"Accountability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... difference between a Pagan and a Christian people is in the power of conscience, in the sense of a moral accountability to a spiritual Deity, in the hopes or fears of a future state,—motives which have a powerful influence on the elevation of individual character and the development of higher types of social organization. But whatever laws are necessary for the maintenance of order, the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... failed to make significant progress in diversifying the economy away from overdependence on the capital intensive oil sector which provides 30% of GDP, 95% of foreign exchange earnings, and about 80% of budgetary revenues. The government's resistance to initiating greater transparency and accountability in managing the country's multibillion dollar oil earnings continues to limit economic growth and prevent an agreement with the IMF and bilateral creditors on debt relief. The largely subsistence agricultural sector has failed to keep up with rapid ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... nothing to 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 trust. Until that ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... should be called upon to choose a Senator without the usual time for preparation. Dan had already been struck by the general air of irresponsibility that prevailed among the legislators. Many of the members had looked upon the special session as a lark; they seemed to feel that their accountability to their constituents had ended with the ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... and it was admitted that in individual life there is an effect due to free-will; that by his voluntary acts man may within certain limits determine his own course. But, so far as nations are concerned, since they can yield no personal accountability to God, they are placed under ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... Sargatchi henceforward on a footing of perfect independence, and therefore (as regarded responsibility) on a footing of equality with the Khan. Their independence, however, had respect only to their own sovereign; for towards Russia they were placed in a new attitude of direct duty and accountability, by the creation in their favor of small pensions (300 roubles a year), which, however, to a Kalmuck of that day were more considerable than might be supposed, and had a further value as marks of honorary ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... word on this over-worked argument of centering responsibility. Accountability means that a man charged with the performance of a task shall be held undividedly responsible for it. Now the commissioners collectively legislate. They can not do this without constantly and seriously intruding upon the ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... seniority for fitness, so common in the British army. Unhappily, the officer himself who was so much concerned in the responsibility of the event, and who had been much respected by his brother officers and his commander, was placed beyond all human accountability, for he fell in front of his fugitive soldiers. Colonel King, of the 14th Light Dragoons, who succeeded Colonel Havelock, who fell at Rumnugger, was also much censured. His defence was, that he did his utmost to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... campaign, in its general outlines, is approved, and if all his requisitions for vessels, horses, mules, wagons, ambulances, tents, guns, ammunition, and miscellaneous supplies are duly honored, there is no reason that I can see why he should not be held to a strict personal accountability for results, both generally and in detail. He has made his own plan; he has had everything that he asked for; and if the campaign does not go as it should, he, and not the War Department, is to blame. If, however, the department, after selecting him ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... warfare Oriental kings had a great advantage over Greek commanders. The former could sacrifice as many of their "slaves" as they pleased, in desperate assaults. The latter had always to bear in mind their accountability at home for ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... sovereignties of limited powers, fellow-servants of the same masters, uncontrolled within their respective spheres, uncontrollable by encroachments upon each other; that the firmest security of peace is the preparation during peace of the defenses of war; that a rigorous economy and accountability of public expenditures should guard against the aggravation and alleviate when possible the burden of taxation; that the military should be kept in strict subordination to the civil power; that the freedom of the ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... subordination to the civil power; arbitrary arrests for acts not known to the law as crimes, impossible; Romish Inquisitions, Star-Chambers, Military Commissions, unknown; the means of instruction within reach of the children of all; the right of Free Speech; and accountability of all public officers, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... 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." It will not be denied that this opinion seems, at first view, to be ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... the old fellow, 'I never drink anything on duty; you see it is one of the regulations and I subscribed them, and, of course, I could not break my word. Nick, there, will drink my share, however, when you are through; he isn't held up to quite such high accountability.' And sure enough, Nick drained off a glass and made a speech which got him a handful of quarters. Well, of course, the old Captain owned not only the car, but all in it by this time, and we spent one of the jolliest evenings ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... Religion, in the sense which is commonly given to it, as a system of faith and worship, he did not connect with Christ at all. He was a believer in the existence of God, in a future life, and in man's accountability for his actions here: in so far as this, he may be said to have had a system of worship, but not of Christian worship. He regarded Christ simply as a man, with no other than mortal power,—and to worship him in any way would, in his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... treatment. 'God' is no 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
