Source: Success! (1977), p. 14; often quoted in the form: Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility... in the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have... is the ability to take on responsibility.
Context: Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility. You have to assume all the problems, difficulties and doubts of other people, and to reflect back your capacity for decision-making and action, and for enduring without visible signs of worry or panic. In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have (and which is the most difficult one of all to learn or fake) is the ability to take on responsibility. It is easy to be responsible for things you control and are sure of; but to be successful you must make yourself responsible for the blunders of the people who work for you as well. Responsibility requires a highly developed ego and a good deal of courage, but it is ultimately the one test you cannot afford to fail. You must be willing to accept personal responsibility, for the success of your assignments, for the actions of the people who work for you and for the goals you have accepted or been given.
Energy and the Common Purpose, 3rd ed. (2007), p. 39 http://www.theleaneconomyconnection.net/downloads.html#TEQs
As quoted in "Václav Havel: Heir to a Spiritual Legacy" by Richard L. Stanger in Christian Century (11 April 1990) http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=767
Context: It's not hard to stand behind one's successes. But to accept responsibility for one's failures... that is devishly hard! But only thence does the road lead... to a radically new insight into the mysterious gravity of my existence as an uncertain enterprise and to its transcendental meaning.
“The pride of any mother is to give birth to a responsible and successful child.”
Quoted in: Kabir, Hajara Muhammad (2010). Northern women development. [Nigeria]. ISBN 978-978-906-469-4. OCLC 890820657
Works, Pride and Prejudice
“Neither claimed any responsibility for Milton Keynes, but both reported it as a success.”
Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
“The Phaedrus and the Nature of Rhetoric,” p. 6.
The Ethics of Rhetoric (1953)
Source: In search of excellence in project management (1998), p. 24
“No alibi will save you from accepting the responsibility.”
Source: Object-oriented design: a responsibility-driven approach (1989), p. 74
Speech At The Lushan Conference http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-8/mswv8_34.htm (23 July 1959)
