Quotes About Responsibility

No matter what I said they insisted on thinking of God as something outside themselves. Something that yearns to take every indolent moron to His breast and comfort him. The notion that the effort has to be their own . . . and that the trouble they are in is all their own doing . . . is one that they can't or won't entertain.

In terms of morals there is no such thing as 'state.' Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts.

If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?

A monarch's neck should always have a noose around it—it keeps him upright.

Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure "good" government, it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare — most people want to run things, but want no part of the blame. This used to be called the "backseat driver" syndrome.

Thou art God'. It's not a message of cheer and hope. It's a defiance - and an unafraid, unabashed assumption of personal responsibility.

Is this Paradise?' 'I can guarantee you that it isn't,' Jubal assured him. 'My taxes are due this week.

Now let me get something straight: you are not in my debt. You can't be. Impossible - because I never do anything I don't want to do. Nor does anyone, but in my case I am always aware of it. So please don't invent a debt that does not exist, or before you know it you will be trying to feel gratitude - and that is the treacherous first step downward to complete moral degradation.

My point is that one person is responsible, Always. If H-bombs exist--and they do--some man controls them. In terms of morals there is no such thing as 'state'. Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts.

A little more money won't do you any good - because daughters can use up ten percent more than a man can make in any normal occupation, regardless of the amount.

To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy.

Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect. But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible.

If it has to be done, a man—a real man—shoots his own dog himself; he doesn't hire a proxy who may bungle it.

A poisonous snake is not dangerous, not any more than a loaded gun is dangerous—in each case, if you handle it properly. The thing that made that coral snake dangerous was that I hadn't known what it was, what it could do. If, in my ignorance, I had handled it carelessly, it would have killed me as casually and as innocently as a kitten scratches.

The power to tax, once conceded, has no limits; it continues until it destroys. I was not joking when I told them to dig into their own pouches. It may not be possible to do away with government – sometimes I think that government is an inescapable disease of human beings. But it may be possible to keep it small and starved and inoffensive – and can you think of a better way than by requiring the governors themselves to pay the costs of their antisocial hobby?

certain feet were made for stepping on ,in order to improve the breed, promote the general welfare and minimize the ancient insolence of office..

It comes from exercising care in the choice of parents.

They insisted on thinking of God as something outside themselves. Something that yearns to take every indolent moron to His breast and comfort him. The notion that the effort has to be their own, and that the trouble they are in is all their own doing, is one that they can't or won't entertain.

I am not sentimental about kids. Little monsters, most of them, who don't civilize until they are grown and sometimes not then.

But I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Nevertheless, once you pick up a stray cat and feed it, you cannot abandon it. Self-love forbids it. The cat's welfare becomes essential to your own peace of mind—even when it's a bloody nuisance not to break faith with the cat.

Nobody paid attention; they walked around or stepped over – except one woman carrying a baby, who stopped, kicked him carefully in face, then went down ramp.

There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk "his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor" on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children, can never be anything else.

The fact that he had broken his oath more times than there were years intervening did not trouble him; his was not a small mind bothered by logic and consistency.