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Irresponsibility Quotes

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Irresponsibility Quotes

“He was indeed the epitome of contemporary scientists who, like Mathieu and Einstein himself, as soon as they had achieved some decisive scientific triumph, would start immediately to sign every possible protest against its consequences, running in circles and tearing their hair, whining that theirs was “labor of love,” a pure, disinterested pursuit and that, in Kaiser Wilhelm’s words after he saw the carnage of the First World War, which he had started, “ich habe das nicht gewollt,” that “this is not what I wanted.” Mathieu hated them almost as much as he hated himself. He was one of them, a full ranking member of the club, and this awareness was eating him alive. His only trace of dignity lay in the fact that he was not lying to himself about it. He knew that research, scientific pursuit was a compulsion, and inner must, and an addiction and that the attitude that consists in passing the buck to society as far as the practical consequences of ”pure,” “disinterested,” scientific accomplishment were concerned was mere whitewash, alibi and a refusal to acknowledge both responsibility and self indulgence.”

HumanityHuman NatureScientistsSelf IndulgenceIrresponsibilityThe GaspSciencPure ScienceScientific PursuitsTrue Science
Author:Romain Gary
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“Perhaps, too, in the "shift-the-blame" society we live in, we have forgotten how to weep over our sins. David, the psalm writer, said, "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long" (Psalm 32:3). I wonder if so many of us rush off to self-help groups because we have lost the ability to be real in our churches.”

ChurchSinSelf HelpIrresponsibility
Book:Loved Back to Life: How I Found the Courage to Live Free
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“The reduced sense of responsibility and the absence of effective volition in turn explain the ordinary citizen's ignorance and lack of judgement in matters of domestic and foreign policy which are if anything more shocking in the case of educated people and of people who are successfully active in non-political walks of life than it is with uneducated people in humble stations.”

ResponsibilityDemocracyVotersIrresponsibility
Book:Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
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“Truly in the short term, there tends to be no consequences to our act of irresponsibility. However in the long run most of those kids we refused to pay attention to are now grown ups and are the fearful nocturnal visitors with weapons attacking the same neighbourhood, raping our daughters and wives, maiming our sons and husbands, turning our lives into a nightmare. Our response? Another blame game.”

Short TermIrresponsibilityNeighbourhood
Author:Sunday Adelaja
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“Without the power to put them into practice, truths are of no use. They remain academic. Power, no matter what kind of power it is, without a foundation in truth, is a dictatorship, more or less and in one way or another, for it is always based on man's fear of the social responsibility and personal burden that "freedom" entails. Dictatorial power and truth do not go together. They are mutually exclusive.”

TruthFascismDictatorshipIrresponsibility19691934The Human Struggle For FreedomFear Of FreedomFreedom Ain T Free
Book:The Mass Psychology of Fascism
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“Had Moreau had any intelligible object, I could have sympathized at least a little with him. I am not so squeamish about pain as that. I could have forgiven him a little even, had his motive been only hate. But he was so irresponsible, so utterly careless! His curiosity, his mad, aimless investigations, drove him on; and the Things were thrown out to live a year or so, to struggle and blunder and suffer, and at last to die painfully.”

ScienceHorrorIrresponsibilityCruelty To Animals
Book:The Island of Dr. Moreau
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“So much of the world's suffering results from the sinful action or inaction of ourselves and others. For example, people look at a famine and wonder where God is, but the world produces enough food for each person to have 3,000 calories a day. It's our own irresponsibility and self-centeredness that prevents people from getting fed.”

PeopleWorldLooksPersonsSelfEnoughActionSufferingResultsWonderExampleProduceFedsInactionFamineCaloriesIrresponsibilitySelf CenterednessCenteredness
Author:Lee Strobel
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“No one can learn tolerance in a climate of irresponsibility, which does not produce democracy. The act of tolerating requires a climate in which limits may be established, in which there are principles to be respected. That is why tolerance is not coexistence with the intolerable. Under an authoritarian regime, in which authority is abused, or a permissive one, in which freedom is not limited, one can hardly learn tolerance. Tolerance requires respect, discipline, and ethics.”

MayDoePrinciplesDemocracySocietyProduceDisciplineLimitsAuthorityEthicsClimateToleranceRegimesCoexistenceIrresponsibility
Author:Paulo Freire
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“Today, as in the Gilded Age, we live in a world where a morality of personal responsibility rubs shoulders with a culture of greed and of flagrant social irresponsibility. Now as then, business has shed its collective responsibility for employees - just as government has for its citizens.”

WorldGovernmentAgeTodayCultureSocialResponsibilityCitizensMoralityGreedShouldersCorporationsEmployeeCollectivesShedPersonal ResponsibilityIrresponsibilityGildedGilded AgeCollective Responsibility
Book:Sociopathic Society: A People's Sociology of the United States
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“This writer, who is horribly perspicacious and vigorous, demonstrates the certainty of a great European war, and regards it with the peculiar satisfaction excited by such things in a certain order of mind. His phrases about "dire calamity" and so on mean nothing; the whole tenor of his writing proves that he represents, and consciously, one of the forces which go to bring war about; his part in the business is a fluent irresponsibility, which casts scorn on all who reluct at the "inevitable." Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the event.”

