Political Responsibility Quotes

A statement on the political responsibility of the critic: the critic must attempt to fully realize, and take responsibility for, the unspoken, unrepresented pasts that haunt the historical present. ~ Homi K. Bhabha

The strength of collective decision making and political responsibility is not only a question of recognizing other people's ability. It is also recognizing one's own limitations. ~ Aruna Roy

Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time. In World War I it was the munitions industrialists; in World War II it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck. The responsibility for wars falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these same masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anyone else. To stress this guilt on the part of masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by the genuine freedom-fighters; the latter the attitude held by the power-thirsty politicians. ~ Wilhelm Reich

We often blame our government for their lack of responsibility, socially and politically. We forget that that is only a result of the societal irresponsibility in general. ~ Sunday Adelaja

The institution of representative government to us seems an essential part of democracy, but the ancients never thought of it. Its immense merit was that it enabled a large constituency to exert indirect power, and thus made possible the distribution of political responsibility throughout the great states of modern times. ~ Bertrand Russell

Not a moment passes these days without fresh rushes of academic lemmings off the cliffs they proclaim the political responsibilities of the critic, but eventually all this moralizing will subside. ~ Harold Bloom

I ask everyone with political responsibility to remember two things: human dignity and the common good. ~ Pope Francis

A final irony has to do with the idea of political responsibility. Christians are urged to vote and become involved in politics as an expression of their civic duty and public responsibility. This is a credible argument and good advice up to a point. Yet in our day, given the size of the state and the expectations that people place on it to solve so many problems, politics can also be a way of saying, in effect, that the problems should be solved by others besides myself and by institutions other than the church. It is, after all, much easier to vote for a politician who champions child welfare than to adopt a baby born in poverty, to vote for a referendum that would expand health care benefits for seniors than to care for an elderly and infirmed parent, and to rally for racial harmony than to get to know someone of a different race than yours. True responsibility invariably costs. Political participation, then, can and often does amount to an avoidance of responsibility. ~ James Davison Hunter

If I had political responsibility, I would want to prepare for a plan B that would foresee that the European currency union, that the eurozone, no longer necessarily consists of 17 member states. And that means to make provisions so that other countries are not pulled into the maelstrom through contagion. ~ Peer Steinbruck

Autonomy is the capacity to act on principles that are one's own and one will exercise this capacity by means of a process of rational reflection on these principles. Autonomy is thought to be necessary for attributing political responsibility. ~ Alison Assiter

Citizenship in the 21st century requires more than paying your taxes and voting and occasionally running for office. That even if you're never in political office, you have political responsibilities. You can make your society stronger and better. ~ William J. Clinton

I felt we must separate political responsibility. The Dalai Lama should not carry that burden. So that is my selfish reason - to protect the old Dalai Lama tradition. It is safer without political involvement. ~ Dalai Lama

Besides, many Islamic movements will change as soon as they gain political responsibility. I'm not at all pessimistic in this regard. Just think of Turkey, where the Islamists are now behaving like a sort of Christian Democratic party in Europe. ~ Zalmay Khalilzad

I disagree with the analysis that you've put about what happened in relation to the student demonstrations and protests and the incident with the Prince of Wales' car. We're very clear that we have to separate out the political responsibility from operational responsibility of the police. ~ Theresa May

In Europe it is particularly important that we build good relations to everyone who holds political responsibility because Europe can only be build together. ~ Angela Merkel

Can companies just claim a total lack of political responsibility in how their technology is used in all instances? It's something that companies should be thinking about when they sell their technologies around the world. ~ Rebecca MacKinnon

It's become unfashionable to celebrate political achievement, and Labour achievement even less so. And it's positively uncouth to be proud of something that this Labour government is doing. So, slam me for saying so, but I'm really proud of the NHS. ~ Lucy Powell

Why mundanes always insist on taking responsibility for things that aren't their fault is a mystery to me. You didn't force that cocktail down his idiotic throat.
-Jace, pg.241- ~ Cassandra Clare

Low minded people are fraudulent, wicked and chaeat. They shouldnot be trusted. To h ave faith in low minded ones is mistake in policy and useless because they are not trustworthy. An administrator should not invited calamity by trusting the low minded ones. ~ Chanakya

Today, while the cyber world rages with ideologies and passionate moral perspectives, the streets remain comatose, echoing nothing but silence. ~ Aysha Taryam

Forget the world, forget civilization, forget all those pompous ideas of progress and global goals, simply take a stand in your vicinity, in your locality, against discrimination, against prejudices, against corruption and harassment. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The times do not call for grassroots political activism, as if the next election might be enough to reverse a massive cultural earthquake. They do not call for working just a little bit harder: a few more speeches, another letter to the editor, another fundraiser, the next vote, the next committee meeting. These noble efforts aren't even rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; they are tending the seaweed on its watery grave.
The times call for a new generation of book hunters. Like the book hunters of the Middle Ages, the new book hunters take it as their mission to uncover and salvage the best of what came before: to cherish it; hold it up for praise and emulation; study it; above all, to love it and pass it on. ~ Paul D. Miller

Whatever your political affiliation may be, whether you are a conservative or liberal, we should all be bound by the belief that we need to support the troops. ~ Candace Kita

The present is filled with flotsam and irony and chaos and disorder in all arenas, political and sociological. I think we have to work in the present even if it's awkward, even if it's not necessarily good, even if we don't understand it ourselves. You only find out 10, maybe 20 years later what was going on. ~ Frank Gehry

It is all too easy for a society to measure itself against some abstract philosophical principle or political slogan. But in the end, there must remain the question: What kind of life is one society providing to the people that live in it? ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

We need to remember that politics is all about people, not programs. We shouldn't want to take the humanness out of the political arena. ~ J. C. Watts

The British Government very naturally would like to see in India the form of democratic constitutions it knows best and thinks best, under which the Government of the country is entrusted to one or other political party in accordance with the turn of elections. ~ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

I think one of the political problems we have in this country is the perspective that all soccer moms think alike, all African-Americans think alike. ~ Anne Northup

Politics are like shoes. On one side you have the left, and on the other side you have the right. And every politician is essentially a shoe salesman trying to sell you one shoe, either the left or the right, whichever one he stands for. So I guess the only people who vote with complete confidence on election day are the ones with only one leg, and who's political stance matches their needs exactly. But I must say, a person loses a lot of personal freedom when they only have one leg. ~ Jarod Kintz

I hate to see anybody be unemployed, but if there's a certain segment of society I think it's political consultants and operatives. ~ Rob Zerban

The gang war will never end. Because at it's core , it is not the gangsters against the police or the gangster against another. It is a young man with a Mauser against history personal and political, it is revolution one murder at a time. ~ Suketu Mehta

Mass civil disobedience is like an earthquake, a sort of general upheaval on the political plane. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

I swore I'd never become some lord's brainless arm ornament and political host, but I've become far worse. I'm a glorified housekeeper and sperm donor.
-from the journal of Payton Marcus Townsend. ~ J.L. Langley

The comics that are just conversing with you up there and drawing on their own life, yeah, I guess so. I guess some do political humor, some do topical humor, but the ones that I like, the ones that are appealing to me, were guys who were just talking to you about their life. ~ Ray Romano

Gossip: a weed watered by wayward words. ~ Soul Dancer

Now she understood a few things: that the American academy, which one might have thought the place to defend freedom of speech, had been the seat and soul of abrogating freedom of speech, if the first assault on its freedom can be said to be restricting, or handcuffing speech. The day she heard "redneck" on NPR, she turned NPR off, not because broadcasters were still using the term, but because she knew one day they would not be. In fact, she had a vision of the quiet moment backstage at a Boston studio when a good, surprised correspondent was let go for saying "redneck" the last time it would be said. ~ Padgett Powell

America, like Britain before her, is now the great defender of the Status Quo. She has committed herself against revolution and radical change in the underdeveloped world because independent governments would destroy the world economic and political system, which assures the United States its disproportionate share of economic and political power ... America's preeminent wealth depends upon keeping things in the underdeveloped world much as they are, allowing change and modernization to proceed only in a controlled, orderly, and nonthreatening way. ~ Richard Barnet

Faith branches off the highroad before reason begins ~ William James

I am possibly thinking about doing an Internet show in the future that will highlight political organizations that I seek out to let people know about them, volunteer opportunities, and donation opportunities. ~ Kathleen Hanna

The courtroom is a quiet place, Judge Roberts, where you park your political ideology, and you call the balls and you call the strikes. ~ Lindsey Graham

Don't vote, it only encourages them. ~ Billy Connolly

Honor is no phantom. Duty doesn't melt away, no matter how much we might wish it to. ~ Claudia J. Edwards

Our tradition of political thought had its definite beginning in the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. I believe it came to a no less definite end in the theories of Karl Marx. ~ Hannah Arendt

I'm slammed with an identity that can no longer say a word; mute with responsibility. ~ Kate Millett

Maybe the answer is: Don't be an asshole, think before you open your trap, take responsibility for your words. Meaning, apologize when you're wrong and correct yourself moving forward - and don't constantly look for reasons to be offended and police well-meaning people's words. We want folks to talk to each other, right? Not just hang out with like-minded people all the time. Everyone is ignorant about something, and everyone is offended by something. If people can't have a calm, respectful dialogue without being hurt by ignorance, or without offending with insensitivity, then what the hell are we supposed to do? Surround ourselves with robots who don't challenge our ideas?" I ~ Penny Reid

