Quotes & Sayings About Responsibility For Family

Help your children to see and notice poverty and differences in privilege that seem inhumane and unfair. Do this in a way that does not increase guilt or shame for what you have as a family, but rather helps them see their responsibility for sharing with others and keeping others in mind. — Polly Young-Eisendrath

I also don't think that parents should pay for their children's graduate or law school. Helping a student with a four-year bachelor's degree is very generous, but an advanced degree should be considered a personal responsibility. That will ensure that the coursework is taken very seriously and makes the young person take ownership of their degree. and when they graduate, it's a shared accomplishment that the whole family can be proud of. But do not encourage graduate school just for graduate school's sake. Work experience is much more valuable if the decision come down to that. — Dana Perino

I will describe the choices I made, continue to take responsibility for my decisions, and express my remorse to Judge Salas and the public. I am heartbroken that this is affecting my family - especially my four young daughters, who mean more to me than anything in the world. — Teresa Giudice

The key to success for any woman who wants to have a really serious career and a family is to marry a guy who is going to take at least half the responsibility for the house and kids - and sometimes more than half. — Gail Collins

Someday you'll understand. You'll have your own children, and they'll mean more to you than the world. A wife has to defend her children, even against her own husband. Not that I expect you to be easily cowed. But sometimes, despite all you say and do, your husband won't be dissuaded from folly. When that happens, as a mother you have to close ranks. Your first responsibility is to your children. To salvage what you can. Even if they hate you for it. — David Walton

For me, it's all about who you are. Some athletes may feel a responsibility. Some may not. One thing I've talked with my family and team about is doing more. Trying to make an impact. — Chris Paul

If responsibility for the upbringing of children is to continue to be vested in the family, then the rights of children will be secured only when parents are able to make a living for their families with so little difficulty that they may give their best thought and energy to the child's development and the problem of helping it adjust itself to the complexities of the modern environment. — Suzanne La Follette

Raising human offspring is an endeavor nothing less than a continued labor of patience, hard work, organization and ongoing adaptation. All of which is unlike that expected of any other living creatures on the planet (or this sector of the universe, as far as we can tell). It demands the most complex responsibility and long-term commitment of any parenting life-form. Indeed, it is at times, at least for quality parents, an overwhelming, exhausting, even daunting task. Albeit, one that in the end, (and, most of the time even in the middle of it), is more than worth it. — Connie Kerbs

Our responsibility is to rally and lead the whole party and the Chinese people of all ethnic groups, take up this historic baton and continue working hard for the great renewal of the Chinese nation, so that we will stand rock firm in the family of nations and make fresh and greater contribution to mankind. — Xi Jinping

But birth control can also be compelled by sinful motivations. These can include putting lesser priorities like career above higher priorities like family or greedily wanting to make as much income as possible to the exclusion of everything else, and not incur the costs of child raising; being selfish and not wanting to have to care for a child; or immaturely not wanting to take on the responsibility that good parenting requires. — Mark Driscoll

Well, one of the most important things for Americans to be reminded of is that a lot of the exceptional nature of our country is founded in Judeo-Christian values that promotes individualism, personal responsibility, a strong work ethic, and a commitment to family, charity. — Jim DeMint

Time-use researchers call it "contaminated time." It is a product of both role overload - working and still bearing the primary responsibility for children and home - and task density. It's mental pollution, one researcher explained. One's brain is stuffed with all the demands of work along with the kids' calendars, family logistics, and chores. Sure, mothers can delegate tasks on the to-do list, but even that takes up brain space - not simply the asking but also the checking to make sure the task has been done, and the biting of the tongue when it hasn't been done as well or as quickly as you'd like. So it is perhaps not surprising that time researchers are finding that, while "free time" may help ease the feeling of time pressure for men, and in the 1970s helped women a little, by 1998 it was providing women no relief at all.15 — Brigid Schulte

Each of us must learn to work not just for one self, one's own family or one's nation, but for the benefit of all humankind. Universal responsibility is the key to human survival. It is the best foundation for world peace. — Dalai Lama