... On the subsequent trial, the Court expressly cleared the accused of cowardice, but found him guilty of certain errors of judgment, and specifically of leaving the Tonnant while the signal for close action was flying. As the Tonnant escaped, the implication of accountability for that result naturally follows. For so serious a consequence the sentence only was that he be dismissed his ship, and, although never again employed, he was retired two years after as a rear-admiral. It was becoming increasingly ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... Society to a stricter accountability than it would insist upon in ordinary cases. Were they only a club of gentlemen associated for their own amusement, it would be very natural and proper that they should exclude all questions which would introduce controversy, and that, however individually interested in ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... so sure of that," retorted Media. "Methinks this doctrine of yours, about all mankind being bedeviled, will work a deal of mischief; seeing that by implication it absolves you mortals from moral accountability. Further-more; as your doctrine is exceedingly evil, by Yamjamma's theory it follows, that you must be proportionably bedeviled; and since it harms others, your devil is of the number of those whom it is best to limbo; and since he is one of those that can be limboed, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... feel such an overwhelming sense of the littleness of the men in charge of public affairs" as in the United States. And in another place he dwells on the fact that "responsible government educates office-holders into a high and honourable sense of their accountability to the people," and makes "statesmanship a permanent pursuit followed by a skilled class ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... 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
... '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 his shipments, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... law against the waste of moose meat is both novel and admirable. The saving of any considerable portion of the flesh of a full-grown bull moose, along with its head, is a large order; but it is right. The degree of accountability to which guides are held for the doings of the men whom they pilot into the woods is entirely commendable, and worthy of imitation. If a sportsman or gunner does the wrong thing, ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... Davies," said Leonard, gravely, "that some of the very men you name have told it, if not sworn to it, the other way, and that your captain has allowed it to be accepted as the basis of his release from accountability." ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... '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 ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... generally informed of it, and not seldom asked for their opinion. In particular emergencies, indeed, the Great Council clothed some of its members with dictatorial power, but only for a few weeks and under public accountability. But the more democratic the form of political life becomes, just so much the more indispensable are culture and the religious elevation of the people. The strengthening of a sense of right demands as a necessary counterpoise, an exalted ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... Schindler, who also relates that when Beethoven handed him documents to be used in the biography a week before his death, he said to him and Breuning: "But in all things severely the truth; for that I hold you to a strict accountability.") ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... generals themselves should be tried before the newly-constituted tribunal of the captains, in case anyone had complaint to make against them for past matters; agreeably to the Athenian habit of subjecting every magistrate to a trial of accountability on laying down his office. In the course of this investigation, Philesius and Xanthikles were fined twenty minae,[91] to make good an assignable deficiency of that amount, in the cargoes of those merchantmen which had been detained at Trapezus for the transport of the army: Sophaenetus, ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... 'em come to me.' Says he, 'My father and mother was Presbyterians, and my grandfather and grandmother and great-grandfather and great-grandmother on both sides; I was sprinkled in infancy, and I j'ined the Presbyterian church as soon as I come to the age of accountability, and if you was to carry me over to Jerusalem and babtize me in the river Jordan itself, I'd still be ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... threatened with the most terrific consequences if there was not an inward as well as an outward change. From his infancy Burr's education had been strictly moral; and strong impressions had been made upon his mind as to the existence of a Deity, and the accountability of man. Yet this awakening did not seem to him right in all its parts. He determined, therefore, to have a free and full conversation with Dr. Witherspoon, the then president of the college, on the subject. The result of that conversation in some measure tranquillized young Burr. The Rev. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... o'clock when Miss Bailey gently disengaged herself and set out upon her uptown way. She passed from the hush of the hospital walls and halls into another phase of her accountability. Upon the steps, a woman, wild-eyed and dishevelled, was hurling an unintelligible mixture of pleading and abuse upon the stalwart frame of Patrick Brennan's father, the policeman on the beat. The woman tore her hair, wept, and beat her breast, but ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... of the dignity of courage, as she recalled her self-reliant life and her right to be free from accountability to this man, she released her arm from his grasp and stood looking full at him. She had never been so handsome, in his eyes. A shade came over them while he looked back at her, as if she drew the very light out ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens |
