Accountability Quotes

If there were camera phones back in the day, the biggest athletes in the world would have had a lot of explaining to do.

The continual whine of lamenting the burden of taxes, however successfully it may be practiced in mixed governments, is inconsistent with the sense and spirit of a republic. If taxes are necessary, they are of course advantageous, but if they require an apology, the apology itself implies an impeachment. Why, then, is man imposed upon, or why does he impose upon himself?

The key is whether or not we have got priorities that are working for you, as opposed to those who have been dictating the policy in Washington lately. And that's mostly lobbyists and special interests. We have got to put an end to that.

Taxes should be continued by annual or biennial reeactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of the public purse is a salutary restraint from which an honest government ought not wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted, to be free.

The men who create powermake an indispensable contributionto the nation's greatness.But the men who question power makea contribution just as indispensablefor they determine whetherwe use poweror power uses us.

We are not going to win because you have a new head coach, any more than you are going to fix a flat tire by changing the driver. We will win the minute all of us get rid of excuses as to why we can't win and stop wallowing in self-pity.

I certainly do believe anyone engaged in the management of money should have a standard of measurement, and that both he and the party whose money is managed should have a clear understanding why it is the appropriate standard, what time period should be utilized, etc.

As long as you are free, you are free to select and choose alternatives, provided that you are willing to accept the responsibility for being free. And after you've tried your alternatives, and they don't work as you would wish, don't blame me. Blame your choice. Try another alternative.

Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities.

You, me...we own this country. Politicians are employees of ours....And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.

It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one's acts.

The leader works in the open and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

The hunger [to success] is the same, no matter what it is that you're doing. It's like an unquenchable thirst to learn more, or to feel like you could have done more, and to be brutally honest and self critical, which is very hard to do. It's easy, and human nature is to just blame somebody else. It's very, very hard to self assess.

Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or who says it.

For 24 years of my adult life, by choice I weighed well over 200 lbs. I say by choice because you see I have never accidentally eaten anything.

Is this money well spent? This is taxpayer money, it is going to be adding to the deficit short term and if we can't justify it, then we're not going to spend tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, just to make somebody happy, if it's not good for the economy.

In vain I have looked for a single man capable of seeing his own faults and bringing the charge home against himself.

The short memories of the American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.

I exist, I am, I am here, I am becoming, I make my own life and no one else makes it for me. I must face my own shortcomings, mistakes, transgressions. No one can suffer my non-being as I do, but tomorrow is another day, and I must decide to leave my bed and live again. And if I fail, I don't have the comfort of blaming you or life or God.

The power under the Constitution will always be in the people. It is entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a certain limited period, to representatives of their own choosing; and whenever it is executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their wishes, their servants can, and undoubtedly will, be recalled.

Judge not unless you judge yourself

I've said many times around the world that like any government, like any country, like, any set of human institutions, we have our flaws. We've operated imperfectly. There are times we've made mistakes.

The world doesn't give a damn about you unless you do something. Those are the rules; I didn't make them. If you are lazy, if you don't get the work that you love done, the world won't care if you die tomorrow and go into the grave and are gone and forgotten forever.

Should my administration prove to be a very wicked one...or a very foolish one, if you, the people, are true to yourselves and the Constitution, there is little harm I can do, thank God.

Statesmen have to bend to the collective will of their peoples or be broken.

It's wonderful for the players. It's a huge challenge and a huge responsibility for us to get our act together, get our butts in gear. Phil isn't going to bail us out because of our mental lapses.

I regret that the presentation I made at the UN turned out to be wrong. It was wrong on the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, but pretty much right on intentions and capabilities.

The rights of the people to the exercise and fruits of their own industry can never be protected against the selfishness of rulers not subject to their control at short periods.

You cannot become a power in your community nor achieve enduring success in any worthy undertaking until you become big enough to blame yourself for your own mistakes and reverses.

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.

Rather than me sort of characterize the appropriateness or inappropriateness of what Donald Trump is doing at the moment, I think what we have to see is how will the President-elect operate, and how will his team operate, when they've been fully briefed on all these issues, they have their hands on all the levers of government, and they've got to start making decisions.

When the people become involved in their government, government becomes more accountable, and our society is stronger, more compassionate, and better prepared for the challenges of the future.

Do not make excuses, whether it's your fault or not.

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.

If a bank fails in China, they behead the men at the top of it that was responsible... If we beheaded all of ours that were responsible for bank failures, we wouldn't have enough people left to bury the heads.

We acknowledge our faults in order to repair by our sincerity the damage they have done us in the eyes of others.

Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.

Freud tells us to blame our parents for all the shortcomings of our life, Marx tells us to blame the upper class of our society. But the only one to blame is oneself.

The greatest lesson of life is that you are responsible for your life.

Although I held public office for a total of sixteen years, I also thought of myself as a citizen-politician, not a career one. Every now and then when I was in government, I would remind my associates that "When we start thinking of government as 'us' instead of 'them,' we've been here too long." By that I mean that elected officeholders need to retain a certain skepticism about the perfectibility of government.

The government you elect is the government you deserve.

Now stand in the corner, and think about what you've done!

Nothing short of a federal investigation can begin to disclose the abuses which have woven a fine web of mutually implicating relationships between businessmen and government officials.

I just think it is important that you realize, that you're the best in the world. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether you're libertarian or whatever, you are the best. And we should not ever forget that. And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.

Someone will have to pay for the innocent blood that they shed every day.

That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain't no disgrace.

My administration will be the most transparent in history

We put a President up there, and then we set fire to him because he's not solving all our problems.

I got family members that's police officers. I don't got no problem if you a cop, as long as y'all doing y'all job, and y'all not harassing.

We have to get rid of excuses, no matter why you are the way you are,don't let it be an excuse to stay that way.

Ultimately, if you can say that I'm a bad owner and we're winning championships, I can live with that. But if we're not making the playoffs and we're spending and losing money, then I have to look in the mirror and say maybe I'm not taking the necessary steps to doing what it takes to run an organization.

Objectives are not commands; they are commitments.

The crime of taxation is not in the taking it, it's in the way that it's spent.

If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected; if not, they will be despised.

A man who has committed a mistake and does not correct it is committing another mistake.

If the ANC does to you what the apartheid government did to you, then you must do to the ANC what you did to the apartheid government.

Now, some have said I blame too many problems on my predecessor, but let's not forget that's a practice that was initiated by George W. Bush.

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.

Once negro community recognize it as such, they can adopt the same measures against the community that harbors the criminals who are responsible for this activity.

I do not deny the possibility that the people may err in an election; but if they do, the true [cure] is in the next election, and not in the treachery of the person elected.