WayWritingMindMeanWarWholeCertainOrderForceEventsProveRegardCastsSatisfactionExcitedFamiliarCertaintyInevitablePhrasesPeculiarProphecyPersistentScornCalamityVigorousTenorsIrresponsibilityFluent
Author:George Gissing
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“Euripides seems to have felt that the dignified perfection of Sophocles could be challenged only by novelty and irresponsibility. The religious conditions of the Dionysian festival kept him within certain bounds. But within the imposed limits Euripides was as profane as he dared to be, making melodrama of the divine realities which his predecessors accepted religiously, using the stage merely as a convenience for popularizing his own eccentric values.”

RealitySeemsCertainValuesFeltReligiousConditionsStageDivineLimitsPerfectionBoundsAcceptedFestivalsNoveltyConvenienceEccentricPredecessorsProfaneMelodramaIrresponsibility
Author:Laura Riding
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“John von Neumann gave me an interesting idea: that you don't have to be responsible for the world that you're in. So I have developed a very powerful sense of social irresponsibility as a result of von Neumann's advice. It's made me a very happy man ever since. But it was von Neumann who put the seed in that grew into my active irresponsibility!”

MenWorldMadeIdeasSocialInterestingResultsPowerfulAdviceGrewResponsibleActiveSeedsVery HappyVery PowerfulBeing ResponsibleHappy ManIrresponsibilityInteresting IdeasVon Neumann
Author:Richard P. Feynman
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“There is perhaps no sort of self more subject to dangerous egotism than that which deludes itself with the notion that it is not a self at all, but something else. It is well to beware of persons who believe that the cause, the mission, the philanthropy, the hero, or whatever it may be that they strive for, is outside of themselves, so that they feel a certain irresponsibility, and are likely to do things which they would recognize as wrong if done in behalf of an acknowledged self.”

IfsFeelsBelieveWellsMayPersonsSelfDoneCertainCausesSubjectsDangerousHeroStriveNotionMissionsPhilanthropyBehalfEgotismIrresponsibility
Author:Charles Horton Cooley
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“Complaints about the social irresponsibility of the intellectual typically concern the intellectual's tendency to marginalize herself, to move out from one community by interior identification of herself with some other community - for example, another country or historical period... It is not clear that those who thus marginalize themselves can be criticized for social irresponsibility. One cannot be irresponsible toward a community of which one does not think of oneself as a member. Otherwise runaway slaves and tunnelers under the Berlin Wall would be irresponsible.”

ThinkingDoeCountryWould BeMovingSocialCommunityClearExampleWallPeriodsMembersIntellectualConcernHistoricalSlaveOneselfTendenciesComplaintsInteriorsIrresponsibleBerlinIdentificationRunawayIrresponsibilityBerlin Wall
Author:Richard Rorty
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“In Islam there is a line between let's say freedom and the line which is then transgressed into immorality and irresponsibility and I think as far as this writer is concerned, unfortunately, he has been irresponsible with his freedom of speech. Salman Rushdie or indeed any writer who abuses the prophet, or indeed any prophet, under Islamic law, the sentence for that is actually death. It's got to be seen as a deterrent, so that other people should not commit the same mistake again.”

PeopleThinkingShouldHas BeensLawLinesMistakeSpeechConcernedAbuseIslamSentencesCommitProphetIslamicFreedom Of SpeechIrresponsibleImmoralitySame MistakesIrresponsibilityDeterrentRushdieIslamic Law
Author:Cat Stevens
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“The modern poet has no essential alliance with regular schemes of any sorts.He reserves the right to adapt his rhythm to his mood, to modulate his metre as he progresses. Far from seeking freedom and irresponsibility (implied by the unfortunate term free verse) he seeks a stricter discipline of exact concord of thought and feeling.”

FeelingsTermProgressModernPoetDisciplineEssentialsSeekingMoodRhythmVersesReservesSchemesUnfortunateAlliancesThoughts And FeelingsImpliedIrresponsibilityFree Verse
Author:Herbert Read
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“When America's creditors consider our behavior they see total fiscal irresponsibility. They see a deluded country that acts as if it is a privilege for foreigners to lend to it, and a deluded country that believes that foreigners will continue to accumulate US debt until the end of time. The fact of the matter is that the US is bankrupt.”

IfsBelieveEndsCountryMatterFactsAmericaBehaviorPrivilegeDebtEnd TimesForeignersDeludedCreditorsIrresponsibility
Author:Paul Craig Roberts
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“[T]he democratic principle of "one man, one vote," viewed against a background of voting masses numbering several millions, only serves to demonstrate the pitiful helplessness of the inarticulate individual, who functions at the polls as the smallest indivisible arithmetical (and not always algebraic) unit. He acts in total anonymity, secrecy and legal irresponsibility.”

