Quotes about responsibility

I think I have this responsibility to my father’s generation, and especially future generations.

Citizens should bear the responsibility to act.

Every one of my acts commits me as a man. Every one of my silences, every one of my cowardices reveals me as a man.

Idiots are not responsible for what they do. The real guilt falls on rational people who sit on their hands while the morons run wild. You can opt out if you want to. Play it safe. But if you do, don’t complain when the roof comes down.

Our generation faces only one danger, that we might say to ourselves this is not our problem, and that we will pass it off to the distant future. That we might shrug and say to ourselves that a thousand years is a long time. That we will become complacent and conclude that this problem will take care of itself.

But I say to you, we should take no satisfaction in the fact that we ourselves are in no physical danger. This is a hazard to our world, to everything we hope to pass on to future generations. And it is clear that we should act now, while we have the time.

Poetic naturalism is a philosophy of freedom and responsibility. The raw materials of life are given to us by the natural world, and we must work to understand them and accept the consequences. The move from description to prescription, from saying what happens to passing judgment on what should happen, is a creative one, a fundamentally human act. The world is just the world, unfolding according to the patterns of nature, free of any judgmental attributes. The world exists; beauty and goodness are things that we bring to it.

You didn’t know, but not knowing is no excuse.

The man who forges weapons can claim he’s never killed, but he still prepares for the slaughter.

It becomes the responsibility of every man, upon realizing he lacks the truth to seek it out.

“You make it sound like having the power to change the world is a bad thing.”

“Bad? No. Abhorrent, depressing, ghastly. Having power is a terrible burden, the worst thing imaginable, except for every other alternative.”

He had decided it was better to be a volcano than a man; at least one set no store by what one’s acts destroyed.

It’s okay to be a responsible member of society if only you know what you’re going to be held responsible for.