Delegating responsibility does not relinquish personal accountability.

Those who enjoy responsibility usually get it; those who merely enjoy exercising authority usually lose it.

The two qualities that chiefly inspire regard and affection [are] that a thing is you own and that it is your only one.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the induction of a new order of things.

Reality doesn't go away when it is ignored.

Without properly kept accounts it is impossible to maintain truth in its pristine purity.

If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence every one must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

Thinking too well of people often allows them to be better than they otherwise would.

Either you will control your government, or government will control you.

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Champions take responsibility. When the ball is coming over the net, you can be sure I want the ball.

The resources, advantages, and the powers of the American people are very great, and they have, consequently, succeed to equally great responsibilities.

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.

The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it continues the true source of national vigor and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.

I have noticed that even those who assert that everything is predestined and that we can change nothing about it still look both ways before they cross the street.

I never encounter anything except my responsibility.

We know of no culture that has said, articulately, that there is no difference between men and women except in the way they contribute to the creation of the next generation.

We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye.

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.

Only when we realize that there is no eternal, unchanging truth or absolute truth can we arouse in ourselves a sense of intellectual responsibility.