"I must do something" always solves more problems than "Something must be done." ~Author Unknown

Responsibility: A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Responsibility's like a string we can only see the middle of. Both ends are out of sight. ~William McFee, Casuals of the Sea, 1916

The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs. ~Joan Didion

Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it's addressed to someone else. ~Ivern Ball

The great thought, the great concern, the great anxiety of men is to restrict, as much as possible, the limits of their own responsibility. ~Giosué Borsi

We need to restore the full meaning of that old word, duty. It is the other side of rights. ~Pearl Buck

Why do children want to grow up? Because they experience their lives as constrained by immaturity and perceive adulthood as a condition of greater freedom and opportunity. But what is there today, in America, that very poor and very rich adolescents want to do but cannot do? Not much: they can "do" drugs, "have" sex, "make" babies, and "get" money (from their parents, crime, or the State). For such adolescents, adulthood becomes synonymous with responsibility rather than liberty. Is it any surprise that they remain adolescents? ~Thomas Szasz

With every civil right there has to be a corresponding civil obligation. ~Edison Haines

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty. ~John D. Rockefeller Jr.

We have the Bill of Rights. What we need is a Bill of Responsibilities. ~Bill Maher

Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame. ~Erica Jong

When you blame others, you give up your power to change. ~Author Unknown

Even when we know what is right, too often we fail to act. More often we grab greedily for the day, letting tomorrow bring what it will, putting off the unpleasant and unpopular. ~Bernard M. Baruch

Duty is what one expects from others. ~Oscar Wilde

A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed. ~William James

Mistakes fail in their mission of helping the person who blames them on the other fellow. ~Henry S. Haskins

Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him. ~Booker T. Washington

God has entrusted me with myself. ~Epictetus

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until... we have stopped saying "It got lost," and say "I lost it." ~Sidney J. Harris

It is easy to ignore responsibility when one is only an intermediate link in a chain of action. ~Stanley Milgram

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

Whether or not you have children yourself, you are a parent to the next generation. If we can only stop thinking of children as individual property and think of them as the next generation, then we can realize we all have a role to play. ~Charlotte Davis Kasl, Finding Joy, 1994

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

The commands of democracy are as imperative as its privileges and opportunities are wide and generous. Its compulsion is upon us. ~Woodrow Wilson

No man was ever endowed with a right without being at the same time saddled with a responsibility. ~Gerald W. Johnson

Those who are unwilling to invest in the future haven't earned one. ~H.W. Lewis, Technological Risk, 1990

Dr. Miller says we are pessimistic because life seems like a very bad, very screwed-up film. If you ask "What the hell is wrong with the projector?" and go up to the control room, you find it's empty. You are the projectionist, and you should have been up there all the time. ~Colin Wilson

We all participate in weaving the social fabric; we should therefore all participate in patching the fabric when it develops holes. ~Anne C. Weisberg, Everything a Working Mother Needs to Know, 1994

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future. ~George Bernard Shaw