Quotes About Responsibility

Why do we have to make such terrible decisions for our whole lives when we are too young to know what we are doing? The big mistakes are hung around your neck and you have to wear them forever.

Wer für Kinder schreibt, übt den Beruf des Schriftstellers unter erschwerten Bedingungen aus, und dies freiwillig ... Wer für Erwachsene schreibt, schreibt ausschließlich für Erwachsene. Wer für Kinder schreibt, schreibt automatisch für Erwachsene mit." [As quoted on Preußler's official website .]

Every child has to raise itself.

Some refuse the loan of life to avoid the debt of death.

Politics ruins the character.

I do not wish to be a coward like the father of mankind and throw the blame upon a woman.

So we, in thoughtless play, twist the first gleaming and silky threads of the fatal cord which will cling about our necks, fastened beyond hope of release, as long as our lives shall last!

Nay—when will you do so much as remember that the coward who tortures an animal would murder a human being if he were not afraid of the gallows? When will you see that to teach the hand of a child to stretch out and smother the butterfly, is to teach that hand, when a man's, to steal out and strangle an enemy?

which might have touched into sympathy, even the coldest nature. But (I do not think one can blame my Lady Molyneux; if she was born without feelings, perhaps she was hardly more responsible for the non-possession of them, than the idiot for the total absence of brain) her mother was not even silenced.

Now came the question, what should I do? "Nothing," the correct thing, according to the governor. "Stand for the county," my mother suggested. "Go as attaché to my cousin, the envoy to St. Petersburg," my relatives opined, who had triumphed, with much unholy glory, over my rustication, as is the custom of relatives from time immemorial.

Forbear to lay the guilt of a few on the many.

To be silent is but a small virtue; but it is a serious fault to reveal secrets.

Idleness ruins the constitution

Let love give way to business; give attention to business and you will be safe.

that [rational] principle alone cannot add one iota to knowledge. It can clear up obscurities, it can measure and enumerate with greater and ever greater precision, it can preserve us in the dignity and responsibility of our individual existences. But in no sense can it be said ... to expand consciousness. Only the poetic can do this: only poesy, pouring into language its creative intuitions, can preserve its living meaning and prevent it from crystalizing into a kind of algebra. (144)

And in that I cannot send unto you all my businesses in writing, I despatch these present bearers fully informed in all things, to whom it may please you to give faith and credence in what they shall say unto you by word of mouth.

We are not to judge thrift solely by the test of saving or spending. If one spends what he should prudently save, that certainly is to be deplored. But if one saves what he should prudently spend, that is not necessarily to be commended. A wise balance between the two is the desired end.

Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shall be liable to a fine of one pound. Any animal leading a blind person shall be deemed to be a cat.

At the court hearing, Howard Weitzman told the judge that if they were gonna ban 'Suicide Solution' and hold me responsible for some poor kid shooting himself, then they'd have to ban Shakespeare, 'cos Romeo and Juliet's about suicide, too.

Killing a pig for a good old fry-up is one thing. But there's no excuse for being cruel, even if you're a bored teenage kid.

The fact that I ever raised my hand against a woman disgusts me. It was a f**king atrocious, unforgivable way to behave, and there's no excuse for it, ever. And like I said before, it's something I'll take to the grave with me.

Money is in some respects life's fire it is a very excellent servant, but a terrible master.

Milyen nagy szüksége van a hazának azokra, okoskodott, nem - van másik! -, fütyörészett Esti, akik fütyülnek rá.

Worrying is less work than doing something to fix the worry. Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom with the dishes.