Humanity is part of the cosmic family. All creation is within heaven and earth, but humanity has been given the added responsibility of protecting and caring for our cosmic parents. Humanity suffers when we destroy heaven and earth. Only when we show respect and courtesy toward our cosmic parents can we truly walk the path of the Tao. — Ilchi Lee

The only struggle came from me wanting more for my family and feeling like if they had one less individual to take care of - if my mom only had her and my sister and my grandmother and my aunt to take care of, couldn't she do the things she was doing for me for herself? That's the reason I took myself away from my family. I left home when I was 13 years old to assume the responsibilities of being a man. — Petey Pablo

During the last 17 years ... I have been working at the restoration of a once exhausted hillside. Its scars are now healed over, though still visible, and this year it has provided abundant pasture, more than in any year since we have owned it. But to make it as good as it is now has taken 17 years. If I had been a millionaire or if my family had been starving, it would still have taken 17 years. It can be better than it is now, but that will take longer. For it to live fully in its own responsibility, as it did before bad use ran it down, may take hundreds of years. — Wendell Berry

For those who are able to work, work has to be seen as the best route out of poverty. For work is not just about more money - it is transformative. It's about taking responsibility for yourself and your family. — Iain Duncan Smith

When I observe Gram, I see how fragile the notion of tradition can be. If I take my eyes off the way she kneads her Easter bread, or if I fail to study the way she sews a seam in suede, or if I lose the mental image I have of her when she negotiates a better deal with a button salesman, somehow, the very essence of her will be lost. When she goes, the responsibility for carrying on will fall to me. My mother says I'm the keeper of the flame, because I work here, and because I choose to live here. A flame is a very fragile thing, too, and there are times when I wonder if I'm the on who can keep it going. — Adriana Trigiani

I will choose and display the right attitudes. I will determine and act upon important priorities. I will know and follow healthy guidelines. I will communicate with and care for my family. I will practice and develop good thinking. I will make and keep proper commitments. I will earn and properly manage finances. I will deepen and live out my faith. I will accept and show responsibility. I will initiate and invest in solid relationships. I will plan for and model generosity. I will embrace and practice good values. I will seek and experience improvements. — John C. Maxwell

The State, in organizing security should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility; in establishing a national minimum, it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and his family. — William Beveridge

Church has believed that parents probably wont' assume responsibility for their own children's growth, so they have tried to become a parent substitute. This in turn ha s fostered parents to adopt a "drop-off" mentality. Maybe the greatest gift a church can give parents is the confidence and courage to do what God has wired them to do. — Reggie Joiner

I was startled to realize that in spite of everything, the last few months had had one area of lightness: not having to bear the tremendous weight of the responsibility neurosurgery demanded - and part of me wanted to be excused from picking up the yoke again. Neurosurgery is really hard work, and no one would have faulted me for not going back. (People often ask if it is a calling, and my answer is always yes. You can't see it as a job, because if it's a job, it's one of the worst jobs there is.) A couple of my professors actively discouraged the idea: "Shouldn't you be spending time with your family?" ("Shouldn't you?" I wondered. I was making the decision to do this work because this work, to me, was a sacred thing.) — Paul Kalanithi

Black women's feelings of responsibility for nurturing the children in their own extended family networks have stimulated a more generalized ethic of care where black women feel accountable to all the black community's children. — Patricia Hill Collins

I have no intention of slurring over the differences we have with socialism, nor concealing my belief that we are the National Party of Great Britain, representing not narrow class interest, nor the bigotry of the left wing intellectuals, but all those who support the British tradition of democracy, of personal freedom, of personal responsibility for one's own affairs and those of one's family, with the least possible interference from the State. — Norman Tebbit

Both group effort and individual testimony flow from conviction as to the role of people on earth. In stewardship of the common heritage, a few simple beliefs recur: that all are indeed members of the same human family, that all share in responsibility for the others, that each is capable of responding directly to divine guidance. To seek to translate these into practical action with regard to soil or petroleum or the fish of the sea is not necessarily to do what is directly effective in changing society. — Gilbert F. White

