Quotes About Responsibility

There was a common proverb of old, "What is it to the Romans that the Greeks die?" So we think that our dangers and calamities only belong to ourselves. But how does this principle agree with the commandment of God? For his will is that we should all live together, and be to each other as brethren.

We need a millstone around our neck to keep us humble.

Each must watch over his own conscience, and therefore each must have the right to judge spirits and prophets; but no one has the right to take the sword for himself.

A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.

Every minister should make much of his calling and impress upon others the fact that he has been delegated by God to preach the Gospel.

The Law has a promise but it is a conditional promise, depending upon whether people fulfill the Law.

No matter how insignificant the little office may be, they take a foot though they do not have an inch,73 and always want to be God themselves when they ought to be God's maid.

Let us act wisely, therefore, and in the fear of God.

For we Germans are snoring, buried in sleep and wine, and we are destitute of leaders who could measure up in wisdom, strategy, and strength of heart to manage such great undertakings.

It never does any good when one knave punishes another without first becoming good himself.

We all shouldn't try to do the same work. Rather, each of us should pay attention to our own responsibilities. Otherwise, we cannot be of one mind and one heart. We must allow the works to be varied so that each of us can remain with what God has entrusted to us. We should simply do the work at hand.

For we have vowed enough in baptism, more than we can ever fulfill; if we give ourselves to the keeping of this one vow, we shall have all we can do.

If I were emperor, king, or prince in a campaign against the Turk, I would exhort my bishops and priests to stay at home and mind the duties of their office, praying, fasting, saying mass, preaching, and caring for the poor, as not only Holy Scripture, but their own canon law teaches and requires.

He who prays must be like a good, industrious barber who has to keep his mind and eyes precisely upon his razor and hair and know whether to cut or trim, lest by too much gabbing or looking about aimlessly, he slashes someone's mouth or nose, or worse, someone's throat.

You are commanded to get angry, not on your own behalf, but on behalf of your office and of God; you must not confuse the two, your person and your office.

In the same way, people who sleep when they should be working are testing God. Because God promised to take care of them, they assume that God will find a way. But in Proverbs, God told them to work: "Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth" (Proverbs 10:4).

The Lord is our glory. Such gifts as we possess we acknowledge to be the gifts of God, given to us for the good of the Church of Christ. Therefore we are not proud because of them. We know that more is required of them to whom much is given, than of such to whom little is given. We also know that God is no respecter of persons. A plain factory hand who does his work faithfully pleases God just as much as a minister of the Word.

If Münzer and Carlstadt and their comrades had not been allowed to sneak and creep into other men's houses and parishes, whither they had neither call nor command to go, this whole great calamity would not have happened.

You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir . . . America has defaulted on this promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are concerned.

And so we shall have to do more than register and more than vote; we shall have to create leaders who embody virtues we can respect, who have moral and ethical principles we can applaud with enthusiasm.

I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the "oughtness" that forever confronts him.

I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality

Even when the polls are open to all, Negroes have shown themselves too slow to exercise their voting privileges. There must be a concerted effort on the part of Negro leaders to arouse their people from their apathetic indifference.... In the past, apathy was a moral failure. Today, it is a form of moral and political suicide.