"Accountability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nature, by securing a regular and punctual accountability for the issues of public supplies, would be a great guard against abuse, would tend to insure their due application and to give public ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... corruption of manners, of the more prevalent scorn of religion which we see, for instance, in a country so civilized as France, is, that its clergy can train no sons to carry into the contests of earth the steadfast belief in accountability to Heaven." ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... the justice of the view you take, with that limitation; and I trust it is with a sense of such accountability I have written," said I. "May I, then, flatter myself with the hope that you ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... officers connected with elections will be held to a rigid accountability and will be subject to trial by military commission for fraud, or unlawful or improper conduct in the performance of their duties. Their rate of compensation and manner of payment will be in accordance with the provisions of sections six ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... expended 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... and for this office it appoints, after careful selection, trial, and probation, the best qualified amongst those of its senior members who choose to undertake a trust of such heavy responsibility. These officers are called Tutors; and they are connected by duties and by accountability, not with the university at all, but with their own private colleges. The professors, on the other hand, are public functionaries, not connected (as respects the exercise of their duties) with any college whatsoever—not even with their own—but altogether and exclusively with ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the opinion of mankind, but to the law, for the faithful discharge of his own appropriate duties. Again and again we hear it said that the President is responsible to the American people! that he is responsible to the bar of public opinion! For whatever he does, he assumes accountability to the American people! For whatever he omits, he expects to be brought to the high bar of public opinion! And this is thought enough for a limited, restrained, republican government! an undefined, undefinable, ideal ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... 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 ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... shame as a nation our Government has evaded, up to this hour, pronouncing the expected verdict, has preferred to quibble and define, in its vain attempt to hold the barbarian to a "strict accountability"—whatever that may mean. France does not want our army or our navy, not even our money and our factories, except on business terms, but she has looked in vain for our affirmation as a nation of our belief in her great cause, ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... tremendous thought. When Daniel Webster was once asked what was the greatest thought that had ever occupied his mind, he answered, "the fact of my personal accountability to God." And no man can give to such a fact its due place without feeling its steadying, sobering influence through all his life. Lament is often made to-day, and not without reason, of our failing sense of the seriousness ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... nape of the neck and twisted their head off." There must have been great inertness in New England at the time of his first visit to Boston, when "nobody seemed to have an idea that there was anything but what God had locked up and frozen from all eternity. The bottom of accountability had fallen out. My first business was to put it in again." The coldness and indifference of the Church, which ministers usually employ the vivid language of the Bible regarding the ways of Zion to portray, he described in the equally vivid, but less dignified New ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... duty, what ought to be done, moral obligation, accountableness[obs3], liability, onus, responsibility; bounden duty, imperative duty; call, call of duty,; accountability. allegiance, fealty, tie engagement &c. (promise) 768; part; function, calling &c. (business) 625. morality,, morals, decalogue; case of conscience; conscientiousness &c. (probity) 939; conscience, inward ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... is marked, which dismisses him finally upon the tides of absolute self-control. A dark ocean would seem the total expanse of life from the first: but far darker and more appalling would seem that interior and second chamber of the ocean which called him away for ever on the direct accountability of others. Dreadful would be the morning which should say—"Be thou a human child incarnate;" but more dreadful the morning which should say—"Bear thou henceforth the sceptre of thy self-dominion through life, and the passion of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... 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 his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... commission. Infants have not faith. Peter says, "Repent and be baptized." Acts 2:38. Repentance, therefore, precedes baptism. John understood it thus. Mat. 3:8. Infants need no repentance. There is not a case recorded in the New Testament of infant baptism. After one has reached the years of accountability and repents of his sins and is born of the Spirit he is then, and not until then, a proper candidate ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... postmark. As he waited for his trolley at the corner, he reflected how strange it 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 annoyed ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... the difficulties you have to contend with," replied the Prince; "and these gentlemen will not hold you to a strict accountability for the correctness of what you ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... such measures or such a warning of danger as in any degree an abbreviation of the rights of American shipmasters or American citizens, bound on lawful errands as passengers on merchant ships of belligerent nationality. It must hold the Imperial German Government to a strict accountability for any infringement of ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... styled him, shifting back and forth, from opinion to opinion, and to be relied upon for only one thing,—to dodge responsibility, if possible. Consequently, no official action was taken; the commander-in-chief contented himself with washing his hands of all accountability. He had given orders which would clear himself, in case Nelson's conduct was censured in England. If, on the contrary, it was approved, it would redound to the credit ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... the freedom and accountability of the creature. Acts 2:23. This is not to be understood in any such sense as to make God the author of sin. Jas. 1:13. If the will of God is done, the greatest possible good will be accomplished. Ps. 119:68, f.c. How we ought to feel, in view of this doctrine. Phil. 4:4. Duty of submission. ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... the case were he not along, while, being along, he at least had a fighting chance to save it, or to be in position to recover it. Responsibilities were showering upon him thick and fast. But a few days back he had had but himself to consider; then, in some subtle way, he had felt a certain accountability for 'Frisco Kid's future welfare; and after that, and still more subtly, he had become aware of duties which he owed to his position, to his sister, to his chums and friends; and now, by a most unexpected chain of circumstances, came the pressing need of service for his father's sake. It was ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... where moral influence has done its utmost, the conscience is, in all ordinary cases, an infinitely better disciplinarian than the rod. When you can get a school to obey and to study because it is right, and from a conviction of accountability to God, you have gained a victory which is worth more than all the penal statutes in the world; but you can never gain such a victory without laying great stress upon religious ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... 