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2cbbdb0 Take responsibility of your own happiness, never put it in other people's hands. responsibility inspiration inspirational-attitude inspirational-life inspirational-quotes inspire life-and-living life-quotes living optimistic positive-affirmation positive-life inspiring positive positive-thinking life-lessons optimism happiness life inspirational Roy T. Bennett
382945b "People have forgotten this truth," the fox said. "But you mustn't forget it. You become responsible forever for what you've tamed. You're responsible for your rose." responsibility love Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
802388a The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die. responsibility personal-responsibility justice George R.R. Martin
b9a43fe If you hang out with chickens, you're going to cluck and if you hang out with eagles, you're going to fly. responsibility friends motivational success life inspirational accountability purpose Steve Maraboli
af9cd16 I'm not much but I'm all I have. time responsibility optimism Philip K Dick
7f0ccfd What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements. responsibility courage destiny empowerment self-improvement self-control Anais Nin
565517f Character -- the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life -- is the source from which self-respect springs. responsibility life self-respect Joan Didion
9179e8b "You've got a lot of responsibility now," Jace said to Julian. "You'll have to make sure Emma winds up with a guy who deserves her." Julian was strangely white-faced. Maybe he was feeling the effects of the ceremony, Emma thought. It had been strong magic; she still felt it sizzling through her blood like champagne bubbles. But Jules looked as if he'd been slapped. "What about me?" Emma said, quickly. "Don't I have to make sure Jules winds up with someone who deserves him?" "Absolutely. I did it for Alec, Alec did it for me -- well, actually, he hated Clary at first, but he came around." "I BET you didn't like Magnus much, either," said Julian, still with the same odd, stiff look on his face. "Maybe not," said Jace, "but I never would have said so." "Because it would have hurt Alec's feelings?" Emma asked. "No," said Jace, "because Magnus would have turned me into a hat rack." responsibility lady-midnight parabatai jace-herondale the-dark-artifices emma-carstairs julian-blackthorn Cassandra Clare
6670535 This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, then I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do. responsibility choice Terry Pratchett
1d1b621 "...the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword." "...a ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is." responsibility personal-responsibility song-of-ice-and-fire justice George R.R. Martin
8253b4f Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. responsibility liberty George Bernard Shaw
0d0f9f9 Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. responsibility freedom sartre Jean-Paul Sartre
600c9a4 The function of freedom is to free someone else. responsibility inspirational Toni Morrison
2dbced6 "[F]reedom isn't free. It shouldn't be a bragging point that "Oh, I don't get involved in politics," as if that makes you somehow cleaner. No, that makes you derelict of duty in a republic. Liars and panderers in government would have a much harder time of it if so many people didn't insist on their right to remain ignorant and blindly agreeable." -- responsibility freedom politics participation government Bill Maher
3d30d0c And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction. progress responsibility erring mistakes Kurt Vonnegut
87d3de8 Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality. An error of knowledge is not a moral flaw, provided you are willing to correct it; only a mystic would judge human beings by the standard of an impossible, automatic omniscience. But a breach of morality is the conscious choice of an action you know to be evil, or a willful evasion of knowledge, a suspension of sight and of thought. That which you do not know, is not a moral charge against you; but that which you refuse to know, is an account of infamy growing in your soul. Make every allowance for errors of knowledge; do not forgive or accept any break of morality. responsibility morality knowledge evil Ayn Rand
20de803 you don't have to worry about burning bridges, if you're building your own responsibility inspirational resourcefulness accountability self-reliance ownership self-help Kerry E. Wagner
c418dec Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must -- at that moment -- become the center of the universe. human-rights responsibility inspirational Elie Wiesel
f3c8aef To me, history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me, it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is. mankind responsibility history humanity life civic-responsibility David McCullough
3cb419f Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility. action responsibility inspirational thought Dietrich Bonhoeffer
128e94a Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future. responsibility minority sexual-orientation race-relations oppression Audre Lorde
3f87879 Men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason can only exist as parasites on the thinking of others. responsibility reason Ayn Rand
6485917 The victim mindset dilutes the human potential. By not accepting personal responsibility for our circumstances, we greatly reduce our power to change them. responsibility change success happiness inspirational victim potential personal-responsibility power Steve Maraboli
be6fc40 We cannot have a world where everyone is a victim. "I'm this way because my father made me this way. I'm this way because my husband made me this way." Yes, we are indeed formed by traumas that happen to us. But then you must take charge, you must take over, you are responsible. democrat sex criticism responsibility america inspirational republican victim liberal libertarian art culture trauma Camille Paglia
