John Lennon on responsibility

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right, and I will be proved right. We are more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first⁠—rock’n’roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.

Love means having to say you’re sorry every fifteen minutes.

The United States stands at the pinnacle of world power. This is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with primacy in power is joined an awe-inspiring accountability for the future.

Winston Churchill1874–1965

• America

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let me label you as they may.

Mark Twain1835–1910Papers of the Adam Family (1939), Part VI: “Two Fragments from a Suppressed Book Called ‘Glances at History’ or ‘Outlines of History’ “

Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.

Colin Powell1937–2021The Powell Principles (2003)