Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Responsibility

"If you can neither enjoy nor bring acceptance to what you do – stop. Otherwise, you are not taking responsibility for the only thing you can really take responsibility for, which also happens to be one thing that really matters: your state of consciousness. And if you are not taking responsibility for your state of consciousness, you are not taking responsibility for life." - Eckhart Tolle, born Ulrich Leonard Tolle

"The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it." - Mao Tse-tung, alternatively Zedong, Ze dong, aka Chairman Mao

"Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made free by it; whether he is moved by other people and outer forces or moves them this is of the essence of leadership." -

"When you take responsibility for your actions, you give yourself immeasurable power." - Fred D. Anderson

"We believe that humanity stands at the threshold of its next great leap. However, our success in making this transition depends on our willingness to develop a greater vision and a clearer sense of responsibility for one another. Understanding and articulating the nature and dynamics of consciousness is key to achieving this new vision." - Barbara Fields Bernstein

"We create the world in which we live; if that world becomes unfit for human life, it is because we tire of our responsibility." -

"We have to do the best we can. This is our sacred human responsibility." - Albert Einstein

"Authority can be delegated. Responsibility cannot." - Nathaniel Fick

"Once you are willing to take responsibility for your life you become a master of it and you expand - you become more alive and healthier, mentally and physically." - Raúl Juliá, aka Raul Rafael Carlos Julia y Arceley

"Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice can never be attained." - Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller

"The only rule is, do what you really, impulsively, wish to do. But always act on your own responsibility, sincerely. And have the courage of your own strong emotion." -

"We know what we need to do. We may not know all the answers, but we know enough of them that we have no excuse not to act. Too many focus on the difficulty of the problem merely as a means of evading responsibility." - Paul Wellstone, fully Paul David Wellstone

"In order to change, one must first assume responsibility: one must commit oneself to some action. The word "responsibility" itself denotes that capability: "response"+"ability" - that is the ability to respond." - Irvin David Yalom

"[Responsibility to yourself] means that you refuse to sell your talents and aspirations short, simply to avoid conflict and confrontation. And this, in turn, means resisting the forces in society which say that women should be nice, play safe, have low professional expectations, drown in love and forget about work, live through others, and stay in places assigned to us. It means that we insist on a life of meaningful work, insist that work be as meaningful as love and friendship in our lives. It means, therefore, the courage to be “different”; not to be continuously available to others when we need time for ourselves and our work; to be able to demand of others – parents, friends, roommates, teachers, lovers, husbands, children – that they respect our sense of purpose and our integrity as persons." - Adrienne Rich, fully Adrienne Cecil Rich

"The path of purposeful action bears a double blessing for those who walk it: in the blessing of the world is your own. Right action is the key to the re-establishment of God consciousness within your world... Let your deeds speak your message to the world. Your actions have the power to heal. This is a responsibility of great and wonderful magnitude. It is your responsibility, and it is the easiest one, for when you choose the responsibility to heal the world, you instantly allow God to heal the world through you." - Alan Cohen

"The path of purposeful action bears a double blessing for those who walk it: in the blessing of the world is your own. Right action is the key to the re-establishment of God consciousness within your world... Let your deeds speak your message to the world. Your actions have the power to heal. This is a responsibility of great and wonderful magnitude. It is your responsibility, and it is the easiest one, for when you choose the responsibility to heal the world, you instantly allow God to heal the world through you." -

"The path of purposeful action bears a double blessing for those who walk it: in the blessing of the world is your own. Right action is the key to the re-establishment of God consciousness within your world... Let your deeds speak your message to the world. Your actions have the power to heal. This is a responsibility of great and wonderful magnitude. It is your responsibility, and it is the easiest one, for when you choose the responsibility to heal the world, you instantly allow God to heal the world through you." -

"I am not a victim of circumstances. I do not choose to abdicate my responsibility for my own pleasure. It is my responsibility, and my happiness resides in that awareness and in the actions that result from that awareness... You maximize your potential for happiness if you decide right now to accept responsibility for your life." -

"I am not a victim of circumstances. I do not choose to abdicate my responsibility for my own pleasure. It is my responsibility, and my happiness resides in that awareness and in the actions that result from that awareness... You maximize your potential for happiness if you decide right now to accept responsibility for your life." - Alan Epstein

"To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man." - Alan Stewart Paton