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. Beyond these obvious exemptions ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the ministrations and observances of the Catholic 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 ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... chapter, it at once becomes evident that even the very lowest forms of life possess mind in some degree. It is true that in the monera, or one-celled organisms, the nerve-cell is not differentiated; consequently, if I were to be held to a close and strict accountability, my definition of mind would not embrace these organisms. Yet, some small latitude must be allowed in all definitions of psychological phenomena, especially in those phenomena occurring in organisms which typify ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... entering on the discharge of my duties, a well-organized system of labor and accountability, for which the State is chiefly indebted to my predecessor, General Chester A. Arthur, who, by his practical good sense and unremitting exertion, at a period when everything was in confusion, reduced the operations of the department to a matured plan by which large amounts of money ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... cooks and waiters; but 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 ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... insuperable obstacles and opposition prevent the consummation of our task, we shall hardly be excused; and if failure can be traced to our fault or neglect we may be sure the people will hold us to a swift and exacting accountability. ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... to come. And it becomes a thing self-evident that a judgment to come is the main fact upon which all moral and religious truth depends for its power over the hearts and lives of men. Take away from man all fear of accountability in a future state, and his bestial appetites assert their sway. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die" gives loose rein to every passion, ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... center, and to this end must all our efforts tend, if our object is the regeneration of the human race. Men must understand their true interests, their relations and obligations to each other, and their accountability to God, before they will "cease to do evil and learn to do well." If either the writer or the reader, expects to do anything in behalf of suffering humanity, he must never lose sight of the corruption of our natures, and the great fountain ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... 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 ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... 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 ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... I said, or the language I used, but I endeavoured to set before them in a shape adapted to their comprehension, the simple elements of the Christian scheme—the great doctrines of God and immortality, of human sinfulness and accountability, and of salvation through Jesus Christ. But encouraged by the attention and apparent interest of the silent and listening circle, in the glow of the moment, I went beyond this prescribed limit, and from these vast general truths, I began ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... utterly impossible without injury to hold girls to the same standards of conduct, regularity, severe moral accountability, and strenuous mental work that boys need. The privileges and immunities of her sex are inveterate, and with these the American girl in the middle teens fairly tingles with a new-born consciousness. Already she ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... far, then, as Charles II had an object, it began and ended with himself. Therein he stood lower than his father, who at least conscientiously believed in the Divine Right of Kings (S429) and their accountability to ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... 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
... substitution of 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 rally his men in vain; that they were generally light small men, mounted ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... whatsoever comes to pass, and that all beings, actions, and events, both in 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 ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... a deplorable situation should arise, the Imperial German Government can readily appreciate that the Government of the United States would be constrained to hold the Imperial Government of Germany to a strict accountability for such acts of their naval authorities, and to take any steps it might be necessary to take to safeguard American lives and property and to secure to American citizens the full enjoyment of their acknowledged ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... go far toward strengthening a credit which ought to be the best in the world, and will ultimately enable us to replace the debt with bonds bearing less interest than we now pay. To this should be added a faithful collection of the revenue, a strict accountability to the Treasury for every dollar collected, and the greatest practicable retrenchment in expenditure in every department ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... the time being. The average term over which it is (pecuniarily) incumbent on the modern businessman to take account of the working of any given enterprise has shortened so far that the old-fashioned accountability, that once was depended on to dictate a sane and considerate management with a view to permanent good-will, has in ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... frequent reference to the souls of the indentured ones; Englishmen at the old home wrote to the settlers to remember well their religious, their proselyting duties; and they faithfully reminded each other of their accountability for souls. For instance, when a smart young Irishman came over with some Irish hounds, his consigner besought the New Englanders to remember that it was as godly to "winne this fellowes soule out of the subtillest snare of Sathan, Romes pollitick religion, as to winne an Indian ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... 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
... subsequently gives. 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... self-respecting, reasonable being, she has grave responsibilities, and from her is required an accountability strict and severe. If she owns stock in one of your banks, she has an influence in the management of the institution which takes care of her money. The possession of children makes her a large stockholder in public morality, but her ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... legislature 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 ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... Sensible of our accountability to God, of our entire dependence upon his blessing for success in all our undertakings, knowing that of ourselves we can do nothing, but believing that through Christ strengthening us we may accomplish something in his service, we ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... 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
... to the interest of the governed, are those whose selfish interests are in accordance with it. And to this is added a third proposition, namely, that no rulers have their selfish interest identical with that of the governed, unless it be rendered so by accountability, that is, by dependence on the will of the governed. In other words (and as the result of the whole), that the desire of retaining or the fear of losing their power, and whatever is thereon consequent, is the sole motive which can be relied on for producing on the part of rulers ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... had the entire control of expenditures, he took the utmost care to see that every dollar was accounted for. He resigned on the 18th of January, and waited until the 23rd of February for that purpose. The same exact accountability was practiced by him in all accounts with the United States. In my personal business relations with him, I found him to be exact and particular to the last degree, insisting always upon paying fully every debt, and his share of every expense. I doubt if any man living can truly say that ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... manifested by the murderers, when they saw that the questions and answers were written down, and a strict course of accountability taken as the basis of the examination. I had foreseen something of this alarm, and requested the commanding officer to send me a detachment of men. Lieutenant C. F. Morton, 2d Infantry, to whom this matter was entrusted, managed it well. He paraded his men in a hollow square, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... provision has been made for the comfort and relief of the aged and indigent among the surviving warriors of the Revolution; the regular armed force has been reduced, and its constitution revised and perfected; the accountability for the expenditures of public monies has been more effective; the Floridas have been peaceably acquired, and our boundary has been extended to the Pacific Ocean; the independence of the southern nations of this hemisphere has been recognized, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... among their people, which never can result in any good, civil or religious. If we shall have the rebellion, disunion, and civil war, to which these evil principles and these excitements tend, the guilt of such clergymen will not be small! I would not have their accountability for all the ...
— The Religious Duty of Obedience to Law • Ichabod S. Spencer
... 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 time, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman |
