September - Responsibility
Be accountable for your actions.

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Page for Responsibility for the month of September from the Character and Ethics Calendar

It is reasonable that every one who asks justice should do justice. ~ Thomas Jefferson, 18th-century American Founding Father, early 19th century U.S. president (letter to George Hammond, 1792)

It is less important to redistribute wealth than it is to redistribute opportunity. ~ Arthur Vandenberg, 20th century American senator

Grub first, then ethics. ~ Bertolt Brecht, 20th-century German dramatist

Principles have no real force except when one is well fed. ~ Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), 19th-century American journalist, author and humorist

Rise above principle and do what is right. ~ Walter Heller, 20th-century American economist

You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave. ~ Billie Holiday, 20th-century American singer

The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give every man his due. ~ Justinian I

A generous and noble spirit cannot be expected to dwell in the breasts of men who are struggling for their daily bread. ~ Dioysius of Halicarnassus

All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures. ~ Julius Caesar, Roman emperor

Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but manís inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. ~ Reinhold Neibuhr, 20th-century German theologian I take it that what all men are really after is some form of, perhaps only some formula of, peace.

Charity isn't a good substitute for justice. ~ Jonathan Kozol, 20th-century American journalist and author

False hope is worse than despair. ~ Jonathan Kozol, 20th-century American journalist and author

The belly comes before the soul. ~ George Orwell, 20th-century British journalist and novelist

I do get scared about the physical danger from drug dealers. But itís not in the same league as the danger I feel eating an $80 lunch with my privileged friends to discuss hunger and poverty. Thatís when my soul feels imperiled. ~ Journalist Jonathan Kozol on his work chronicling the lives of the poor in the Bronx.

Never befriend the oppressed unless you are prepared to take on the oppressor. ~ Ogden Nash, 20th-century American dramatist

This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, 19th/20th century American adventurer and politician, Nobel Prize-winning U.S. president

There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. ~ A.J. Muste

When a man hangs from a tree it doesn't spell justice unless he helped write the law that hanged him. ~ E. B. White, 20th-century American essayist