"To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man." -

"The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily. No great work has ever been based on hatred and contempt. On the contrary, there is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom of each person who has known and loved it." - Albert Camus

"The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily. No great work has ever been based on hatred and contempt. On the contrary, there is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom of each person who has known and loved it." -

"In a state of war each sincere citizen feels responsibility to society in the abstract, and none to the people he kills." - Alex Comfort, fully Alexander Comfort

"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precaution for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust... The most effectual one is such a limitation of the term of appointments as will maintain a proper responsibility to the people." - Alexander Hamilton

"The responsibility for change… lies with us. We must begin with ourselves, teaching ourselves not to close our minds prematurely to the novel, the surprising, the seemingly radical. This means fighting off the idea-assassins who rush forward to kill any new suggestion on grounds of its impracticality, while defending whatever now exists as practical, not matter how absurd, oppressive, or unworkable it may be. It means fighting for freedom of expression – the right of people to voice their ideas, even if heretical." - Alvin Toffler

"I have accustomed myself to receive with respect the opinion of others but always take the responsibility of deciding for myself." - Andrew Jackson

"Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more." - Anthony "Tony" Robbins

"A chief is a man who assumes responsibility. He says, 'I was beaten,' he does not say 'My men were beaten.'" - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"You're immature if you can't accept reality or responsibility." -

"As human beings, we are endowed with freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is up to us." - Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee

"The great appeal of fatalism… is as a refuge from the terror of responsibility." - Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr., born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger

"[Man’s] self-conscious existence as man forces on him a choice of uses for his faculties... This choice is what is called free will. Free will, therefore, not only a prerogative but an obligation for man. Free will thus understood, has nothing to do with destiny. It is a power which man is compelled by his own nature to use, whether the use he makes of it is predestined or not... the responsibility of deciding rests with me just the same whether the outcome is predetermined or not. If it is predetermined, it is my own past habit-forming and character-forming decisions in this and previous lifetimes which have predetermined it; and this decision in its turn will help to condition my mind, thus determining future ones." - Arthur W Osborn

"Each day, say ‘thank you’ for being alive. Each day, take responsibility for your physical performance. Each day, be careful of human nature [your own and others’]. Each day, behold the wonder of Mother nature." - Blanche DeVries Bernard

"Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him." - Booker T. Washington, fully Booker Taliaferro Washington

"Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon them and to let them know that you trust them." - Booker T. Washington, fully Booker Taliaferro Washington

"The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life." - Brian Tracy

"Bureaucracies are the same the world over – slow, complicated, timid, unimaginative, routine and inhuman. The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escapes all responsibility." -

"People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves and taking responsibility for what they know." -

"The most striking defect of our system of government is that it divides political power and thereby conceals political responsibility." - Carl Lotus Becker

"A task becomes a duty from the moment you suspect it to be an essential part of that integrity which alone entitles a man to assume responsibility." - Dag Hammarskjöld

"The responsibility for our mistakes is ours, but not the credit for our achievements. Man’s freedom is a freedom to betray God. God may love us - yes - but our response is voluntary." - Dag Hammarskjöld

"To let oneself be bound by a duty from the moment you see it approaching is part of the integrity that alone justifies responsibility." - Dag Hammarskjöld

"Freedom and responsibility go together, as do independence and discipline." - Dan Millman, born Daniel Jay Millman

"Our responsibility is to allow our deepest drivers and talents to find expression through whatever form of service or career we choose, in the most positive, altruistic way we can." - Dan Millman, born Daniel Jay Millman

"This metaphor of a mountain path allows us to reconcile an ancient paradox about whether we truly have free will or whether our life is somehow predestined. At the moment of birth we are each given a specific inner mountain to climb, reflecting the force of predestination. How we climb and the time we take are up to us, reflecting the power of free will. In other words, we're given the playing field, but we choose how to play the game. We always have the power of choice, discipline, responsibility and commitment. No life path is harder or easier, better or worse, than any other, except to the degree we make it so." - Dan Millman, born Daniel Jay Millman

"Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the 'someday I'll’ philosophy." - Denis E. Waitley

"Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Human dignity, economic freedom, individual responsibility, these are the characteristics that distinguish democracy from all other forms devised by man." - Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower

"This is what I found out about religion. It gives you courage to make the decisions you must make in a crisis, and then the confidence to leave the result to Higher Power. Only by trust in God can a man carrying responsibility find repose." - Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower