“There is accumulation. There is responsibility. And beyond this there is great unrest.”

Source: The Sense of an Ending

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Julian Barnes 77
English writer 1946

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“Great accumulations of wealth cannot be justified on the basis of personal and family security. In the last analysis such accumulations amount to the perpetuation of great and undesirable concentration of control in a relatively few individuals over the employment and welfare of many, many others.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, Message to Congress on Tax Revision (1935)
Context: The desire to provide security for oneself and one's family is natural and wholesome, but it is adequately served by a reasonable inheritance. Great accumulations of wealth cannot be justified on the basis of personal and family security. In the last analysis such accumulations amount to the perpetuation of great and undesirable concentration of control in a relatively few individuals over the employment and welfare of many, many others.

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“When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals.”

as quoted in "Keynes and the Ethics of Capitalism" by Robert Skidelsy http://www.webcitation.org/query?id=1256603608595872&url=www.geocities.com/monedem/keyn.html
Essays in Persuasion (1931), Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930)
Context: When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease … But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.

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“The price of greatness is responsibility.”

In the House of Commons, February 28, 1906 speech South African native races http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1906/feb/28/south-african-native-races#S4V0152P0_19060228_HOC_307
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Variant: Where there is great power there is great responsibility
Context: I submit respectfully to the House as a general principle that our responsibility in this matter is directly proportionate to our power. Where there is great power there is great responsibility, where there is less power there is less responsibility, and where there is no power there can, I think, be no responsibility.

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“WITH GREAT POWER THERE MUST ALSO COME--GREAT RESPONSIBILITY!”

Stan Lee (1922–2018) American comic book writer

Amazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962) – The first Spider-Man story.
In later stories and adaptations, including the 2002 movie, this has appeared as "With great power comes great responsibility."
The saying pre-dates Amazing Fantasy. The phrase "with great power goes great responsibility" was spoken by J. Hector Fezandie in an 1894 graduation address at The Stevens Institute of Technology - "The Moral Influence of a Scientific Education", The Stevens Indicator, Volume 11, Page 217. The exact phrase was repeated during a speech by President Harry S. Truman in November 1950 - Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 6666 (published 1965), Page 703. A UK Member of Parliament implied in 1817 that a variant of it was already a cliché ([1817, 1227, Parliamentary Debates, Thomas C. Hansard, http://books.google.co.uk/books?lr=&output=text&as_brr=0&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1850&id=B6w9AAAAcAAJ&dq=%22great-power+*+great-responsibility%22&q=%22%22that%2Bthe%2Bpossession%2Bof%2Bgreat%2Bpower%2Bnecessarily%2Bimplies%2Bgreat%2Bresponsibility%22%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26ei%3DYX5WUqnYGaiO4wT9poCwBQ%26ved%3D0CDMQ6wEwAA%23v%3Donepage%26q%3D%22that+the+possession+of+great+power+necessarily+implies+great+responsibility%22%26f%3Dfalse%22#v=onepage&q=%22%22that%2Bthe%2Bpossession%2Bof%2Bgreat%2Bpower%2Bnecessarily%2Bimplies%22&f=false, October 10, 2013, He should, however, beg leave to remind the conductors of the press of their duty to apply to themselves a maxim which they never neglected to urge on the consideration of government—" that the possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility."] The editor is quoting William Lamb (pp. 1125–1229)). The sentiment is also found in Luke 12:48: "from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked" (NIV).

William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne photo

“…the possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility.”

William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (1779–1848) British Whig statesman

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1817/jun/27/habeas-corpus-suspension-bill#column_1227 in the House of Commons (27 June 1817)

Winston S. Churchill photo

“I submit respectfully to the House as a general principle that our responsibility in this matter is directly proportionate to our power. Where there is great power there is great responsibility, where there is less power there is less responsibility, and where there is no power there can, I think, be no responsibility.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

In the House of Commons, February 28, 1906 speech South African native races http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1906/feb/28/south-african-native-races#S4V0152P0_19060228_HOC_307
Early career years (1898–1929)

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“I learned that with great responsibility often come great honor and opportunity.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 85

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“Peggy had left for the great unknown and beyond”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

This second version of Peggy Sanger's death quoted in Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion, (2012), Jean H. Baker, Hill and Wang, New York, p. 103. https://www.google.com/#q=%22Peggy+was+sleeping.+Her+pulse+was+so+soft+and+slow%22&tbm=bks
Context: Peggy was sleeping. Her pulse was so soft and slow. I was unable to realize that the end was near and had my fingers on her ankle to get the pulse when before my eyes arose another Peggy horizontally sleeping [who] rose about a foot or more—fluttering and quivering a moment as if taking leave of its bondage and slowly and majestically [she] soared and floated across the bed and out through the iron closed door... Peggy had left for the great unknown and beyond.

Bill Moyers photo

“But what it meant in politics a century later, and still means today, is the freedom to accumulate wealth without social or democratic responsibilities and license to buy the political system right out from everyone else.”

Bill Moyers (1934) American journalist

"For America's Sake" speech (12 December 2006), as quoted in Moyers on Democracy (2008), p. 17
Context: Reagan's story of freedom superficially alludes to the Founding Fathers, but its substance comes from the Gilded Age, devised by apologists for the robber barons. It is posed abstractly as the freedom of the individual from government control — a Jeffersonian ideal at the roots of our Bill of Rights, to be sure. But what it meant in politics a century later, and still means today, is the freedom to accumulate wealth without social or democratic responsibilities and license to buy the political system right out from everyone else.

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