Work-family conflicts
the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child
would not be forced upon women with suchsanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children. — Letty Cottin Pogrebin

As we pointed out, the common principles of conservative thought make up a list crying out for an explanation of how they fit together: smaller government; strong defense; lower taxes; traditional family values; personal responsibility; and free markets. As we have seen, these all flow from a strict father morality. Finally, — George Lakoff

Those who reinforce the disintegrating elements in our society will get no thanks from future generations. The family becomes the ultimate victim of homosexuality, a result which any society can tolerate only within certain limits.

If the American Psychiatric Association endorses one of the symptoms of social distress as a normal phenomenon it demonstrates to the public its ignorance of social dynamics, of the relation of personal maladaptation to social disharmony, and thereby acquires a responsibility for aggravating the already existing chaos.
[response to December 15, 1973 verdict] — Abram Kardiner

As parents, we have the responsibility and the power to create a foundational love for nutritious foods that will influence our children's choices for decades to come, setting the stage for our children, grandchildren, and future generations to flourish in wellness and health. — Leah Borski

If you were sexually abused & could not go to your family for support, you deserve to realize that your family failed you fundamentally. Your parents did not provide a safe atmosphere of support & protection for their children, which is a parent's first responsibility. It was not your fault. — Patti Feuereisen

It is time to return to core values, time to get back to basics, to self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for the others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family - and not shuffling it off on other people and the state. — John Major

We may view it as our responsibility to control something that is not in fact within our control and yet fail to exercise the power and authority that we do have over our own behavior. Mothers cannot make children think, feel, or be a certain way, but we can be firm, consistent, and clear about what behavior we will and will not tolerate, and what the consequences are for misbehavior. We can also change our part in patterns that keep family members stuck. At the same time we are doomed to failure with any self-help venture if we view the problem as existing within ourselves - or within the child or the child's father, for that matter. There is never one villain in family life, although it may appear that way on the surface. — Harriet Lerner

Writing a memoir is a holistic method of learning and healing by placing responsibility for personal transformation on the spiritual authority of the self. Writing a person's life story is useful to gain a comprehensive understanding regarding a person's maturation, distinctive stages of personal development, and the influences provided by their family and society. The writing processes also serves as a catharsis for painful personal events that a person seeks to integrate into their transmuting being. Writing our personal story, we discover new dimensions of our being. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Are you aware that a healthy level of self-esteem is directly related to your ability to forgive yourself and others? It is. How so, you may ask? When you accept that you are no better or worse than anyone else and that you're not perfect and neither is anyone else you'll see the wisdom and reasonableness of forgiving yourself and others. A healthy level of self-esteem will also enable you to take responsibility for your words and actions and establish and maintaining healthy personal boundaries. The more you appreciate and respect yourself the more you'll be able to appreciate and respect others and others will find it easy to appreciate and respect you. — George Araiza

As she worked, she remembered something her parents had said to her when Klaus was born, and against when they brought Sunny home from the hospital. 'you are the eldest Baudelaire child,' they had said, kindly but firmly. 'And as the eldest, it will always be your responsibility to look after your younger siblings. Promise us that you will always watch out for them and make sure they don't get into trouble. — Lemony Snicket

Our parts now
which perforce we must play
are not father and daughter, but one old Abhorsen, making way for the new. But behind this, there is always my love. — Garth Nix

When two human beings get together, they're co-present, there is built into it a certain responsibility we have for each other, and when people are co-present in family relationships and other relationships, that responsibility is there. You can't just turn off a person. On the Internet, you can. — Neil Postman

It is an open question whether or not "liberal democracy" in its present form can provide a thought-world of sufficient moral substance to sustain meaningful lives. This is precisely the question that Vaclav Havel, then newly elected as president of Czechoslovakia, posed in an address to the U.S. Congress. "We still don't know how to put morality ahead of politics, science, and economics," he said. "We are still incapable of understanding that the only genuine backbone of our actions - if they are to be moral - is responsibility. Responsibility to something higher than my family, my country, my firm, my success." What Havel is saying is that it is not enough for his nation to liberate itself from one flawed theory; it is necessary to find another, and he worries that Technopoly provides no answer. To — Neil Postman

Just continue to "walk in the light" you have been given, and leave the future in God's hands. If He is calling you to do a job, He will make it possible for you to care for your family and overcome any other barriers to that responsibility. — James C. Dobson

To this, it is countered that the same-sex conception of marriage and family is, and must be, parasitic upon the demise of conjugal society, wherein biological parents are not taking responsibility for the rearing and education of their own children. Having no natural justification, the dominion of two adults of the same sex over children in their custody is crucially dependent upon the state to enforce their claim to these children as against the claims of the biological parent(s). Same-sex marriage is necessarily a political form of social order, invoking the power of the state to make it so. — Jean Bethke Elshtain

When we see love as the will to nurture one's own or another's spiritual growth, revealed through acts of care, respect, knowing, and assuming responsibility, the foundation of all love in our life is the same. There is no special love exclusively reserved for romantic partners. Genuine love is the foundation of our engagement with ourselves, with family, with friends, with partners, with everyone we choose to love. — Bell Hooks

We have such a theory now; we can solve any moral problem, on any level. Self-interest, love of family, duty to country, responsibility toward the human race - we are even developing an exact ethic for extra-human relations. But all moral problems can be illustrated by one misquotation: 'Greater love hath no man than a mother cat dying to defend her kittens.' Once you understand the problem facing that cat and how she solved it, you will then be ready to examine yourself and learn how high up the moral ladder you are capable of climbing. — Robert A. Heinlein

Strictly enforce the scale of "fixed responsibility." The first and foremost level of responsibility is with the individual himself; the second level is the family; then the church; next the community, finally the county, and, in a disaster or emergency, the state. Under no circumstances is the federal government to become involved in public welfare. The Founders felt it would corrupt the government and also the poor. No Constitutional authority exists for the federal government to participate in charity or welfare. — W. Cleon Skousen

I still love my people, not just my family - my people. I feel a huge responsibility for them. — Mosab Hassan Yousef

There's a tremendous loss of talent to businesses who cannot make room for their employees to attend to family responsibilities. It really amounts to corporate waste: They hire really talented women and then lose them because they can't find ways to keep them productive and content the minute they can't "lean in." — Anne-Marie Slaughter

I love my son. I love my kids, my family, Like I said after I took the misdemeanor plea, I take full responsibility for my actions. — Adrian Peterson

The true patriot is motivated by a sense of responsibility and out of self interest for himself, his family, and the future of his country to resist government abuse of power. He rejects the notion that patriotism means obedience to the state. — Ron Paul

I'm the youngest in a family where I didn't have to take responsibility for much. — Jennifer Lawrence

I feel it's my responsibility to be able to take care of my family by living off the land. That's the ultimate goal for a man. — Amar'e Stoudemire

In the middle of the cavernous cargo hold was a simple, aluminum coffin with a small American flag draped over it. We were bringing another American soldier, just killed, home to his family and final resting place. The starkness of his coffin in the center of the hold, the silence except for the din of the engines, was a real time cold reminder of the consequences of decisions for which we Senators share responsibility. — John F. Kerry

Some people have concerns about what it means to leave our responsibilities to robots. I think to some degree in every family, you've got siblings who disagree over the care for their parents. — Jake Schreier

My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude ... — Albert Einstein

Meanwhile the Viscount of Sylvania, who could no longer walk, now seldom left his castle. His friends and his family were with him all day, and he could own up to the most blameworthy folly, the most absurd extravagance, state the most flagrant paradox, or imply the most shocking fault without his kinsmen reproaching him or his friends joking or disagreeing with him. It was as if they had tacitly absolved him of any responsibility for his deeds and words. Above all they seemed to be trying to keep him from hearing the last sounds, to muffle with sweetness, if not drown out with tenderness, the final creakings of his body, from which life was ebbing. — Marcel Proust

A lover was affectionate and a husband was authoritative. His work was always way more important than his family. His work and his needs were to be accepted as uppermost in every way. She could take leave from her work for one day to take her child to the carnival but he could not. — Anuradha Bhattacharyya

There is a mysterious dance that happens in the family between privilege and responsibility, between trust and accountability. One step forward of responsibility allows for a step forward of privilege. The weight of trust requires the counterweight of accountability. Cloistered parents allow space between themselves and their children for this dance to take place. We don't smother our kids. Neither do we abandon them. We dance together with them. — David Robinson

Officially, the New Testament church at an early stage took seriously their responsibility for widows who lacked family or other resources. The office of deacon was instituted initially to address this pressing need. — Carolyn Custis James

The "environmental crisis," in fact, can be
solved only if people, individually and in their communities, recover responsibility for their thoughtlessly given proxies. If people begin the effort to take back into their own power a significant portion of their economic responsibility, then their inevitable first discovery is that the "environmental crisis" is no such thing; it is not a crisis of our environs or surroundings; it is a crisis of our lives as individuals, as family members, as community members, and as citizens. We have an "environmental crisis" because we have consented to an economy in which by eating, drinking, working, resting, traveling, and enjoying ourselves we are destroying the natural, the god-given world. — Wendell Berry

Family members provided a variety of support--physical, economic, emotional, and psychological... Parents opened bank accounts for their children, even those who were adult, away from home, married, and employed. And children who left Richmond to search for work elsewhere provided for the money in their savings accounts to be used by other relatives, if needed, during their absence. In all these ways African American women and men testified to the notion of family members as having a mutual and continuing responsibility to help each other and to prepare for hard times. — Elsa Barkley Brown

The number one lesson I received from my father is to be responsible for yourself and your family. The responsibility you embrace is working, paying the bills, and coming home EACH night, just as a start. — Tony Gaskins

Life should be full of- Compassion, Peace, Companionship, Honor, Love, Honesty, Joy, Rapture, Euphoria, Friendship, Family, Spiritual Enrichment, Enlightenment, Trust, Truth, Loyalty, Passion, Cultural Enrichment, Unity, Serenity, Zen, Wonder, Respect, Beauty of All Kinds, Balance of all Creation, Philosophy, Adventure, Art, Happiness, Bliss, Serendipity, Kismet, Fantasy, Positivity, Yin, Yang, Color, Variety, Excitement, Sharing, Fun, Sound, Paradise, Magick, Tenderness, Strength, Devotion, Courage, Conviction, Responsibility, Wisdom, Justice, Satisfaction, Fulfillment, Purpose, Mystery, Healing, Learning, Virtue, History, Creativity, Imagination, Receptiveness and Faith. For through these things you are One with your Creator. — Solange Nicole

We can be confident that action which is in accord with a few basic beliefs cannot be wrong and can at least testify to the values we will need to cultivate. These are the beliefs that the human race is a family that has inherited a place on the earth in common, that its members have an obligation to work toward sharing it so that none is deprived of the elementary needs for life, and that all have a responsibility to leave it undegraded for those who follow. — Gilbert F. White

Just as men must give up economic control when their wives share the responsibility for the family's financial well-being, women must give up exclusive parental control when their husbands assume more responsibility for child care. — Augustus Y. Napier

Taking responsibility for yourself and your happiness gives a great freedom to children who have felt guilty and responsible for your unhappiness (which they always do). A child can never hope to balance the scales or repay the debt when a parent has sacrificed her life, her happiness, her fulfilment for the child or the family. Seeing a parent fully embrace life gives a child the permission to do the same, just as seeing a parent suffer indicates to the child that suffering is what life is all about. — Robin Norwood

The selection process has been powerful enough to produce one indisputable outcome: the family is a universal human institution ... In virtually every society into which historians or anthropologists have inquired, one finds people living together on the basis of kinship ties and having responsibility for raising children ... Even in societies where men and women have relatively unrestricted sexual access to one another beginning at an early age, marriage is still the basis for family formation. It is desired by the partners and expected by society. — James Q. Wilson

The ultimate solution is not in the hands of the government. The solution falls on each and every individual, with guidance from family, friends and community. The #1 responsibility for each of us is to change ourselves with hope that others will follow. This is of greater importance than working on changing the government; that is secondary to promoting a virtuous society. If we can achieve this, then the government will change. — Ron Paul

Think long and hard whether you have reached that mature stage of selflessness for this one you think you love so much. The love you enjoy will be the best thing that ever happened to you, but it will cost you your independence.... The responsibility of marriage and family demands time, and when we cheat on that, we rob ourselves of the investment returns. — Ravi Zacharias

If a young man gets married, and starts a family and spends the rest of his life working at a soul-destroying job, he is held up as an example of virtue and responsibility. The other type of man, living only for himself, working only for himself, doing first one thing and then another simply because he enjoys it and because he has to keep only himself, sleeping where and when he wants, and facing woman when he meets her on equal terms and not as one of a million slaves, is rejected by society. The free, unshackled man has no place in its midst. — Esther Vilar

In a 2007 study published in the Journal of Family Psychology,3 researchers asked eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds which criteria they felt were most indicative of adulthood. Their criteria were, in order of importance: (1) accepting responsibility for the consequences of your actions; (2) establishing a relationship with parents as an equal adult; (3) being financially independent from parents; and (4) deciding on beliefs/values independently of parents/other influences. — Julie Lythcott-Haims

We treat employees as a member of the family. If management take the risk of hiring them, we have to take the responsibility for them. — Akio Morita

A MANTRA FOR HOME HEALTH CARE I am my own healer. I have a radiant voice within that guides me. I can make decisions for myself. I can rely on others as needed, but at my discretion. It is my body, my health, my balance, and my responsibility to make right choices for myself. Right choices include working with competent health-care professionals when necessary, allowing friends and family to help as needed, and, above all, being true to my beliefs, with the wisdom and willingness to change as part of the path of healing. — Rosemary Gladstar

Woman is a delicate creature with strong emotions who has been created by the Almighty God to shoulder responsibility for educating society and moving toward perfection. God created woman as symbol of His own beauty and to give solace to her partner and her family. — Hazrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib A.S

Mature citizens have to sink or swim by themselves. Citizens are on their own and have to prove their responsibility and self-reliance. They have become the leaders in their own family units (or local communities). They have to, and are competent to, make their own decisions. They have to protect themselves and their families (or communities). They know what is good for them better than their government, which is distant from them. A good government does not meddle or interfere in their lives. Any governmental meddling or interfering is strongly resented. Here — George Lakoff

Have a look at the results when Australians are asked if they agree or disagree with the statement: 'It is better for the family if the husband is the principal breadwinner outside the home and the wife has primary responsibility for the home and children.' In 1986, just over 55 per cent of men agreed with that proposition. That proportion swan-dived down to about 30 per cent by 2001, but by 2005, it had gone up again, to 41.4 per cent. Women subscribe to that view less enthusiastically than men on the whole, but they too have waxed and waned over the last 30 years. In 1986, 33 per cent of them thought it was better for men to work and women to keep house. By 2001, that had dipped to 19 per cent. But by 2005, it had bobbed back up to 36.4 per cent.17 — Annabel Crabb

I want to set the example my mother set for me: a strong female role model who faces challenges takes risks and conquers fears. I want my children to know that as women they can do whatever they dream as long as they believe in themselves. More than anything it is my responsibility to instill in my daughters the knowledge that they can have a family and everything else too. — Mireya Mayor

