Quotes About Responsibility

Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, 'Do thou,' and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in 'Thou shalt.' Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But 'Thou mayest'! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.

I carry a gun cause a cop is too heavy.

You see, there's a responsibility in being a person. It's more than just taking up space where air would be.

It is easy to find a logical and virtuous reason for not doing what you don't want to do.

Why do men like me want sons? he wondered. It must be because they hope in their poor beaten souls that these new men, who are their blood, will do the things they were not strong enough nor wise enough nor brave enough to do. It is rather like another chance at life; like a new bag of coins at a table of luck after your fortune is gone.

I guess a man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, and then steps in it.

And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, Use it well, use it wisely.

It is easy, out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, 'I couldn't help it; the way was set.' But think of the glory of the choice!

They know that ten heads lopped off will destroy them, but we are a free people; we have as many heads as we have people, and in a time of need leaders pop up among us like mushrooms.

That was a time when a man had the right to be burried by his own son an' a son had the right to burry his own father.

You're jest one person, an' they's a lot of other folks. You git to your proper place. I knowed people built theirself up with sin till they figgered they was big mean shucks in the sight a the Lord. You ain't big enough or mean enough to worry God much.

I don't ever drink alone. It's not much fun. And I don't think I will until I am an alcoholic.

A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he only ought to consider whether he is doing right or wrong.

Fella had a team of horses, had to use'em to plow an' cultivate an' mow, wouldn't think a turnin' 'em out to starve when they wasn't workin'. Them's horses - we're men.

People need responsibility. They resist assuming it, but they cannot get along without it.

I guess she's just nuts,' he said. 'And if she's nuts, a guy's got to do nuts things. You don't think you could say the hell with her?

When you see good or bad in your children, you're seeing what you instilled in them after they cleared the womb.

I know this - a man got to do what he got to do, I can't tell you. I don't think they's luck or bad luck. On'y one thing in the worl' I'm sure of, an' that's I'm sure nobody got a right to mess with a fella's life. He got to do it all hisself, Help im, maybe, but not tell him what to do.

When I was a kid my ol' man give me a haltered heifer an' says take her down an git her serviced. An' the fella says, I done it, an' ever' time since then when I hear a business man talkin' about service, I wonder who's gettin' screwed.

The bird looked much smaller dead than alive. Jody felt a little mean pain in his stomach, so he took out his pocketknife and cut off the bird's head. Then he disemboweled it, and took off its wings; and finally he threw all the pieces into the brush. He didn't care about the bird, or its life, but he knew what older people would say if they had seen him kill it; he was ashamed because of their potential opinion.

How do I know?" said Cal. "Am I supposed to look after him?

It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it.

I don't know where being a servant came into disrepute. It is the refuge of a philosopher, the food of the lazy, and, properly carried out, it is a position of power, even of love.

Will you stay to dinner? Adam asked. I will not be responsible for the murder of more chickens, said Samuel. Lee's got a pot roast. Well, in that case--