MenIndividualPrinciplesMillionsMassVoteFunctionDemocraticBackgroundsVotingOne ManSmallestUnitsPollsSecrecyHelplessnessAnonymityPitifulIndivisibleIrresponsibilityInarticulate
Author:Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
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“Casually, unconsciously, but with deadly effectiveness, western man all round the globe destroyed the traditional gods and the ancient societies with his commerce and his science. ... Does it mean nothing to him if great areas of the world, where western influence has been predominant, emerge from this tutelage unable to return to the old life, yet unfitted for the new? It is hard to believe that the future could ever belong to men demonstrating irresponsibility on so vast a scale.”

IfsMenWorldBelieveMeanDoeHas BeensHardInfluenceReturnAreasWesternRoundsAncientScalesTraditionalDestroyedCommerceGlobesEffectivenessHard To BelieveDemonstratingIrresponsibilityOld LifeTutelage
Author:Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth
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“I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Ineffable socialities are in me. I would sit down and dine with you and all the gods in old Rome's Pantheon. It is a strange feeling--no hopefulness is in it, no despair. Content--that is it; and irresponsibility; but without licentious inclination.”

FeelsBookFeelingsLiteratureWrittenStrangeDespairDown AndWickedRomeInclinationLambsIneffableIrresponsibilityHopefulnessDinePantheon
Book:Tales, Poems, and Other Writings
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“I think we left out one of the really important elements contributing to the dynamism of society, and that is the right to privacy. I mean something more than the right to shave in private. I mean the right to join what I want to join, to do what I want to do, or not to do what I might do without giving anyone a reason, either in advance or afterwards. That does not mean that I am seeking for irresponsibility socially.”

ThinkingWantGivingMeanDoeImportantReasonMightLeftRightsSocietyElementsSeekingPrivacyContributingLeft OutIrresponsibilityDynamismRight To Privacy
Author:Chester Barnard
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“Liberals and conservatives disagree over what are the most important sins. For conservatives, the sins that matter are personal irresponsibility, the flight from family life, sexual permissiveness, the failure of individuals to work hard. For liberals, the gravest sins are intolerance, a lack of generosity toward the needy, narrow-mindedness toward social and racial minorities.”

ImportantMatterHardIndividualSocialSinHard WorkFlightGenerosityMinoritiesDisagreeIntoleranceFamily LifeNeedyIrresponsibilityNarrow Mindedness
Book:Why Americans Hate Politics
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“We must protect each other against the attacks of those self-appointed watchdogs of patriotism now abroad in the land who irresponsibly pin red labels on anyone whom they wish to destroy. ... [Academic professionals are the only person competant to differentiate between honest independents and the Communists.] This is our responsibility. It is not a pleasant task. But if it is left to outsiders, the distinction is not likely to be made and those independent critics of social institutions among us who are one of the glories of a true university could be silenced.”

IfsPersonsMadeSelfLeftWishSocialSilenceResponsibilityLandHonestProtectGloryRedTasksIndependentInstitutionsCriticsUniversityLabelsPleasantDistinctionPatriotismCommunistAcademicOutsidersPinsDifferentiateIrresponsibilitySocial Institutions
Author:Joel Henry Hildebrand
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“Our problem with limited resources is not primarily overpopulation; it is greed. Our problem with pollution is not the invention of fluorocarbons or mass transport; it is irresponsibility. The loss of an acre of forest every second, the mass slaughter of elephants for their ivory, the extinction of entire species of plants, insects and animals all over the world is not something that "just happens" because there are more of us human beings. It happens because the race of ruling beings put in charge has almost wholly lost its sense of stewardship. We have turned away from God.”

WorldHumansProblemHappensLostHuman BeingsLossAnimalRaceMassResourcesPlantSpeciesEnvironmentalGreedInventionForestsPollutionElephantsInsectsRulingExtinctionStewardshipSlaughterTransportEvery SecondAcresIvoryIrresponsibilityOverpopulationLimited Resources
Author:Winkie Pratney
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“An institution that...would permit Iraq, a terrorist state that refuses to disarm, to become soon the chair of the United Nations Commission on Disarmament, and which recently elected Libya - a terrorist state - to chair the United Nations Commission on Human Rights of all things, seems not to be even struggling to regain credibility. That these acts of irresponsibility could happen now, at this moment in history, is breathtaking.”

HumansWarStatesMomentsSeemsHappensNationsUnitedStruggleRightsAll ThingsInstitutionsHuman RightsIraqRefuseTerroristChairsPermitUnited NationsCredibilityDisarmamentLibyaBreathtakingIrresponsibility
Author:Donald Rumsfeld
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“The technological overflow from scientific research has brought scientific research this bad name about carrying an irresponsibility and an alienation from God - because scientific research has led to things like the atom bomb, it's led to problems with depletion of ozone in the Earth's atmosphere, or at least it's revealed those problems.”

ProblemEarthNamesResearchAtmosphereBombsAtomsTechnologicalAlienationScientific ResearchOverflowIrresponsibilityAtom BombOzone
Author:George Coyne
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