"Accountability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Scott's writings. In the first place, he illustrates the fact, so little noted by the advocates of loyalty, aristocracy, 'devoted retainers,' and 'faithful vassals,' that all such fidelity carried beyond the balance of a harmony of interests, results in an insensibility to moral accountability. Thus in the Southern States, masters often refer with pride to the fact that a certain negro, who will freely pillage in other quarters, will 'never steal at home.' History shows that the man who surrenders himself entirely to the will of another begins ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... nervous prostration, and forbidden by his doctor to see anybody, had nevertheless sent his keys and books and bank account, and to the mystification of the chief, more money was found in the big office safe at the depot quartermaster's than was necessary to cover his accountability. The General and his inspector were fairly puzzled. They personally questioned the bank cashier and the quartermaster's clerks. They ransacked that safe and pored over the books, both there and at the bank. ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... of children in due proportion to their age; not to transcend their ability; to arouse in them the sense of the observer and of the pioneer; to make them discoverers rather than imitators; to teach them accountability to themselves and not slavish dependence upon the words of others; to address ourselves more to the will than to custom, to the reason rather than to the memory; to substitute for verbal recitations lessons about things; to lead to theory by way of art; to assign to physical ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the year Clemens paid a visit to Twichell in Hartford, and after one of their regular arguments on theology and the moral accountability of the human race, arguments that had been going on between them for more than thirty years—Twichell lent his visitor Freedom of the Will, by Jonathan Edwards, to read on the way home. The ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... individual is in a state wherein motives operate, there may be moral weakness, but there is nothing more. In such cases, punishment may be properly employed as a corrective, and is likely to answer its end. This is the state termed accountability, or, with more correctness, PUNISHABILITY, for being accountable is merely an incident bound up with liability to punishment. Moral weakness is a matter of a degree, and in its lowest grades shades into insanity, the state wherein motives have lost ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... upon the barrel prior and subsequent to the work done by the roller, all of which has been lost through his remissness. Besides, he is paid so liberally for his work, that he can well afford to stand the loss. This system of accountability runs through the entire work, and tends greatly to the promotion of care and fidelity in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... of physical nature and human society. Such are the ideas of cause and substance; of unity and infinity, which govern all the processes of discursive thought, and lead us to the recognition of Being in se;—such the ideas of right, of duty, of accountability, and of retribution, which regulate all the conceptions we form of our relations to all other moral beings, and constitute morality;—such the ideas of order, of proportion, and of harmony, which preside in the realms of art, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... exempts a person from blame- when we say he was not responsible. Responsibility means accountability, liability to blame and punishment. We do not hold accountable those classes whom it would do no good to blame or punish. Babies, the feeble minded, the insane, are not deterred by blame; hence we do not hold them responsible. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... tobacco, and smoke a black pipe, and not lose his position in society. Now," continued he, "tho' I don't choose to do any of these things, yet I love the freedom, now and then, of doing just all of them if I choose, without human accountability. The truth is, that it is natural as well as necessary for every man to be a vagabond occasionally, to throw off the restraints imposed upon him by the necessities and conventionalities of civilization, and turn savage for a season,—and ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... Build up the blood on a natural basis, that is, supply the blood with its natural constituents in right proportions. Promote the elimination of waste matter and poisons without in any way injuring the human body. Arouse the individual in the highest possible degree to the consciousness of personal accountability and the necessity of intelligent personal effort ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... the phrase 'emancipation of woman' has been fortified with a strange advocacy by the female 'champions of their sex.' Their argument runs this way: 'We are denied a voice in the making of the laws relating to infliction of the death penalty; it is unjust to hold us to an accountability to which we have not assented.' Of course this argument is as broad as the entire body of law; it amounts to nothing less than a demand for general immunity from all laws, for to none of them has woman's assent been asked or given. But let us consider this amazing claim with reference only ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... bound in conscience, if they exceed his reasonable wants, to employ the surplus in improving either the efficiency of his operations, or the physical and mental condition of his labourers. The portion of his gains which he may appropriate to his own use, must be decided by himself, under accountability to opinion; and opinion ought not to look very narrowly into the matter, nor hold him to a rigid reckoning for any moderate indulgence of luxury or ostentation; since under the great responsibilities that will be imposed on him, the position of an employer of labour ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... most directly joins the pitiful benightedness of the Black Town to the imposing splendors of Kumpnee Bahadoor,—the short, but stubborn chain of responsibility, as it were, whereby the ball of helpless and infatuated stock-and-stone-worship is fastened to the leg of British enlightenment and accountability. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... upon him till he assumed it publicly by uniting with the church. Henry did not mean to die a sinner. Oh, no; he fully intended, after he had enjoyed what he considered the pleasures of youth, to settle down into Christian manhood. After this talk with William he could not get rid of the idea of accountability to his God. His wicked amusements and extravagant habits appeared to him as they never had done before, and he began to see their inevitable tendency. The result was an entire change in his aims and conduct. This was so marked that it very soon became known to all of his ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... was that this young woman, whom he had never seen nor heard of before, should suddenly be flung thus upon his horizon and seem, in a measure, his responsibility. He had been shaking free from that sense of accountability since she had been reported getting better; and especially since he had put her upon the hearts of Mother Marshall and Gila. Gila! How the thought of her ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... of the North Carolina staple, and his 'account' had become one of the most valuable on our books. Though we sent 'account currents' and duplicates of each 'account sales' to his master, our regular 'returns' were made to Joe, and no one of our correspondents held us to so strict an accountability, or so often expressed dissatisfaction with the result of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... tranquillity, are paramount to all personal or party rights and interests; and though we may be justly indignant that many arbitrary and unnecessary things are done, yet must they be borne patiently for the sake of the country. The time for accountability will come at last. Under the pressure of vast responsibilities and difficulties, the agents of the people may plausibly, or even justly, excuse themselves for almost any irregularity; and the most ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of necessity has been, in all ages of the world, the great stronghold of atheism. It is the mighty instrument with which the unbeliever seeks to strip man of all accountability, and to destroy our faith and confidence in God, by tracing up the existence of all moral evil to his agency. "The opinion of necessity," says Bishop Butler, "seems to be the very basis in which infidelity grounds itself." ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... "and I take it for granted that patients don't generally come to me unless they have experienced very genuine and profound regret and sorrow for the act they wish to forget. They have already repented it, and, according to every theory of moral accountability, I believe it is held that repentance balances the moral accounts. My process, you see then, only completes physically what is already done morally. The ministers and moralists preach forgiveness and absolution on repentance, but the perennial fountain of ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... do with confiscation. We only deal with possession, and therefore the necessity of a strict accountability, because the United States assumes the place of trustee, and must account to the rightful owner for his property, rents, and profits. In due season courts will be established to execute the laws, the confiscation act included, when we will be relieved of this duty and ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... who are dependent on Executive discretion I have begun the reduction of what was deemed unnecessary. The expenses of diplomatic agency have been considerably diminished. The inspectors of internal revenue who were found to obstruct the accountability of the institution have been discontinued. Several agencies created by Executive authorities, on salaries fixed by that also, have been suppressed, and should suggest the expediency of regulating that power by law, so as to subject its exercises to legislative ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... aspect in which man's accountability is viewed, we arrive at the same point that its sole basis is the existence and soundness of the intellectual powers. Those wonderful endowments which so eminently distinguish man from other animals, which enable him to discriminate between good and evil, right and wrong, and to choose the ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... unincorporated territory of the US; formerly administered by the US Navy, under Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Pacific Division; this facility has been operationally closed since 10 September 1993 and is currently undergoing transfer of accountability and responsibility to the US Department of the Interior, Fish and ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of the whole; or, in other words, that the community shall guard the rights of each individual member, and that in return for this protection each individual should submit to the law of the community. Faith lets God down into the hearts of lawmakers, and a sense of accountability to him must, most certainly, have a grand tendency to refine laws in their first conception. At least it happens to be true that wherever God is feared and law made the basis of the legislation and policy of a nation, that nation is, in fact, found to excel in those interests which are essential ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various
... better than 'Matter' as a principle, unless he promise more. Pragmatic comparison of the two principles. The problem of design. 'Design' per se is barren. The question is WHAT design. The problem of 'free-will.' Its relations to 'accountability.' Free-will a cosmological theory. The pragmatic issue at stake in all these problems is what do ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... one of the kindest of men, he added to great natural dignity a high sense of the loft-iness of a position on the bench and preserved, with impartial and inflexible rigor, the strictest order in his court, ruling bar and attendants alike up to a high accountability. ...
— The Sheriffs Bluff - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... assembly been called upon to act alone without aid or guidance, this accountability would have proved only nominal. But Solon converted it into a reality by another new institution, which will hereafter be found of great moment in the working out of the Athenian democracy. He created the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... cardinal, as we have mentioned, had been for many years virtually monarch of France. He, in the name of the king, imposed the taxes, appointed the ministry, issued all orders, and received all reports. The accountability was so entire to him that the monarch, immersed in pleasure, had but little to do with reference to the affairs ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... service was the only way of salvation that he could possibly see. It is true that he had been all his life a Protestant, but Protestantism was to him only a political faith, it had nothing to do with moral accountability or preparation for heaven. The spiritual views of acceptance with God by simple personal penitence and faith in the atoning sacrifice of his Son, which lie at the foundation of the system of the Church of England, ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... line. They will slough off every other consideration and devote themselves, with terrible energy, to the work of death. Oh ye! who bring such a calamity as this upon this once happy country! Pause, gentlemen, before you do it, and think of the fearful accountability that awaits you ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... he has no trouble. The 'independent' man soon goes out of the door. If he be a manufacturer, he does not allow his employes to help themselves to his stores and material. He keeps, if he is a sensible man, his stock under lock and key, and exacts a rigid accountability in their use. What is to prevent the introduction of just such a system of accountability in the family economy? 'Why,' say many housekeepers, 'we would not dare to lock up our butter, and eggs, and flour, and sugar; we could not keep a girl a day if we doled out our stores and held our servants ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... speculation, ancient and modern, tend to weaken the sense of moral accountability. First, the atomic theory, which we have just considered, leads to this result by the molecular, and therefore purely physical, origin which it assigns to moral acts and conditions. We have already alluded to Herbert ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... blood, spurt from the veins of this, their latter-day descendant, and quench the fires before they reached the superstructure of his faith? The professor realized to the full, moreover, his personal accountability in the matter. None the less, he could never quite decide where the real right lay. Should he ignore the possible loss to science or should he help on the probable loss to theologic eloquence? He shook ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... the natural and moral world, are under his providential direction; that GOD'S decrees perfectly consist with human liberty, GOD'S universal agency with the agency of man, and man's dependence with his accountability; that man has understanding and corporeal strength to do all that GOD requires of him; so that nothing but the sinner's aversion to holiness prevents his salvation; that it is the prerogative of GOD to bring good out of evil, and that he will cause the wrath and rage of wicked men ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... practice of rigid economy. The objects of expenditure should be limited in number, as far as this may be practicable, and the appropriations necessary to carry them into effect ought to be disbursed under the strictest accountability. Enlightened economy does not consist in the refusal to appropriate money for constitutional purposes essential to the defense, progress, and prosperity of the Republic, but in taking care that none of this money shall ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson |
