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Accountable   /əkˈaʊntəbəl/  /əkˈaʊnəbəl/   Listen
Accountable

adjective
1.
Liable to account for one's actions.  "Fully accountable for what they did" , "The court held the parents answerable for their minor child's acts of vandalism" , "He was answerable to no one"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Accountable" Quotes from Famous Books



... shall you tell me, on the passage to the scaffold, which that tyranny (of which you are only the intermediary executioner) has erected for my murder, that I am accountable for all the blood that has and will be shed in this struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor—shall you tell me this, and must I be so very a slave as not to repel it? I do not fear to approach the Omnipotent ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... immortals riding upon billows, with this blustering god of his own making at the head of them! where, then, must have lain the charm, that once made the public so partial to this tragedy? why plainly, in the grace and harmony of the actor's utterance. For the actor himself is not accountable for the false poetry of his author; that, the hearer is to judge of; if it passes upon him, the actor can have no quarrel to it; who, if the periods given him are round, smooth, spirited, and high-sounding, even in a false ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... Mr. SPECTATOR, would it not be a Work becoming your Office to treat this Criminal as she deserve[s]? You should give it the severest Reflections you can: You should tell Women, that they are more accountable for Behaviour in Absence than after Death. The Dead are not dishonour'd by their Levities; the Living may return, and be laugh'd at by empty Fops, who will not fail to turn into Ridicule the good Man who is so unseasonable as to ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... of Reason, or Moral Agency, in Man, if another be substituted to act in his Stead, and not he himself? Man, being made a free and moral Agent, has Power to act for himself, and can be accountable for no body's Crimes but his own. The Consciousness of being a Sinner, belongs only to him, that actually sinneth, or omitteth his Duty. Enthusiasm indeed, which, in its highest Stages, is a kind of spiritual Madness, may have on ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch

... this, is one of those few, who never dishonours religion either by ridiculing, or cavilling at any denomination whatsoever. To God, and not to man, are all men accountable on the score of religion. Wherefore, this epistle is not so properly addressed to you as a religious, but as a political body, dabbling in matters, which the professed Quietude of your Principles instruct you not to meddle ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine

... parts of the first verb are lie, lay, lain; and of the second, lay, laid, laid. The word lay is found in both, and this is, in part, accountable for the confusion. The most frequent errors result from using laid, the past tense form of the transitive verb, when the word lay, the past tense form of the intransitive verb, should be used. The ear naturally expects the usual past tense ending of the d or ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel

... said the French lady, with the same heightened color and unpleasant smile, and her finely-penciled brows just discernibly knit, so as to give a novel and menacing expression to her beautiful face—"I am very sorry, madame, but she must, so long as I remain accountable for her education, complete her allotted exercises at the appointed hours; and nothing shall, I assure you, with my consent, interfere with these duties. Come, Miss Rhoda, precede me, if you please, to ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... Department of the Platte, and it was rumored, though it could not be confirmed, that the General had been directed by telegraph to designate a staff officer to receipt to Lieutenant Loring at once for the public property for which he was accountable, in order that the latter officer might take an early steamer for the Isthmus, as his services were urgently needed at his new station. It was an open secret that the General considered himself aggrieved by the action of the ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... when they heard that the state interfered in the family only when the children were unruly, and then it punished the children by sending them to a reform school and disgracing them for life, instead of holding the parents accountable, they seemed to think that it was one of the most anomalous features of our great anomaly. Here, when the father and mother are always quarrelling, the children are taken from them, and the pair are separated, at first for a time, but after several ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells

... very early sexually, and contract bad habits in the endeavour to still their unruly passions; with them, the future is darker than with the normal child, and the parent who neglects his duty may justly be held accountable for what happens to his ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... ordinarily reach the public, but the Senate now voted to remove the injunction of secrecy, and the reports were published. The manifest object of these maneuvers was to exhibit the President as acting upon the "spoils system" of distributing offices. The President's position was that he was not accountable to the Senate in such matters. In his message of the 1st of March he said: "The pledges I have made were made to the people, and to them I am responsible for the manner in which they have been redeemed. I am not responsible ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford

... no reason why that particular class of mail matter should be held accountable for the entire cost of not only its own collection and delivery, but the collection and delivery of all other classes; and I am confident, after full consideration of the subject, that the reduction of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... conclusion, a large portion of the State was in possession of the Federals, including the rich valleys of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers, and so remained until the close of the war. For this, however, General Lee cannot reasonably be held accountable. Disaster had befallen the Confederate arms, and the worst had been accomplished before he had reached the theatre of operations; the Alleghanies there constituted the dividing line between the hostile forces, and in this network of mountains, sterile and rendered absolutely impracticable ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... connection of such an island with a mother-country more than three thousand miles distant; and accordingly we find the captain-general of Cuba invested with unlimited power. He is, in fact, a viceroy appointed by the crown of Spain, and accountable only to the reigning sovereign for his administration of the colony. His rule is absolute; he has the power of life and death and liberty in his hands. He can, by his arbitrary will, send into exile any person whatever, be his name or rank what it may, whose residence in the ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson

... formerly of two degrees in Hungary. Each petty tribe had its own leader, beside which, there were four superior waywodes, of their own caste, on both sides the Danube and Teisse; whose residences were at Raab, Lewentz, Szathmar, and Kaschan; and to these the smaller waywodes were accountable. But now, only one superior waywode is appointed in all Transylvania, who has authority over the gold-washers in those parts. The Gypsies, however, still continue the custom among themselves, of choosing certain persons, whom they make heads over them, and call ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland

... not be accountable for that woman's expenses from this time forth," said Douglas, pointing at her, "You can keep her at your own risk, or turn her into the streets to pursue her profession, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... and a shrug. "That was business, the day's work. I mean an adventure in which I am accountable to no man." ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... Deerfoot's daring and profoundly devout nature, he was as superstitious in some respects as a child. He could not decide by means of his Bible the precise course to follow, for one of his principles was that he alone must determine his precise course of action, the Great Spirit holding him accountable only for the manner in which he did, or sought to do, that which he clearly saw was ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... I am right," said Marie, calmly, "and that it does not become two beings, who neither love nor esteem each other, and who live in the most ceremonious manner, to address one another with endearing epithets. At any rate we are not accountable to any one, and Frau von Leuthen must know the relations we bear to each other in the so-called marriage, as it is her arrangement for the ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... her voice trembled with the last words. To her, Faustina was suffering far more from the shock to her sensibilities than from any real grief. She knew that she had not loved her father, but the horror of his murder and the fright at being held accountable for it were almost enough to drive her mad. And yet she could not be suffering what Corona had suffered in being suspected by Giovanni, she had not that to lose which Corona had lost, the dominating passion of her life had not been suddenly burnt out in ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... that she had then the full command of what she had, and the full direction of what she did; that she was a man in her separate capacity, to all intents and purposes that a man could be so to himself; that she was controlled by none, because accountable to none, and was in subjection to none. So I sung these two ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe

... Doctor said gravely. "He is a man I esteem most highly. In some respects he is the bravest man I know, but he is constitutionally unable to stand noise, and the sound of a gun is torture to him. It is an unfortunate idiosyncrasy for which he is in no way accountable." ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty

... to—whatever nation your Yellow Press happens to be insulting at this moment. But, if you care to look a little deeper, you may find that some difference in your methods of empire-making is partly accountable for the change. A true poet must cling to universal truth; and by insulting it (as, for example, by importing into present-day politics the spirit which would excuse the iniquities of Henry VIII. on the ground that 'he gave us English Bess'!) you are ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... largest Muslim population. Current issues include: alleviating poverty, preventing terrorism, consolidating democracy after four decades of authoritarianism, implementing financial sector reforms, stemming corruption, and holding the military and police accountable for human rights violations. Indonesia was the nation worst hit by the December 2004 tsunami, which particularly affected Aceh province causing over 100,000 deaths and over $4 billion in damage. An additional earthquake in March 2005 created heavy destruction on the island ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... accountable for the death of her lover?" pintin' to the frail, droopin' figger. "Who is accountable for the death of my husband? Who is accountable for the death and everlastin' ruin of my son, my husband, my father and my lover? sez the millions of weepin' wimmen in America ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... been accountable for the roar at the other end of the house? An imitator? A double? Gerald suspected a masked-ball device intended to intrigue. He gave it no more thought, but proceeded, started on that line by the episode, to reflect on the singularity, yes, the crassness, of Mrs. Hawthorne's determination ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... how he came to have a great passion again; and he must have had—to marry in this way. Though Lush, his old chum, hints that he married this girl out of obstinacy. By George! it was a very accountable obstinacy. A man might make up his mind to marry her without the stimulus of contradiction. But he must have made himself a pretty large drain ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... two broad divisions into which the methods of doing all things are in the first instance classed—the right way and the wrong way—and, generally speaking, the wrong way has proved the more popular and is accountable for much of the very bad golf that one sees almost every day upon the links. There are two mistakes to which the beginner is much addicted, and to them is due the unhappy circumstance that in so many cases he never gets his club handicap down to single figures. ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon

... since, Ralph; and I know now that there is not necessarily any danger, even if you don't come back by the time I expect you. And of course each time I have fidgeted and you have come back safe, I have learned a certain amount of sea-knowledge, and have come to know that sailors and fishermen are not accountable for time; and that if the wind drops or tide turns they are helpless in the matter, and have only to wait till a ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... to pass the night in the house of another, shall leave it before daybreak, without giving notice to the family, he shall be held accountable for any thing that may ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... I did not relish this unaccountable change. If I had persuaded him to go, it would have been all right; but to find him thus ready and eager was unnatural. I felt as if I were accountable for this change in his opinions and actions, and immediately, strange to say, experienced a tendency ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... rate, supported at first by the old Earl, he began a series of persecutions designed to make me renounce my suffragist principles, or at least to make me cease playing a conspicuous public part in the militant propaganda. As my husband was dead and there were no children, I could not see that I was accountable to the Claiborne family for my actions. But the Claibornes took a different view of it. In their philosophy, once a Claiborne, always a Claiborne. I was bringing disgrace and humiliation upon the family, ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... whose friends solicit not your alliance, your mind is too delicate to make wonderful; but your generosity in submitting, unasked, the arrangement of that resignation to those for whose interest it is made, and your high sense of honour in holding yourself accountable to me, though under no tie, and bound by no promise, mark a greatness of mind which calls for reverence rather than thanks, and which I never can praise half so much ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... impossible to exact the payment. It makes little difference whether the services were commuted at a lower rate than that at which they had formerly been "sold" or whether the villain was simply held accountable for a smaller number of services at the old rate; in either case the rent was reduced, and the burden of the ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley

... good news, again, that God does care for sinners, and for all kinds and sorts of sinners? Some go wrong from mere stupidity and ignorance, because they know no better; because they really are not altogether accountable for their own doings. They are like the silly sheep, who gets out over the fence of his own fancy: and yet no reasonable man will be angry with the poor thing. It knows no better. How many a poor young thing goes wandering away, like that silly ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... ship base, at desks equipped with viewplates and phones, in constant communication with their "correspondents," on the ship. They acted continuously as consultants, observers, recorders and advisors during the flight or action. Although not primarily accountable for the operation of the ship, they were senior to, and in a sense responsible for the training and efficiency ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan

... was a woman who would not wilfully have done wrong. With the progress of civilization the time will doubtless come when warfare, having ceased to be necessary, will be thought highly criminal; yet it will not then be fair to hold Marlborough or Wellington accountable for the lives lost in their great battles. We still live in an age when war is, to the imagination of some persons, surrounded with false glories; and the greatest of modern generals [32] has still many undiscriminating admirers. Yet the day is no less certainly at hand when the edicts ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... sense. Perhaps you will be able to put it before him in a better light. When a man marries a lady, with an established position of her own like Lady Markland, and a great many responsibilities, especially when she is a sort of queen mother and has a whole noble family to be accountable to——" ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... you don't understand. But there! I suppose when a girl is in love, she's not accountable for her expression. All the same, it is strange. You know, Addie dear, I have come to the conclusion that Judaism exercises a strange centrifugal and centripetal effect on its sons—sometimes it repulses them, sometimes it draws them; only it never leaves them neutral. Now, here had I deliberately ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... if you have any authority for placing my brother in a place where he is liable to catch a cold which may give him pneumonia and be the cause of his death. As it is, my brother suffered a great deal, and so did Tubbs, and if they get sick from it you may be sure that you will be held legally accountable. It was an ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield

... gratitude; but these he sought to direct to the Giver of all Good. "My talent," said he to a friend, "is the meanest of all talents—a little sordid dust; but as the man in the parable who had but one talent was held accountable, I also am accountable for the talent that I possess, humble as it is, to the great Lord of all." On one occasion the case of a poor orphan boy was submitted to him, whose parents, both dying young, had left him destitute, on ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... the horse's eye and ear, and implored her brother not to venture on driving it, and had been bantered good-humouredly on her unusual fears. At the first shock, the untamed girl had spoken bitter words, making Captain Alder accountable for the accident. What they were, neither Mr. Hailes nor any one else exactly knew, ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... lived and ruled the Spanish captain general, so remote and inaccessible from the viceroyalty at Mexico that he was in effect a king, nominally accountable to the viceroy, but practically beyond his reach and control and wholly irresponsible to the people. Equally independent for the same reason were the Mexican governors. Here met all the provincial, ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... is possible for the United States to hold Germany "strictly accountable" for the destruction of American lives on the Lusitania without resort to war is Mr. Taft's opinion, reported in the following dispatch from Philadelphia to THE NEW YORK ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... forward to communicate this good news. The crew of the Yungfrau and the conspirators or smugglers were soon on the best of terms, and as there was no one, to check the wasteful expenditure of stores and no one accountable, the liquor was hoisted up on the forecastle, and the night passed ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... hour he measured up the situation more calmly. He realized that the exigency was tremendously serious, and that until now he had not viewed it with the dispassionate coolness that characterized the service of the uniform he wore. Celie was accountable for that. He confessed the fact to himself, not without a certain pleasurable satisfaction. He had allowed her presence, and his thoughts of her, to fill the adventure completely for him, and as a result ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood

... Neville, 'I am accountable for mentioning it to you. And I did so, on the supposition that you could not fail to be highly proud ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... the death of her lover?" pintin' to the frail, droopin' figger. "Who is accountable for the death of my husband? Who is accountable for the death and everlastin' ruin of my son, my husband, my father and my lover? sez the millions of weepin' wimmen in America that the Canteen and saloon have killed and ruined. These questions unanswered by you are echoin' through ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... things done by men of his rank—stories of transgressions, of follies, of cruelties. So many were open secrets. There were men, who, even while keeping up an outward aspect of respectability, were held accountable for painful things. The lives of well-born struggling women were so hard. Sometimes such nice ones went under because temptation was so great. But she had not thought, she could ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... understand," he said to himself one day, half in bitter self-contempt and half in self-defence, "that I couldn't help doing as I did; no cruelty surpasses that of holding weak and sensitive natures accountable for shortcomings they ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... however, although gentle as usual, was this time more than usually firm. She told Bertalda that it was her due, as mistress of the house, to arrange her household as she thought best, and that, in this, she was accountable to no one but her lord and husband. "See, oh, pray see," exclaimed Bertalda, in an angry yet uneasy tone, "how the poor beautiful water is curling and writhing at being shut out from the bright sunshine and from ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... to a Prince, and, at the same time, not his favourite; for it is his favour only that gives one a power over the more minute concerns of the family, for which the public does, nevertheless, think a minister accountable when they, see he has power over affairs of far ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... extended over the whole of Palestine, and all the governors of its cities were accountable to him. We find him exercising his authority not only in the south, but also in the north, at Zemar and Gebal, and even among the Amorites. Amon-apt, to whom the superintendence of Phoenicia was more particularly entrusted, was supplied ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce

... been fighting," said Neal. He did not think it necessary to add that he had also been love-making, though it was the interview with Una, far more than the struggle with the yeoman, which was accountable for the gleaming eyes and exalted expression which his ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham

... now to a scene of war, blood and woe, for which the Dutch were not at all accountable. It will be remembered that a colony had been established near the mouth of Delaware Bay. Two vessels were dispatched from Holland for this point containing a number of emigrants, a large stock of cattle, and whaling equipments, as whales abounded in the bay. The ship, called the Walvis, arrived ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott

... "I'm accountable to the vestry for the church," gravely said Kenton. "I will come and see what is doing, and open the church if so be ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge

... I sold one of the yawls to the Lieutenant-Governor and the longboat and the other yawl to the Commander of the Remberg, the ship in which we embarked. The latter was not to be delivered up until I left Batavia, and I shall make myself accountable to the Commissioners of His Majesty's Navy for the amount. As I could take no more boats with me and the pinnace being out of repair, I left her with the Governor Wanjon with permission to do with her what he ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards

... a proof, that in the kinds of servitude referred to, God did not invest Abraham, or any other person with that absolute ownership of his fellow-men, which is claimed by Southern slaveholders—I would remark, that He has made man accountable to Himself; but slavery makes him accountable to, and a mere appendage to his fellow-man. Slavery substitutes the will of a fallible fellow-man for that infallible rule of action—the will of God. The slave, instead of being allowed to make it the great end of his existence to glorify ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... Aguinaldo attempted to intimidate General Otis by inviting a conference, and avowing that he would make war if any more troops were sent to Manila. He would have bloodshed, and is responsible for it, so far as he is an accountable being. It is of the horrors of war that the blood of brave men is shed on both sides of a controversy that has been appealed to the arbitrament of arms, though the origin of the affray may be obscure and the issue uncertain. In the bloodshed around Manila the case is clear and the conclusion ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... were also Mr. and Mrs. Abercorn, Dr. Renaud and Poussette, and the priest, who was naturally held accountable for Pauline's safety, reported her as resting comfortably ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... term for the natives of all Spain's possessions overseas. This, in a way, was compensation (it lowered his family's tribute) for his having to pay the taxes of all who died in Binan or moved away during his term of office. The municipal captain then was held accountable whether the people could pay or not, no deductions ever being made from the lists. Most gobernadorcillos found ways to reimburse themselves, but not Mercado. His family, however, were of the fourth generation in the ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... he is thriving in his native soil; more especially when that soil is old England, and Devonshire. You are not one of us, young gentleman, though your name happens to be Wychecombe; but, then we are none of us accountable for our ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... were stadtholder, captain-general, and admiral of the Indies. By his office he is president of the supreme council, in which he has two voices. He has the keys of all the magazines, and directs every thing belonging to them, without being accountable to any one. He commands by his own proper authority, and every person is bound to obey him, so that his authority equals, and even surpasses, that of several European sovereigns. But he is accountable to, and removeable by the directors ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... favored with an outward revelation, but he had been permitted to behold the outward universe, and to know that it had a Creator "of eternal power and divinity." He had also had a conscience within him, and so much light as rendered him an accountable being, with a sense of obligation to a supreme power, and furnishing another proof of the existence of a personal God. But the Apostle tells us that they, the Gentiles, did not like to retain God in their knowledge. They wickedly extinguished the light which He had given them, because they were ...
— The Theology of Holiness • Dougan Clark

... major, giving notice that he will shoot every franc tireur he may catch; and also giving notice to the inhabitants that if any Prussian soldier be killed, or even shot at, by a franc tireur—if a rail be pulled up, or a road cut—that he will hold the village near the spot accountable; will burn the houses, and treat the male inhabitants according to martial law, and that the same penalties will be exacted for sheltering or hiding ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... in the abstract. There is no such thing as sin in the abstract. Sin is sin only when it is incorporated in the will of a human individual. We condemn the sinner because he has wedded himself to the sin. If this were not the case, we might as well close our courts of justice. We hold men accountable, then, for their misdeeds, whatever speculative philosophy may urge to the contrary. How could we revere virtue if we did not stigmatize its opposite; how could we believe in human worth if we did not condemn unworth where ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler

... representations, and speaking for himself and Reynolds—asked Hooker's permission to let the First and Fifth Corps take part in the battle. It is fair, however, to state that Hooker, having been injured and in great pain, was hardly accountable for his want of decision at this time. Indeed, General Tremaine, who was a colonel on Sickles' staff, says that Hooker did intend to use his reserve force as soon as the enemy were utterly exhausted. President Lincoln seems to have had a presentiment of what would occur, for his parting ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday

... had to stand the loss it would make a big hole in the resources of the institution; as the securities had simply been placed in the safe of the bank for security, at the risk of the department store keeper, of course they could not be held accountable for their loss unless it was proven that some one in their employ had taken them—Mr. Graylock assumed the chances of fire or any ordinary burglary up to the time he actually gave them in charge of the bank and accepted a loan ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster

... done a stroke of work in his life. Nor, for that matter, had his towering, able-bodied brothers. They took the not unnatural stand that it wasn't necessary. Were they not the sons of the very rich Mr. Van Winkle? Wasn't he accountable for their coming into the world and wasn't he therefore responsible for them up to the very banks of the Jordan? Of course, he was. No one will pretend to deny it. Work is intended only for those who long for a holiday, not for him who begins a ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon

... the deacons' or poor fund, the deacons are accountable, and are the persons to be inquired of, as to where the money is invested, which they have from time to time put out at interest; and as the Director has never had the management of it, (as against ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor

... desk and the jury-box is the witness chair, an ordinary chair placed not quite so high, but beside the judge's and where he can look down on the witness. The position of the witness chair may be accountable for the feeling of protecting the witness that exists in the minds of the judge and jury. There is a natural sympathy for him, as though he were being attacked by the examining counsel. The witness in former times stood in a little enclosed box and in Italy, where court scenes are more ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells

... I knows on, my venerable friend. I may have caught the disease when I had the measles, or I may have been a Arian in infancy, or I may be a Arian on my mother's side, you know; but as I don't know who or what it may be, I a'n't in no way accountable fer it—no more'n Brother Goshorn is to blame fer his face bein' so humbly. But I take it Arian is one of them air pleasant names you and the New Light preachers uses in your Christian intercourse together to make one another ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... the sentence, how can a right to enslave them, be drawn from such premises? The punishment of death is one of the highest recognitions of man's moral nature possible. It proclaims him man—intelligent accountable, guilty man, deserving death for having done his utmost to cheapen human life, and make it worthless, when the proof of its priceless value, lives in his own nature. But to make him a slave, cheapens to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... great deal to you, dear grandmother: it was in your lap that I found consolation for my first sorrows. You have handed down to me, perhaps, a little of your physical vigor, a little of your love of work; but certainly you were no more accountable than grandfather for my ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... in Pittsburg to go into the Italian provinces of Austria and engage 200 good stonemasons, 200 good carpenters, and an indefinite number of unskilled laborers. These people were to be put in touch with sub-agents of lines sailing from Hamburg, Fiume, and Bremen, and these agents were to be accountable for these contract laborers being got safely into the United States. This woman said many of her neighbors in Pittsburg had come into the country as contract laborers and held the law in great contempt, as it was merely a matter of being ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose

... to her Majesty. He supposed, on the whole, that this was what was expected of him, but acknowledged it hopeless to fathom the royal intentions. Yet if he went wrong, he was always, sure to make mischief, and though innocent, to be held accountable for others' mistakes. "Every prick I make," said he, "is made a gash; and to follow the words of my directions from England is not enough, except I likewise see into your minds. And surely mine eyesight is not so good. But I will pray to God for his help herein. With all the wit ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... make an intoxicating drink, and have ruined more men than ever has Whiskey. Michele answered that the Sub-Judge might say what he pleased, but, until the Assistant Collector came, the Telegraph Signaller was the Government of India in Tibasu, and the elders of the town would be held accountable for further rioting. Then they bowed their heads and said: "Show mercy!" or words to that effect, and went back in great fear; each accusing the other of having begun ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... neighbour's daughter, against whom the old lady in question had a grudge owing to some love affair, had suddenly fallen into a sort of pining sickness, of which the doctors could make nothing at all; and how the poor thing fell away without any accountable cause, and finally died, nobody knew why; but how it was her (Nanny's) strong belief that she had pined away in consequence of a glance from the evil eye. Finally, I got from her an account of how any one who ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 27. Saturday, May 4, 1850 • Various

... was in some measure accountable for the unusual emotion exhibited at the parting. He had never taken leave of his mother so affectionately before, nor had he before seen the tears start into her eyes as she kissed him and said good-bye. Never before had the grip of his father's hand seemed to convey ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... seek or invent them," said Mrs. Scherman, with grave, innocent eyes and lifted brows. "I didn't name myself, in the first place; did I? Sinsie had to be Sinsie; and then—how am I accountable for the blessed luck that gave me for best friends dear old Marmaduke Wharne ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... though it is difficult to think when one's heart is beating a little wildly. It was Victoria's nature to think things out. For the first time in her life she knew sorrow, and it made it worse that that sorrow was indefinable. She felt an accountable attraction for this man who had so strangely come into her life, whose problems had suddenly become her problems. But she did not connect the attraction for Austen Vane with her misery. She recalled him as he had left her, big and strong and sorrowful, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... now accountable for fourteen thousand pounds, and had only thirteen thousand left, if forced to reimburse; so that it was quite on the cards for him to lose a thousand pounds by robbing his neighbour and risking his own immortal jewel. This galled him to the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... was now moreover combined with a strict Parliamentary government. Under the Lancasters there is no complaint as to illegal taxes; they allowed the moneys voted by the Parliament to be paid over to treasurers named by itself and accountable to it; that which earlier Kings had always rejected as an affront, the claim of Parliament to exercise a sort of supervision over the King's household, the Lancasters admitted; the royal officers ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... he, when the young man seemed subdued and almost overcome by the extent of his own wealth, "it is really all your own. You may make ducks and drakes of it, as the saying goes, as soon as ever you please. You are accountable for it to no one—except One," added the good, honest, religious man, now growing an old man, and a little gentler, grave, as well as a little more demonstrative than he ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... residing originally in the people, and being derived from them, the several magistrates and officers of government vested with authority, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, are the substitutes and agents, and are at all times accountable to them. ...
— The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens • Georg Jellinek

... creature endowed with thought and consciousness; and when any criminal or injurious actions excite that passion, it is only by their relation to the person or connexion with him. But according to the doctrine of liberty or chance, this connexion is reduced to nothing, nor are men more accountable for those actions, which are designed and premeditated, than for such as are the most casual and accidental. Actions are by their very nature temporary and perishing; and where they proceed not from some cause in the characters and disposition of the person, who performed them, they infix not themselves ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... right to hold the dice myself. But you do not think thus, and I submit. Faithful to my oaths, and to our principles, I am always ready to keep and to defend them. Acting, henceforth, alone, I shall do as I please, and be accountable to myself alone. Now, Signori, adieu! I shall leave Italy, and perhaps Europe, in search of a country, the institutions of which recognize the true principles of national happiness. Wherever, though, I may ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... with patient dignity, "if I feel that I am not accountable to you for the manner in which I defend or fail to defend the canons of my Church. My daughter acts as an individual who is of age, and her reckoning is with the civil law. To clear up your evident confusion of mind, I will explain that I violate no canons of the Church in eliminating ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... agent myself," said the Doctor, lifting her up in his vigorous arms; "but in the mean time she has to be brought to life. Keep out of my way, Elsworthy; you should have looked better after the little fool. If she's not accountable for her actions, you are," he went on with a growl, thrusting away with his vigorous shoulder the badly-hung frame of Rosa's uncle, who was no match for the Doctor. Thus the poor little girl was carried away in a kind of procession, Miss Leonora going first. "Not ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... who are accountable for the accident to Ruth Newton? You urged her to go with you, and when she fell—oh, you are a coward! It ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann

... must be like your legs. But, sitting as you were just now, I could see only your head, which is better. So! one has to be accountable for looking at you? Mademoiselle feels herself affronted if any one stares at her! I will remember this in future. There, now! suppose, instead of quarrelling with me, you were to go and cast yourself into the arms of your ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... thing to find himself in wild pain, with no God of whom to entreat that his soul may not faint within him; but to a man who can think as well as feel, it were a more terrible thing still, to find himself afloat on the tide of a lovely passion, with no God to whom to cry, accountable to Himself for that which He has made. Will any man who has ever cast more than a glance into the mysteries of his being, dare think himself sufficient to the ruling of his nature? And if he rule it not, what shall he be but the sport of the demons ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... The smile which lit his face was wistful and sad. "The law of man disavows me—the bar sinister. In the eyes of God, who is accountable for our being, I am Gretchen's uncle, ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

... neighbors, and staying just long enough to ask how they do, say a few stale or silly things, and prove an interruption and a nuisance, and then going elsewhere—a whit more justifiable, in beings made in the image of God, and who are to be accountable at ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott

... been more happily expressed than by Mr. Spence. The line of distinction between man and the lower orders of creation, is not the mere fact that he reasons and they do not, but that he has a moral and accountable nature, while they have nothing of ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... pictures and stone images; but then, after all, she has got an immortal soul, and I can't help hoping Mary's influence may be blest to her. They say, when she speaks French, she swears every few minutes; and if that is the way she was brought up, may-be she isn't accountable. I think we can't be too charitable for people that a'n't privileged as we are. Miss Vernon's Polly told me she had seen her sew Sundays,—sew Sabbath-day! She came into her room sudden, and she was working on her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... a grain of sand in his eye. I am conscious that my own mind is full of cicatrices of remembered things, and long ere this it would have been peppered with them like a colander, had I not a good while ago, in self-defense, absolutely refused to be held accountable for forgetting anything not connected with my ...
— With The Eyes Shut - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... incident to possession. Within the limits prescribed by policy, the owner is allowed to exercise his natural powers over the subject-matter uninterfered with, and is more or less protected in excluding other people from such interference. The owner is allowed to exclude all, and is accountable to no one. The possessor is allowed to exclude all but one, and is accountable to no one but him. The great body of questions which have made the subject of property so large and important are questions of conveyancing, not necessarily or generally ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

... husband was the foulest traitor out of hell. But that he was a fool with no wit of his own to make him accountable for what he did, and that out of folly he had gone astray. Upon those grounds she besought me to forgive him and let him go. When I told her that he must stand his trial, and that I could offer her but little hope ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... wisdom for a republic to limit the service of that officer at least to whom she has intrusted the management of her foreign relations, the execution of her laws, and the command of her armies and navies to a period so short as to prevent his forgetting that he is the accountable agent, not the principal; the servant, not the master. Until an amendment of the Constitution can be effected public opinion may secure the desired object. I give my aid to it by renewing the pledge heretofore given that under no circumstances ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... some color in his bandaged face, because he knew what Norton's confidence meant. He was, so to speak, an unknown man and the contract had been given to Festing, who was an engineer. If he failed, the men who trusted him would be held accountable. ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... Isidore, coolly, "I shall be no longer in His Majesty's service, and be accountable to another King for having ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach

... was stipulated as in the interest of the people. The new leader was advised that, "God has placed you as a watchman on the walls of Zion and He will hold you accountable for your acts," and he was directed to see that the laws of God were carried out in his community, irrespective of ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... keep things clean and nice. Any attention will oblige." This was signed by the firm. The work was so systematized, and the training so thorough, that the tyrannical forewoman and domineering foreman had no place in the establishment. The manager was the only person to whom the hands were accountable. Adjoining the factory was a pretty garden containing a pear-orchard, with arbors and seats, where the girls lunched in fine weather. Women as a class show the effects of good keeping, and these workers were not ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... from us; she, however, easily recovers from such things. The present generation of young people in Kings Port has little enough to remind us of what we stood for in manners and customs, but we are not accountable for her, nor for her father. I believe that he is called a general. His conduct at Chattanooga was conspicuous for personal prudence. Both of them are skillful in never knowing poor people—but the ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... have advised his instantly sending a short reply to Robert, explaining that he was simply in conversation with the man Sedgett, when Robert, the old enemy of the latter, rode by, and, that while regretting Sedgett's proceedings, he could not be held accountable for them. But it was useless to think of acting in accordance with his reason. Mrs. Lovell was queen, and sat in reason's place. It was absolutely necessary to conciliate her approbation of his conduct in this dilemma, by submitting ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... have worn it where I found it for the last forty years," mused the doctor. "And yet men say that love is a fleeting passion. Well, after coming upon this proof of devotion, I find it impossible to believe James Zabel accountable for the death of one so fondly remembered. Sweetwater's instinct was truer ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... and would take me by the shoulders and turn me out of doors, and began to talk of ducking me in the bog. The priest of the parish, however, took my part, saying that I ought not to be persecuted, for that I was not accountable for what I did, being a possessed person, and under the influence of divils. 'These, however,' said he, 'I'll soon cast out from her, and then the woman will be a holy cratur, much better than she ever was before.' ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow



Words linked to "Accountable" :   accountability, responsible, account



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