QuoteProject
If you get a call to go to a certain place in the middle of the night to pick up stolen goods, and it turns out the stolen goods don't show up but the cops show up, I think you're going to have a very weak story saying, 'Well, I got swindled here.'
Charles Krauthammer
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote highlights the consequences of poor decisions and being involved in dishonest activities.

Charles Krauthammer emphasizes that when one engages in questionable actions, like picking up stolen goods, there is little credibility in claiming victimhood if things go wrong. It suggests that accountability is crucial, especially when one willingly participates in illegal or unethical behavior, as the outcomes are inherently risky and difficult to justify.

Themes

AccountabilityDecisionsConsequencesDishonestyVictimhood

In practice

Example use cases

During a seminar on ethics, this quote can be used to illustrate the importance of personal accountability.

More from Charles Krauthammer

I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking.
Charles KrauthammerRead
The joy of losing consists in this: Where there are no expectations, there is no disappointment.
Charles KrauthammerRead
You're betraying your whole life if you don't say what you think - and you don't say it honestly and bluntly.
Charles KrauthammerRead
History has blessed us with all the freedom and advantages of multiculturalism. But it has also blessed us, because of the accident of our origins, with the linguistic unity that brings a critically needed cohesion to a nation as diverse, multiracial and multiethnic as America. Why gratuitously throw away that priceless asset? How mindless to call the desire to retain it 'racist.
Charles KrauthammerRead
When a party is in opposition, it opposes. That's its job. But when it comes to power, it must govern. Easy rhetoric is over, the press of reality becomes irresistible. By necessity, it adopts some of the policies it had once denounced. And a new national consensus is born.
Charles KrauthammerRead
Sometimes it's easy to go where the wind blows, but those that stand firmly planted are forces to be reckoned with.
Charles KrauthammerRead

Similar quotes

Since you alone are responsible for your thoughts, only you can change them. You will want to change them when you realize that each thought creates according to its own nature. Remember that the law works at all times and that you are always demonstrating according to the kind of thoughts you habitually entertain. Therefore, start now to think only those thoughts that will bring you health and happiness.
Paramahansa YoganandaRead
Obviously, a man's judgement cannot be better than the information on which he has based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong when he has the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning processes, and make him something less than a man.
Arthur Hays SulzbergerRead
Often, we feel helpless in lots of situations in our lives. The way anger gets a grip on us is it seems to be a way to extricate ourselves from helplessness.
Martha NussbaumRead
Self-care is never a selfish act - it is only good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others.
Parker J. PalmerRead
The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.
William OslerRead
No matter how much light I carry within me, there will always be times of feeling lost, being confused, seeking direction. It is the way of the human heart.
Joyce RuppRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.