Both salvation and punishment for man lie in the fact that if he lives wrongly he can befog himself so as not to see the misery of his position.

Those are the men,' added Bolkonsky with a sigh which he could not suppress, as they went out of the palace, 'those are the men who decide the fate of nations.

Then as now much time was spent arguing about the rights of women, husband-and-wife relationships and freedom and rights within marriage, but Natasha had no interest in any such questions. Questions like these, then as now, existed exclusively for people who see marriage only in terms of satisfaction given and received by the married couple, though this is only one principle of married life rather than its overall meaning, which lies in the family.

For the first time in his life he knew the bitterest sort of misfortune, misfortune beyond remedy, misfortune his own fault.

War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in life; and we ought to understand that and not play at war. We ought to accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It all lies in that: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game. As it is now, war is the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous. The military calling is the most highly honored.

We are all brothers, and yet I live by receiving a salary for arraigning, judging and punishing a thief or a prostitute, whose existence is conditioned by the whole consumption of my life.

In the service, especially in the complicated situation such as this, it is difficult not to say impossible, to follow any one straight path without risking mistakes and without accepting responsibility, but once a path seems to be the right one I must follow it, happen what may.

But what can I do?' - I answer those who speak thus. - '... must I therefore not point out the evil which I clearly, unquestionably see?

Can't you go tomorrow?' she said. 'No, I can't! The business I'm going for, the warrant and the money, won't have come by tomorrow,' he replied.

I threw it away feeling sorry to have vainly destroyed a flower that looked beautiful in its proper place. How many different plant lives man destroys to support his own existence.

Whatever our destiny is or may be, we have made it ourselves, and we do not complain of it.

Such is the inevitable fate of men of action, and the higher they stand in the social hierarchy the less are they free.

He regarded his whole life as a continual round of amusement which someone for some reason had to provide for him.

Yes, man is much worse than the animal when he does not live like a man.

How many different plant-lives man destroys to support his own existence - I thought!

Well, what should I have done? Counted every tree?" "Of course, they must be counted. You didn't count them, but Ryabinin did. Ryabinin's children will have means of livelihood and education, while yours maybe will not!

Friends we shall never be, you know that yourself. Whether we shall be the happiest or the wretchedest of people—that's in your hands.

All this was as it should be, because welfare and happiness of the world depended on him, and wearied though he was he would still not refuse universe the assistence.