I leave the governor's office next week, and with it public life[which] has been on the whole a pleasant one. But for ten years and over my salaries have not equalled my expenses, and there has been a feeling of responsibility, a lack of independence, and a necessary neglect of my family and personal interests and comfort, which make the prospect of a change comfortable to think of. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Cultural wisdom says 'Don't quit your day job.' Yet I think these desires represent our psyche's stretch toward wholeness. And to be whole, as many religious tranditions teach, is to make manifest a unique face of God in the world. We don't want to be irresponsible, yet for every accountant who deserts his family and sails for Tahiti, ten American men have heart attacks at their desks, after hours. — Mary Rose O'Reilley

You can become a model of a perfect man or a devoted husband and a father in order to show the role of the a man's responsibility for the family — Sunday Adelaja

....The wife is the heartbeat of the home. She serves as the thermometer--if she's warm, so is the rest of the family; if she's cold, so is the rest of the family. And if she's an extreme temp--boiling or frigid--the family will follow suit. Calm or chaos comes from her.

I've resisted this responsibility often. It's much easier to point to my husband, the biblically appointed leader of the household, and to examine what I perceive are his flaws, his failures, his lack of whatever. But ultimately, I'm just denying what I really know--that I have a great role to honor and live up to in my marriage and in our home. The questions is, do I embrace it? Or do I run from it? My fear is that I've run from it for a while now. But I'm not running any more. — Sara Horn

I believe that to meet the challenge of our times, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. We must all learn to work not just for our own self, family, or nation but for the benefit of all humankind. Universal responsibility is the key to human survival. It is the best foundation for world peace, the equitable use of natural resources, and through concern for future generations, the proper care of the environment. — Dalai Lama

She also thought that she was head of the family, since she had had to manage her mother's funeral, since she had to get a housekeeper for Billy, and all that. Also, Barbara and her husband were having to look after Billy's business interests, which were considerable, since Billy didn't seem to give a damn for business any more. All this responsibility at such an early age made her a bitchy flibbertigibbet. And Billy, meanwhile, was trying to hang onto his dignity, to persuade Barbara and everybody else that he was far from senile, that, on the contrary, he was devoting himself to a calling much higher than mere business. — Kurt Vonnegut

For all of higher civilization's recorded history, becoming a man was defined overwhelmingly as taking responsibility for a family. — Dennis Prager

I'm convinced that a lot of people simply don't know what's available out there and how it is possible to find a job and work your way up if you are willing to accept responsibility for your life. I know what it's like to be on the bottom. I've been broke. I've been fired seven times from jobs. And I don't even have a college degree. But I didn't blame anyone else for my problems. I knew that if I didn't try to solve them on my own or with the help of friends or family members, no one else was going to take care of me. — Rush Limbaugh

I had been granted unusual freedom and responsibility at an early age, for which I should have been grateful in the extreme, but I wasn't. Instead, I felt oppressed by the old man's expectations. It was drilled into me that anything less than winning was failure. In the impressionable way of sons, I did not consider this rhetorically; I took him at his word. And that's why later, when long-held family secrets came to light, when I noticed that this deity who asked only for perfection was himself less than perfect, that he was in fact not a deity at all - well, I wasn't able to shrug it off. I was consumed instead by a blinding rage. The revelation that he was merely human, and frightfully so, was beyond my power to forgive. Two — Jon Krakauer

My first large-scale community development opportunity was the formation of the Mission Viejo Co. - a partnership with the O'Neill Family, who owned Rancho Mission Viejo. As the young president of the company, I had the responsibility for master planning, master building and implementing the new community's development plans. — Donald Bren

In this fast paced world it is too frequently the case that people accept what society, family members and the authorities, whom nobody ever seems to question, believe regarding how to live their lives. And yet, the happiest people I know have been those who have accepted the primary responsibility for their own spiritual and physical well-being - those who have inner strength, courage, determination, common sense and faith in the process of creating more balanced and satisfying lives for themselves. — Ann Wigmore

