Responsibility Quotes

“The master of the garden is the one who waters it, trims the branches, plants the seeds, and pulls the weeds. If you merely stroll through the garden, you are but an acolyte.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“You can't blame anyone else, ... , no one but yourself. You have to make your own choices and live every agonizing day with the consequences of those choices.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

“Any problems that may occur have ultimately been caused by you, because you are responsible for where you are and what you are doing there.”
― Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain

“Mastering the art of seduction gives one a great power, and like any power, it's to be wielded with responsibility; a man who wields the art of seduction without a sense of responsibility and restraint is a walking proximity bomb of viral epidemics, needless procreation, heartbroken families, and shattered dreams.”
― Mike Norton

“Resolution, like responsibility, is a product of ownership, and kids can't resolve a conflict until they figure out how they contributed to it.”
― Richard Eyre, The Entitlement Trap: How to Rescue Your Child with a New Family System of Choosing, Earning, and Ownership

“I am sorry my decisions do not meet with your approval, but nevertheless, they are mine, and the consequences are also mine.”
― Rachel Caine, The Dead Girls' Dance

“He understood well enough how a man with a choice between pride and responsibility will almost always choose pride--if responsibility robs him of his manhood.”
― Stephen King, The Running Man

“I’ve never needed a sword to protect you—to raise you the way your father wanted. Caring for my family meant putting away the fighter, so I did.”
― M.L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

“We must all work in harmony with each other to stand up for what is right, to speak up for what is fair, and to always voice any corrections so that the ignorant become informed and justice is never ignored. Every time a person allows an act of ignorance to happen, they delay our progress for true change. Every person, molecule and thing matters. We become responsible for the actions of others the instant we become conscious of what they are doing wrong and fail to remind them of what is right.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“So much is asked of parents, and so little is given.”
― Virginia Satir

“The world has long ceased to be the author of your anguish.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Darkness That Comes Before

“The Armful

For every parcel I stoop down to seize
I lose some other off my arms and knees,
And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns,
Extremes too hard to comprehend at. once
Yet nothing I should care to leave behind.
With all I have to hold with hand and mind
And heart, if need be, I will do my best.
To keep their building balanced at my breast.
I crouch down to prevent them as they fall;
Then sit down in the middle of them all.
I had to drop the armful in the road
And try to stack them in a better load.”
― Robert Frost

“Reverence is an emotion that we can nurture in our very young children, respect is an attitude that we instill in our children as they become school-agers, and responsibility is an act that we inspire in our children as they grow through the middle years and become adolescents.”
― Zoe Weil, Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times

“Rwanda will never ever leave me. It's in the pores of my body. My soul is in those hills, my spirit is with the spirits of all those people who were slaughtered and killed that I know of, and many that I didn't know. … Fifty to sixty thousand people walking in the rain and the mud to escape being killed, and seeing a person there beside the road dying. We saw lots of them dying. And lots of those eyes still haunt me, angry eyes or innocent eyes, no laughing eyes. But the worst eyes that haunt me are the eyes of those people who were totally bewildered. They're looking at me with my blue beret and they're saying, "What in the hell happened? We were moving towards peace. You were there as the guarantor" -- their interpretation -- "of the mandate. How come I'm dying here?" Those eyes dominated and they're absolutely right. How come I failed? How come my mission failed? How come as the commander who has the total responsibility-- We learn that, it's ingrained in us, because when we take responsibility it means the responsibility of life and death, of humans that we love.”
― Romeo Dallaire

“The fact that good people can be forced to do wrong doesn’t make them less good. But it also doesn’t make the wrong less wrong.”
― Ovadya ben Malka, A Damaged Mirror

“Men love liberty because it protects them from control and humiliation from others, and thus affords them the possibility of dignity. They loathe liberty because it throws them back on their own abilities and resources, and thus confronts them with the possibility of insignificance.”
― Thomas Stephen Szasz

“If I was going to act irresponsibly, the least I could do was be responsible for it.”
― Danny Wallace, Yes Man

“When you do anything from a clear judgment that it ought to be done, never shrink from being seen to do it, even though the world should misunderstand it; for if you are not acting rightly, shun the action itself; if you are, why fear those who wrongly censure you?”
― Epictetus, Enchiridion and Selections from the Discourses

“A man who wields a pen has to be accountable to society.”
― Shusaku Endo, Scandal

“Responsibility is the thing people dread the most of all. Yet it is the one thing in the world that develops us, gives us manhood or womanhood fiber.”
― Dr. Frank Crane

“To be part of a family, or any community, is to have duties and responsibility, to be bound by the rules of that group.”
― Robin Hobb, Golden Fool

“We have within us the power to choose how we respond to a hurtful situation. We cannot control the actions of others, but we can control how we will respond. As we understand our power to choose, we see that we are in control. Our life is not a result of our environment or upbringing, but a result of our choices. We have the ability to determine the kind of life we want to live and the type of person we wish to be.”
― Cameron C. Taylor, 8 Attributes of Great Achievers

“In my father's last letter he said that the world is run by those willing to take the responsibility for the running of it. If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Suttree

“She is in charge of everything, but no one knows. It is a tremendous burden, she says, to be responsible for every little thing, every infant born, every leaf falling from every tree, every wave that breaks onto the beach, every ant on its journey.”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“The only parts that really matter and take commitment in wedding vows are; worse, sickness and poorer. Better, richer and healthy is pretty easy to deal with.”
― Rob Liano

“The story is about being loyal to the truth as a nation, that citizens of a democracy are collectively responsible for what their troops do in war, good or bad.”
― Kevin Sites, In the Hot Zone: One Man, One Year, Twenty Wars – Award-Winning War Journalism on Truth, Conflict, and the Reality Beyond Myths

“Treue gegen sich selbst und Gütigkeit gegen Andere: Darin ist alles befasst.”
― Konfuzius, Gespräche

“So much about life in a global economy feels as though it has passed beyond the individual's control--what happens to our jobs, to the prices at the gas station, to the vote in the legislature. But somehow food still feels a little different. We can still decide, every day, what we're going to put into our bodies, what sort of food chain we want to participate in. We can, in other words, reject the industrial omelet on offer and decide to eat another.”
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

“But the finger I pointed at her turned back to me. I had loved her. Not only had I loved her, I had chosen her.”
― Bernhard Schlink, The Reader

“I traded freedom for power, and I could use that power to keep the people I cared about safe. To wish for both freedom and power would be selfish; there was a reason everything came with a cost.”
― Melissa Caruso, The Defiant Heir