All the old bogeys of 'dignified subject-matter,' of 'balanced compositions,' of 'correct drawing' were laid to rest. The artist was responsible to no one but his own sensibilities for what he painted and how he painted it. ~ Ernst Gombrich

The killer bees have gone, like rats deserting the Titanic. ~ Geraldo Rivera

Relations between the United States and other countries, and our role as a global leader, are advanced by our willingness to help other countries in need. Foreign aid is essential to protecting U.S. interests around the world, and it is also a moral responsibility of the wealthiest, most powerful nation. ~ Patrick Leahy

If you want to know why Republicans and conservatives are in a political crisis, you need only consider the fact that the Right's deeply held view now boils down to this: Taxes should not go up on the wealthy, and your health benefits should be cut. ~ John Podhoretz

Except in Punjab and the NWFP, the central government's Kashmir policy had little support in Sindh or Balochistan and even less in East Bengal. Instead of serving the people, civil servants and their allies in the army hoisted the political leaders with their Kashmir petard to become the veritable masters of the manor through autocratic and unconstitutional means. ~ Ayesha Jalal

When her blue-black eyes lifted to his, everything disappeared. Their bodies dematerialized. The room they were in ceased to exist. Time became nothing. And in the void, in the wormhold, Wrath's chest opened up sure as if he'd been shot, a piercing pain licking over his nerve endings.
He knew then that there are many ways for a heart to break. Sometimes it's from the crowding of life, the compression of responsibility and birthright and burden that just squeezed you until you couldn't breathe anymore. Even though your lungs were working just fine. And sometimes it's from the casual cruelty of a fate that took you far from where you had thought you would end up.
And sometimes it's age in the face of youth. Or sickness in the face of health. But sometimes it's just because you're looking into the eyes of your lover, and your gratitude for having them in your life overflows...because you showed them what was on the inside and they didn't run scared or turn away: they accepted you and loved you and held you in the midst of your passion or your fear...or your combination of both.
Wrath closed his eyes and focused on the soft pulls at his wrist. God, they were just like the beat of his heart. Which made sense.
Because she was the center of his chest. And the center of his world. ~ J.R. Ward

What we are against will unite us, while what we are for divides us. Therefore, we should emphasise what we oppose. The common enemy unites us, while the positive values each of us are defending actually divides us. Therefore, we must create strategic alliances to overthrow the present order of things, of which the core could be described as human rights, anti-hierarchy, and political correctness – everything that is the face of the Beast, the anti-Christ or, in other terms, Kali-Yuga. ~ Alexander Dugin

Freedom of conscience is a natural right, both antecedent and superior to all human laws and institutions whatever; a right which laws never gave and a right which laws can never take away. ~ John Goodwin

There are a certain number of extreme behaviours led by fundamentalists who are using their religion for political ends and use extremist techniques. ~ Jean-Francois Cope

It is India's responsibility to display its strength to the World through knowledge and innovations. ~ Narendra Modi

Government is the political representative of a natural equilibrium, of custom, of inertia; it is by no means a representative of reason. ~ George Santayana

You know, I really do have some morals. I do actually care about people. And I do have a political standpoint. ~ Lars Von Trier

Now I proudly call myself a feminist. If Tip O'Neill were alive today, I might even tell him that I'm a pom-pom girl for feminism. I hope more women, and men, will join me in accepting this distinguished label. Currently, only 24 percent of women in the United States say that they consider themselves feminists. Yet when offered a more specific definition of feminism - "A feminist is someone who believes in social, political, and economic equality of the sexes" - the percentage of women who agree rises to 65 percent.16 That's a big move in the right direction. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

I'm not a soldier, not a political man. I'm an artist. If war comes, I won't do anything to help it along. If war comes, it'll find me still working at my peaceful trade. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics or religion which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, Corn-Pone stands for Self-Approval. Self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is Conformity. ~ Mark Twain

The Israelis object to an imposed settlement I don't know what they mean by an imposed settlement. It's quite obvious, without the all out support by the United States in money and weapons and so on the Israelis couldn't do what they've been doing. So we bear a very great share of the responsibility for the continuation of this ... of this state of warfare. ~ J. William Fulbright

I was able to be more reckless and now I still make mistakes, but having kids, you have a responsibility and these little people who are looking up to you for everything. ~ Shooter Jennings

Not only has the number of government employees multiplied in recent decades, but the rise of government unions further stacks the political odds against private citizens. ~ James Bovard