When I have been asked during these last weeks who caused the riots and the killing in L.A., my answer has been direct and simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame.

Being the only man in the household with my mom definitely helped me grow up fast.

Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.

I love Los Angeles, and it’s been very good to me, but if everyone is running around telling the stories, who’s living them? You don’t play characters that are celebrities – you play guys who know what to do when their septic tank’s blocked.

If you want to cut your own throat, don’t come to me for a bandage.

It’s so easy to settle for less than God’s best for us because we don’t always feel like taking responsibility for our behavior or putting forth some effort to do what we need to do so we can accomplish great things for God and help people. But the cost of settling for less is actually harder than being completely obedient to God’s will.

For everything I do, I think about a 6-year-old girl and her mom that I saw at my concert last night. I think about what those two individuals would think if I were at a club last night. I never want to be arrested, and I never want to get a DUI, those are my moral values.

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.

He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.

I said that America’s role would be limited; that we would not put ground troops into Libya; that we would focus our unique capabilities on the front end of the operation, and that we would transfer responsibility to our allies and partners.

The function of posterity is to look after itself.

You know, one of the things I think you understand as president is you’re held responsible for everything, but you don’t always have control of everything, right?

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility – I welcome it.

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

Every right implies a responsibility; Every opportunity, an obligation, Every possession, a duty.

When the players go home, I can’t tell them what to do, so you need to create an atmosphere of trust. I don’t want to think, ‚What are they doing now? Do I need to call them?‘

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.

When I grew up, the Devil was a reason why I had a headache or the Devil was the reason I got mad today. We always blamed the Devil. I think today when I say the Enemy, I like to make it broader. Sometimes the Enemy can be our own thoughts.

You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand.

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

I hate letting my teammates down. I know I’m not going to make every shot. Sometimes I try to make the right play, and if it results in a loss, I feel awful. I don’t feel awful because I have to answer questions about it. I feel awful in that locker room because I could have done something more to help my teammates win.

Reparations – not just aid – should be provided by those responsible for devastating Iraqi civilian society by cruel sanctions and military actions, and – together with other criminal states – for supporting Saddam Hussein through his worst atrocities and beyond. That is the minimum that honesty requires.

The Youth of a Nation are the trustees of posterity.

Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices.

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

I would feel no hesitation in saying that it is the responsibility of a decent human being to give assistance to a child who is being attacked by a rabid dog, but I would not intend this to imply that in all imaginable circumstances one must, necessarily, act in accordance with this general responsibility.

The real danger is not inaction. The real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like action is happening when in fact nothing is being done.

People need to be insured so when you have an accident out there, or when something catastrophic happens to you, that you’re covered and there’s not someone else has to pay for you. That is as simple as that.

Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

There’s no difference between one’s killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It’s exactly the same thing, or even worse.

Accountability breeds response-ability.

Those who cannot think or take responsibility for themselves need, and clamor for, a leader.

We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence… on pain of liquidation.

The other day the President said, I know you’ve had some rough times, and I want to do something that will show the nation what faith that I have in you, in your maturity and sense of responsibility. He paused, then said, would you like a puppy?

To some extent I happily don’t know what I’m doing. I feel that it’s an artist’s responsibility to trust that.

I think if someone gets kicked in the face it is their fault – they watched the foot come towards their face.

Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.

I don’t want to express my opinion about actual politics, because if I do, I have to be responsible for my decision.

I’m gonna go hard no matter what because I gotta feed my family, and I gotta feed myself.

With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents are their most important role models.

Woe to him that claims obedience when it is not due; woe to him that refuses it when it is.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself.

I take a lot of pride in the work I do, because people pay to see me. They’ve got to get babysitters, park their car, get popcorn and candy. I’ve got to be conscious of that.

I remember I was flying home to Los Angeles one day. I was talking to the woman next to me and the flight attendant tried to tell me I was sitting next to somebody that I should know. I didn’t recognize her but it ended up being Beyonce’s sister, Solange Knowles.

Those who commit injustice bear the greatest burden.

No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.

No other country in the world does what we do. On every issue, the world turns to us, not simply because of the size of our economy or our military might – but because of the ideals we stand for, and the burdens we bear to advance them.

The price of greatness is responsibility.

He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it.

Do your duty and a little more and the future will take care of itself.

The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life.

There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us.