Top 180 Accountability Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.”

— Jocko Willink

Also featured in: Leadership Quotes, Personal Responsibility Quotes, Warrior Quotes, Military Quotes

2. “Responsibility equals accountability equals ownership. And a sense of ownership is the most powerful weapon a team or organization can have.”

— Pat Summitt

Also featured in: Coaching Quotes, Wednesday Motivational Quotes, Sports Quotes, Duty Quotes

3. “Everything you do is based on the choices you make. It’s not your parents, your past relationships, your job, the economy, the weather, an argument or your age that is to blame. You and only you are responsible for every decision and choice you make. Period.”

— Wayne W. Dyer

Also featured in: Focus Quotes, Empowering Quotes, Motivational Quotes About Life

4. “If it is not right do not do it. If it is not true do not say it.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Integrity Quotes, Action Quotes, Meaningful Quotes

5. “Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else.”

— Les Brown

Also featured in: Focus Quotes, Goal Quotes, Empowering Quotes, Motivational Work Quotes

6. “Implementing Extreme Ownership requires checking your ego and operating with a high degree of humility. Admitting mistakes, taking ownership, and developing a plan to overcome challenges are integral to any successful team.”

— Jocko Willink

Also featured in: Leadership Quotes, Military Quotes, Responsibility Quotes, Teamwork Quotes

7. “If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

Also featured in: Challenges Quotes, Witty Quotes, Humor Quotes

8. “When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable – if there are no consequences – that poor performance becomes the new standard.”

— Jocko Willink

Also featured in: Discipline Quotes, Hard Hitting Quotes, Expectations Quotes

9. “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

Also featured in: Hard Hitting Quotes, Resistance Quotes, Freedom Quotes

10. “My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

Also featured in: Morality Quotes, Spiritual Growth Quotes, Personal Responsibility Quotes, Practice Quotes

11. “If you make a mistake and do not correct it, this is called a mistake.”

— Confucius

Also featured in: Learning Quotes, Wisdom Quotes, Philosophy Quotes

12. “Wisdom is knowing the right path to take. Integrity is taking it.”

— M.H. McKee

Also featured in: Integrity Quotes, Empowering Quotes, Values Quotes, Choices Quotes

13. “Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure. ”

— Jim Rohn

Also featured in: Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes, Failure Quotes, Motivational Monday Quotes

14. “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

— Thomas Sowell

Also featured in: Business Quotes, Mistake Quotes

15. “You are not a failure until you start blaming others for your mistakes.”

— John Wooden

Also featured in: Failure Quotes, Personal Responsibility Quotes, Character Quotes

16. “When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don’t get to decide that you didn’t.”

— Louis C.K.

Also featured in: Quotes About Feelings, Responsibility Quotes

17. “The word accounting comes from the word accountability. If you are going to be rich, you need to be accountable for your money.”

— Robert T. Kiyosaki

Also featured in: Business Quotes, Wealth Quotes, Financial Success Quotes

18. “If anyone is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault. Nothing else is the cause of anxiety or loss of tranquility except our own opinion.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Mindset Quotes, Responsibility Quotes, Stoic Philosophy Quotes

19. “Excuses sound best to the person that’s making ’em up!”

— Tyrese Gibson

Also featured in: Personal Responsibility Quotes, Taking Action Quotes, Friday Motivational Quotes, Responsibility Quotes

20. “I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.”

— James Baldwin

Also featured in: Integrity Quotes, Quotes About Believing, Truth Quotes, Liars Quotes

21. “You can only have two things in life, reasons and results. Reasons don’t count.”

— Robert Anthony

Also featured in: Performance Quotes, Friday Motivational Quotes, Efficiency Quotes, Excuses Quotes

22. “To know and not to do is not to know.”

— Stephen R. Covey

Also featured in: Knowledge Quotes, Quotes About Acting

23. “If you can’t, then you must!”

— Tony Robbins

Also featured in: Coaching Quotes, Personal Responsibility Quotes, Impossible Quotes

24. “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

— Anne Lamott

Also featured in: Experience Quotes, Focus On Yourself Quotes, Storytelling Quotes, Truth Quotes

25. “I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

Also featured in: Morality Quotes, Personal Responsibility Quotes, Existentialism Quotes, Freedom Quotes

26. “When we deal in generalities, we shall never succeed. When we deal in specifics, we shall rarely have a failure. When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of performance accelerates.”

— Thomas S. Monson

Also featured in: Excellence Quotes, Performance Quotes, Professional Growth Quotes, Character Quotes

27. “When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.”

— Dalai Lama XIV

Also featured in: Personal Responsibility Quotes, Quotes for Better Decisions, Mistake Quotes

28. “People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.”

— Alan Moore

Also featured in: Resistance Quotes, Epic Quotes, Freedom Quotes, Democracy Quotes

29. “It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.”

— George Washington

Also featured in: Integrity Quotes, Personal Responsibility Quotes, History Quotes, Excuses Quotes

30. “You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.”

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Also featured in: Integrity Quotes, Morality Quotes, Personal Responsibility Quotes, Truth Quotes

31. “It’s always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming the world, but your successes or failures are entirely your own.”

— Paulo Coelho

Also featured in: Failure Quotes, Personal Responsibility Quotes, Self-Belief Quotes

32. “An ignorant person is inclined to blame others for his own misfortune. To blame oneself is proof of progress. But the wise man never has to blame another or himself.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Personal Responsibility Quotes

33. “Whatever the problem, be part of the solution. Don’t just sit around raising questions and pointing out obstacles.”

— Tina Fey

Also featured in: Positivity Quotes, Common Sense Quotes, Personal Responsibility Quotes, Inspirational Career Quotes

34. “Fear the sins that you commit in secret, because the Witness of those sins is the Judge Himself!”

— Ali ibn Abi Talib

Also featured in: Scripture Quotes, Morality Quotes, Guilt Quotes

35. “Highly proactive people don’t blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice.”

— Stephen R. Covey

Also featured in: Focus On Yourself Quotes, Quotes for Better Decisions, Quotes About Acting

36. “You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.”

— William Wilberforce

Also featured in: Make A Difference Quotes, Morality Quotes, Justice Quotes

37. “Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.”

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

Also featured in: Military Quotes, Duty Quotes, Boss Quotes, Government Quotes

38. “The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy.”

— Florence Scovel Shinn

Also featured in: Manifestation Quotes, Destiny Quotes

39. “Actions have consequences.”

— Morton Blackwell

Also featured in: Impact Quotes, Quotes for Better Decisions, Principles And Laws

40. “Follow up and follow through until the task is completed, the prize won.”

— Brian Tracy

Also featured in: Dedication Quotes, Goal Setting Quotes, Efficiency Quotes

41. “Leaders don’t make excuses. They create results.”

— Robin S. Sharma

Also featured in: Impact Quotes, Professional Growth Quotes, Efficiency Quotes

42. “If you realize that you’re the problem, then you can change yourself, learn something and grow wiser. Don’t blame other people for your problems.”

— Robert T. Kiyosaki

Also featured in: Problem-Solving Quotes

43. “Do something about your life now.”

— Les Brown

Also featured in: Impact Quotes, New Beginnings Quotes, Personal Responsibility Quotes

44. “You can’t hold someone accountable for results if you supervise their methods.”

— Stephen R. Covey

45. “You are responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions.”

— Noam Chomsky

46. “You are the captain of your own ship; don’t let anyone else take the wheel.”

— Michael Josephson

Also featured in: Willpower Quotes, Mental Strength Quotes, Being Strong Quotes, Freedom Quotes

47. “We will receive not what we idly wish for but what we justly earn. Our rewards will always be in exact proportion to our service.”

— Earl Nightingale

Also featured in: Service Quotes, Achievement Quotes, Quotes About Night

48. “Until you take ownership for your life, you will always be chasing happiness.”

— Sean Stephenson

49. “If you lose money for the firm, I will be forgiving. If you lose reputation, I will be ruthless.”

— Warren Buffett

Also featured in: Financial Success Quotes

50. “Don't do anything that you wouldn't feel comfortable reading about in the newspaper the next day.”

— Joel Osteen

Also featured in: Integrity Quotes, Quotes for Better Decisions, Reputation Quotes