Responsibility quotes
5.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside responsibility — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"I'm not really conservative. I'm conservative on certain things. I believe in less government. I believe in fiscal responsibility and all those things that maybe Republicans used to believe in but don't any more."
"What comes forth from you as an artist cannot be controlled. But you have responsibilities as a global citizen. Your history dictates your duty. And by writing about black people, you are not limiting yourself. The experiences of African-Americans are as wide open as God's closet."
"Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. An artist is a creature driven by demons. He don't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done. The writer's only responsibility is to his art."
"I don't know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive, but what I do know is that it is in your hands. It is in your hands."
"When you create wealth, it’s your responsibility to return it to society."
"Great nations which fail to meet their responsibilities are consigned to the dustbin of history. We grew from that small, weak republic which had as its assets spirit, optimism, faith in God and an unshakeable belief that free men and women could govern themselves wisely. We became the leader of the free world, an example for all those who cherish freedom."
"Love yourself and watch - Today, tomorrow, always. To straighten the crooked You must first do a harder thing - Straighten yourself."
"Each contact is an opportunity for your own unique satsang with your Self, not in some strained or contrived way, but by keeping your mind inside your Heart, by trusting the inner guru and by recognizing each moment as perfect in itself and by simply being your Self. This is the true and natural responsibility or rather 'response-ability', the ability to respond effortlessly to the needs of the moment."
"I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look at the individual. I can love only one person at a time. I can feed only one person at a time. Just one, one, one."
"And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction."
"Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences."
"If we want there to be peace in the world, we have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid in our hearts, to find the soft spot and stay with it. We have to have that kind of courage and take that kind of responsibility. That’s the true practice of peace."
"No decision has been made unless carrying it out in specific steps has become someone's work assignment and responsibility."
"Executives owe it to the organization and to their fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs."
"The very ingredients that nurture love - mutuality, reciprocity, protection, worry, responsibility for the other - are sometimes the very ingredients that stifle desire."
"I loved the fact that it wasn't my responsibility to change somebody, that it was God's, that my part was just to communicate love and approval."
"If the race is to be freed from its crippling burden of good and evil it must be psychiatrists who take the original responsibility"
"Every man should be responsible to others, nor should anyone be allowed to do just as he pleases; for where absolute freedom is allowed there is nothing to restrain the evil which is inherent in every man. But the principle of responsibility secures that which is the greatest good in states; the right persons rule and are prevented from doing wrong, and the people have their due. It is evident that this is the best kind of democracy, and why? because the people are drawn from a certain class."
"Saints, it has been said, are the sinners who go on trying. So free men and women are the oppressed who go on trying and who in the process make themselves fit to bear the responsibilities and uphold the disciplines which will maintain a free society."
"You do not become a ''dissident'' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society."
