Quotes about Responsibility

All these years later, I recognize this as the way that winners often speak of those they have harmed beyond repair. Trying to find some way to live with what we have done, we find solace in the idea that their doom was their own doing.

When the compressor for the air conditioning in the house turns on, I feel apologetic. I had no idea how loud it was out here, clearly interrupting a whole valley full of creatures that are trying to say something to one another.

The basic principle is to do no harm. Beyond that, you are free to do quite a lot of things for a living, but they are not all going to come with their own evident purposes. Supplying that purpose is going to be up to you.

Think hard before you do this," one said to me when I told him I wanted to be ordained. "Right now, you have the broadest ministry imaginable. As a layperson, you can serve God no matter what you do for a living, and you can reach out to people who will never set foot inside a church. Once you are ordained, that is going to change. Every layer of responsibility you add is going to narrow your ministry, so think hard before you choose a smaller box.

I suppose that is my central obsession. What we owe to society, what we owe to ourselves.

God doesn't need to punish us. He just grants us a long enough life to punish ourselves.

In a world as wrong as this one, all we can do is make things as right as we can.

Obedience is detachment from the self. This is the most radical detachment of all. But what is the self? The self is the principle of reason and responsibility in us. It is the root of freedom, it is what makes us men.

The person who receives the most favors is the one who knows how to return them.

You will bear a commission from God, for you have received a call from God.

All of us have to recognize that we owe our children more than we have been giving them.

May be is very well, but Must is the master. It is my duty to show justice without recompense.