As these remarks indicate, the Social Security program involves a transfer from the young to the old. To some extent such a transfer has occurred throughout history - the young supporting their parents, or other relatives, in old age. Indeed, in many poor countries with high infant death rates, like India, the desire to assure oneself of progeny who can provide support in old age is a major reason for high birth rates and large families. The difference between Social Security and earlier arrangements is that Social Security is compulsory and impersonal - earlier arrangements were voluntary and personal. Moral responsibility is an individual matter, not a social matter. Children helped their parents out of love or duty. They now contribute to the support of someone else's parents out of compulsion and fear. The earlier transfers strengthened the bonds of the family; the compulsory transfers weaken them. — Milton Friedman

When we are babies ... we need an authoritative figure to guide and take care of us. We ask no questions about that authority and imagine that the small circumference of family life is the limit of the universe ... As we mature, our horizon expands and we begin to question. This continues until we either throw over our creators
our parents
for good and take their place as the creative force in our lives or find replacements for them because the terror and responsibility are too great. People go one way or the other, and this accounts for all of the great personal and political divides throughout history. — Charlotte Rogan

For a healthy society, those laws and conventions should always support marriage as an institution characterised by an openness to children and the responsibility of fathers and mothers remaining together to care for children born into their family. — Vincent Nichols

Nothing is more important than your family. Nothing comes before your responsibility to watch out for them and provide a home safe from any assault upon them, body or soul. — James MacDonald

Charity is not a virtue to expect in others only. It is the all-important Christian attribute to be found in ourselves ... We believe that charity must begin at home. Can we hope to be charitable to the stranger if love does not abound in the family? A sure step in the direction of improvement and progress in our own lives comes when we share with mother or father in their dependence as they shared with us in their productive years ... We cannot as children ignore our obligations to our parents by passing responsibility for their care to others ... — Henry D. Moyle

It's a tremendous responsibility to be direct descendants of the prophet Muhammad. This family has had the burden of leadership on its shoulders for 1,400 years. I'm not going to drop the ball on my shift. — Abdallah II Of Jordan

Wallace Stegner was a man who lived under the obligation of trying his best to be a "good man," and his writing was part and parcel of that effort. For him, the individual, insofar as his or her capabilities allow, must not only take charge of his or her own destiny, but take on the responsibility of contributing to the welfare of others in family, community and society. — Jackson J. Benson

When it comes to dying and the risks of a bad death, does our responsibility as doctors override cultural values? Is it ever acceptable to bypass cultural norms and expectations in an attempt to get to the human truth? While in many cultures the tradition is to work through the family rather than talk directly to the patient during the dying process, the potential for harm is great, and patients may unintentionally be held hostage by their families. — Jessica Nutik Zitter

There is no experience like having children.' That's all. There is no substitute for it. You cannot do it with a friend. You cannot do it with a lover. If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children. — Mitch Albom

Communities have a responsibility to assist the family in promoting wholesome entertainment. What a community tolerates will become tomorrow's standard for today's youth. — Ezra Taft Benson

Young women you will be the ones who will provide the example of virtuous womanhood and motherhood. You will continue to be virtuous lovely praiseworthy and of good report. You will also be the ones to provide an example of family life in a time when families are under attack, being redefined and disintegrating. You will understand your roles and your responsibilities and thus will see no need to lobby for rights. — Elaine S. Dalton

The solid, middle-class values of hard work, responsibility, family, community, and faith my father talked about tirelessly from Iowa to New York, he lived at home. The hopes he had for his family and for me, he had for all Americans. I think Americans understood this. — Chelsea Clinton

A child deserves to be born of that love, and not by any other means, for "he or she is not something owed to one, but is a gift", which is "the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of the parents". This is the case because, "according to the order of creation, conjugal love between a man and a woman, and the transmission of life are ordered to each other (cf. Gen 1:27-28). Thus the Creator made man and woman share in the work of his creation and, at the same time, made them instruments of his love, entrusting to them the responsibility for the future of mankind, through the transmission of human life". — Pope Francis

I'm a conservative Republican, small-business guy, married to same gal - love of my life - for 36 years. Strong family man, deacon at my church; I believe in America. I know government is not the answer; individual liberty and personal responsibility is the answer. — Randy Weber

Heredity is a splendid phenomenon that relieves us of responsibility for our shortcomings. — Doug Larson