Quotes About Accountability

When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that four of his fingers are pointing at himself.

— Louis Nizer

If you can’t stand the heat, you’d better get out of the kitchen.

— Harry S. Truman (attrib.)

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for injury.

— John Stuart Mill

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

— Stanislaw Lec

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

— Benjamin Franklin

There can be no true response without responsibility; there can be no responsibility without response.

— Arthur Vogel

A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.

— Dean Acheson

If you let other people do it for you, they will do it to you.

— Robert Anthony

The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit of doing them.

— Benjamin Jowett

The irony of the matter is that the future generations do not have a vote.  In effect, we hold their proxy.

— Charles J. Hitch, regarding the environment

If a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything.

— Claude McKay

I have her life, I can take life away.

— Mary Beth Whitehead, on her role as surrogate mother to Baby M

People think responsibility is hard to bear.  It’s not. I think that sometimes it is the absence of responsibility that is harder to bear.  You have a great feeling of impotence.

— Henry Kissinger