Quotes About Responsibility

Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

Every man's happiness is his own responsibility.

You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.

If this country is ever demoralized, it will come from trying to live without work.

My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.

Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

in times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.

I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.

Never do anything for anyone who can just as well do it themself

The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.

The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day.

I am very little inclined on any occasion to say anything unless I hope to produce some good by it.

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth

To sin by silence when they should protest, makes cowards of men.

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

I will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. It is not the Constitution as I would like to have it, but as it is, that is to be defended. The Constitution will not be preserved & defended until it is enforced & obeyed in every part of every one of the United States. It must be so respected, obeyed, enforced and defended, and let the grass grow where it may.

If you want to test a man's character, give him power.

This is a world of compensation; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.

If I do good, I feel good...If I do bad, I feel bad

The worst thing you can do for those you love is the things they could and should do themselves.

January] 2nd. [1863] When an individual in a church or out of it becomes dangerous to the public interest, he must be checked; but let the churches, as such, take care of themselves.

I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.