On a certain day, month and year one should observe the ceremony of tree-planting. Thus, one fulfils one's responsibilities, serves one's fellow-beings which not only brings happiness but benefits all.
In your dread of dictators you established a state of society in which every ward boss is a dictator, every private employer a dictator, every financier a dictator, all with the livelihood of the workers at his mercy, and no public responsibility.
When I think about what I'm going through, as President, it doesn't compare to what the folks that I'm representing are going through. They're losing jobs. They're trying to figure out how to pay their medical bills. They've seen retirements suddenly dissipate because of what's happening in the stock market. And so as tough as the job might be, and the politics of Washington can sometimes be I'm always reminded of how fortunate I am to be here, and what an extraordinary responsibility I have to try to deliver on some of the promises that I made during the election.
Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
Plato long ago pointed out the importance of being governed by men with sufficient sense of responsibility and comprehension of public duties to be very reluctant to undertake the work of governing.
The Islamic ethic is that if God has given you the capacity or good fortune to be a privileged individual in society, you have a moral responsibility to society.
Our job as Americans is to restore that basic bargain that says, if you work hard, if you're willing to meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead. You can get ahead. Doesn't matter what you look like, doesn't matter where you come from. Our middle class, when it's growing, when it's thriving, when there are ladders of opportunity for people to do a little bit better each year and then make sure that their kids are doing even better than them, that's the American dream. That's what we got to fight for. That has to be the north star that guides everything we do.
When we talk about global crisis, or a crisis of humanity, we cannot blame a few politicians, a few fanatics, or a few troublemakers. The whole of humanity has a responsibility because it is our business, human business. I call this a sense of universal responsibility. That is a crucial point.
In the nineties, everybody wants to talk about their rights and privileges. Twenty-five years ago, people talked about their obligations and responsibilities.
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.
If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds. Sailors on a becalmed sea, we sense the stirring of a breeze.
Unhappily, no man exists who has not in his own person become, to some amount, a stockholder in the sin, and so made himself liable to a share in the expiation.
My life is superficial, takes no root in the deep world; I ask, When shall I die, and be relieved of the responsibility of seeinga Universe which I do not use? I wish to exchange this flash-of-lightning faith for continuous daylight, this fever-glow for a benign climate.