Quotes About Responsibility

We take it for granted that great individuals—Gandhi, Kennedy, Martin Luther King—can have great positive impacts on the world. But we are loath to believe the same about negative impacts—unless the individuals are obvious monsters like Hitler or Stalin. But small numbers of people can have large, negative impacts, especially if they are organized, determined, and have access to power.

Most people were good, intelligent, responsible human beings struggling to live decent, useful lives. Why was it so many of them found that almost impossible? Was it because there were just no rules anymore, people making them us as the went along? From her own bitter experience, she saw that most good people were simply lost, bobbing around like castaways in a moral wasteland flooded with debris and ugliness, waiting to be rescued and placed on solid ground.

Dina, who couldn't imagine not working when everyone else was, didn't think twice. What did being tired have to do with it? You worked until the work was done.

He's nine. It's my job to protect him. He'll understand why when he's older." "Or else he'll blame you for it," my father suggests. "Don't make the mistake of choosing for him.

If you haven't believed a word I've said so far, so be it. But believe this: I will never—I will never—let anything happen to Max. I will protect him with my life.

to claim the crown." "'Heavy is the head,

I don't think you're supposed to speak ill of the dead." "When the dead are spineless bastards who don't take care of their own children, I'll say whatever the fuck I want.

I wish I could," she says apologetically. "But I've only got room in my life for one man. And that's my son.

This would never have happened if you had just found her for me when I asked you to," I explode, rounding on him. "This is why she disappeared. She found out she was pregnant." "You don't know that." "I have a child out there, Yef. A boy. And he doesn't know who his father is.

Second life lesson, kid: always know what you're getting yourself into.

no one but myself can be blamed for my fall. I have been my own greatest enemy-the cause of my own disastrous fate

At twenty-two many things are allowed which are no longer permitted past thirty

Failure is nature's plan to prepare you for great responsibilities.

The world suffers a lot. Not because the violence of bad people. But because of the silence of the good people.

A king is sometimes obliged to commit crimes; but they are the crimes of his position.

You cannot drag a man's conscience before any tribunal, and no one is answerable for his religious opinions to any power on earth.

A man who has no consideration for the needs of his men ought never to be given command.

Go, sir, gallop, and don't forget that the world was made in six days. You can ask me for anything you like, except time.

What is the throne?—a bit of wood gilded and covered with velvet. I am the state—I alone am here the representative of the people. Even if I had done wrong you should not have reproached me in public—people wash their dirty linen at home. France has more need of me than I of France.

Respect the burden.

Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.

A leader has the right to be beaten, but never the right to be surprised.

Men, in general, are but great children.

If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.