Quotes About Responsibility

Maybe I shouldn't have told you––about it being electrical." She put her hand out, touched his arm; she felt guilty, seeing the effect it had on him, the change. "No, Rick said. "I'm glad to know. Or rather––" He became silent. "I'd prefer to know.

Human beings had invented war, invented and manufactured the weapons, even invented the players, the fighters, the actors of the war. But they themselves could not venture forth, could not wage it themselves.

I seem to be living in my own novels more and more. I can't figure out why. Am I losing touch with reality? Or is reality actually sliding toward a Phil Dickian type of atmosphere? And if the latter, then for god's sake why? Am I responsible? How could I be responsible? Isn't that solipsism? It's too much for me.

Fakat zaten çökmek üzere olan bir toplumda ne yapabilirsiniz? ÇökmüÅŸ kanunlara m? uyars?n?z? Kötü bir kanunu saymamak suç mu? Ya da kötülüÄŸe kullan?lan bir yemini bozmak suç mu?

The guilty, he reflected as he drove amid the heavy late-afternoon traffic as carefully as possible, may flee when no one pursues—he

Always this barrier, this impossibility of getting through. This time he did not waste his time trying; he simply went on stroking her, thinking, It'll be on my conscience, whatever happens to her. And she knows it, too. So she's absolved of the burden of responsibility, and that, for her, is the worst thing possible. Too bad, he thought, I wasn't able to make love to her.

We didn't have sense enough to take care of it. Now it's torn. And the artist is dead.

Of course, the way they put it, the idea was if we had to buy our gas masks and bomb shelters we'd take better care of them. As if we ever damaged telephones and sidewalks. Or highways, because the whole state provided them. Or armies.

Llegué a la conclusión de que no había tenido conciencia (...), que sólo sabía que cuando regresara a casa (...) habría cambios importantes que él mismo se encargaría de provocar. Y dichos cambios afectarían a toda criatura viviente de la casa. Mató a los animales para demostrar que lo que hacía era importante. Que era capaz de hacer algo irreparable.

In the cramped environment of little houses, with the car parked under the kitchen window, clothes hanging in the yard, countless skimpy errands keeping her involved until nothing else is left, only a preoccupation with things to get done, things to have ready

A country is no better than its leader.

Já salvei muitas vidas — Joan ergueu a mão— Você pode me dar um cigarro? Ele lhe ofereceu um, acendendo-o, sentindo-se, como sempre, culpado pelo esquecimento. — O que você faz? — inquiriu Joan. Relutante, não porque fosse confidencial, mas sim porque o trabalho conferia um status inferior na escala da consideração pública, descreveu sua função na CIA. Joan Trieste ouviu com atenção.

Replicants are like any other machine - they're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, it's not my problem.

La Chiesa e Cosa Nostra hanno qualcosa in comune: una specie di distacco adamantino nei piani alti. I lavoretti sporchi ricadono sui pesci piccoli in fondo al barile.

When you get a cat to catch the mice in your kitchen, you can't expect it to ignore the rats in the cellar.

I didn't know you were interested in politics,' I said. 'I'm not,' he said. 'But isn't that how Hitler got elected in the first place: too many people who didn't give a shit who was running the country?

That's the duty of the old, to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.

What work do I have to do then? said Will, but went on at once, No, on second thought, don't tell me. I shall decide what I do. If you say my work is fighting, or healing, or exploring, or whatever you might say, I'll always be thinking about it. And if I do end up doing that, I'll be resentful because it'll feel as if I didn't have a choice, and if I don't do it, I'll feel guilty because I should. Whatever I do, I will choose it, no one else.

Make this the golden rule, the equivalent of the Hippocratic oath: Everything we ask a child to do should be worth doing.

Everyone, from the Mother Superior to the priests to my parents--they were so upset and reproachful...I felt as if something they all passionately believed in depended on me carrying on with something I didn't.

That's the duty of the old," said the Librarian, "to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.

I shall decide what I do. If you say my work is fighting, or healing, or exploring, or whatever you say, I'll always be thinking about it, and if I end up doing that, I'll feel resentful because it'll feel as I didn't have a choice, and if I don't do it, I'll feel guilty because I should. Whatever I do, I will choose it, no one else.

I see the Master as a man having terrible choices to make; whatever he chooses will do harm, but maybe if he does the right thing, a little less harm will come about than if he chooses wrong. God preserve me from having to make that sort of choice.

But I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone, or that's an evil one, because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels.