on one's shoulders

Idioms  

1. As one's responsibility, as in The king carries his entire country on his shoulders, or The success of the conference rests on Nancy's shoulders. This metaphoric use of shoulders as the burden-bearing part of the body dates from the late 1300s.

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Example Sentences

That was the curse of dreaming: One woke to pallid reality, with neither wings on one’s shoulders nor goddess in one’s arms.

From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor

I've seen a great pudding come into the room all afire—just to remind one of the old country—when it has been so hot that one could hardly bear a shirt on one's shoulders.

From Harry Heathcote of Gangoil by Trollope, Anthony

"Possibly," Vuillet resumed; "but the best of causes at the present time is to keep one's head on one's shoulders."

From The Fortune of the Rougons by Vizetelly, Ernest Alfred

A large, immovable body which one is expected to carry on one's shoulders through the mud.

From The Stars and Stripes The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 by United States. Army. American Expeditionary Forces

One's days are too brief to take the burden of another's sorrows on one's shoulders.

From Miscellaneous Aphorisms; The Soul of Man by Wilde, Oscar