69fdc3f There are no innocent bystanders ... what are they doing there in the first place? responsibility voyeurism William S. Burroughs
9822e3e And the fox said to the little prince: men have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. responsibility wisdom inspirational animals Antoine de Saint-Exupery
591e303 Hitch: making rules about drinking can be the sign of an alcoholic,' as Martin Amis once teasingly said to me. (Adorno would have savored that, as well.) Of course, watching the clock for the start-time is probably a bad sign, but here are some simple pieces of advice for the young. Don't drink on an empty stomach: the main point of the refreshment is the enhancement of food. Don't drink if you have the blues: it's a junk cure. Drink when you are in a good mood. Cheap booze is a false economy. It's not true that you shouldn't drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain. Hangovers are another bad sign, and you should not expect to be believed if you take refuge in saying you can't properly remember last night. (If you don't remember, that's an even worse sign.) Avoid all narcotics: these make you more boring rather than less and are not designed--as are the grape and the grain--to enliven company. Be careful about up-grading too far to single malt Scotch: when you are voyaging in rough countries it won't be easily available. Never even think about driving a car if you have taken a drop. It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't ever be responsible for it. men responsibility drinking women alochol drowning-one-s-sorrows drunk-driving hangovers scotch single-malt martin-amis whiskey advice alcoholism eating food drugs rules Christopher Hitchens
15a7f56 All my life they had made choices for me, and I had resented it. Now the choice was mine, and once it was made, I would have no right to blame anyone else for the consequences. Loss of that privilege, to blame others, unexpectedly stung. responsibility Megan Whalen Turner
4f8627a The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon. responsibility world happiness Paulo Coelho
7c5ff31 " " J. Michael Haller, Criminal Defense Attorney, Los Angeles, 1962." responsibility risk fear clients criminal-law justice-system innocence justice guilt Michael Connelly
fad845e Not responding is a response--we are equally responsible for what we don't do. In the case of animal slaughter, to throw your hands in the air is to wrap your fingers around a knife handle. responsibility slaughter meat eating Jonathan Safran Foer
3ab18b2 The hands that help are better far than lips that pray. responsibility proactive true-religion atheism pragmatism Robert Green Ingersoll
c12ae48 His mind was freshly inclined toward ; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact; that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his, not at all, but, rather, its like had been felt, would be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone and, given that his position in the world situated him to be either of great help, or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it. responsibility sorrow George Saunders
6a30958 The best way to avoid responsibility is to say, 'I've got responsibilities. responsibility life Richard Bach
77472a9 Do you see how an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that's the end of it. When that rock is lifted, the earth is lighter; the hand that bears it heavier. When it is thrown, the circuits of the stars respond, and where it strikes or falls, the universe is changed. On every act the balance of the whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth and light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium. From the hurricane and the great whale's sounding to the fall of a dry leaf and the gnat's flight, all they do is done within the balance of the whole. But we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility. responsibility intelligence equilibrium Ursula K. Le Guin
71567d9 I don't think Will Herondale and a sense of responsibility are even on speaking terms responsibility Cassandra Clare
5913e2c I don't want anyone to look to me, not for protection, not for happiness, not for love, not for anything. solitude responsibility love self-sufficiency protection P.D. James
a041cd9 "Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I'll take 100,000. In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years. Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks 'That's enough of that. It's time to intervene,' and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person. Why am I glad this is the case? To get to the point of the wrongness of Christianity, because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral. The central one is the most immoral of all, and that is the one of vicarious redemption. You can throw your sins onto somebody else, vulgarly known as scapegoating. In fact, originating as scapegoating in the same area, the same desert. I can pay your debt if I love you. I can serve your term in prison if I love you very much. I can volunteer to do that. I can't take your sins away, because I can't abolish your responsibility, and I shouldn't offer to do so. Your responsibility has to stay with you. There's no vicarious redemption. There very probably, in fact, is no redemption at all. It's just a part of wish-thinking, and I don't think wish-thinking is good for people either. myth responsibility morality reason fear love truth atheist-argument christianity-is-immoral christopher-hitchens compulsory divine-dictatorship eternal-punishment great-atheist-argument hitchens hitchslap homo-sapiens immoral-christianity love-your-neighbor supreme-being dawkins indifference human-sacrifice eternal-father totalitarianism debate dictatorship richard-dawkins wishful-thinking belief evidence ethics atheism health intellect atheist redemption crime guilt Christopher Hitchens
588cfa1 "It sounded old. Old and tired and beaten to death. Deserve. Now it seemed to him that he was always saying or thinking that he didn't deserve some bad luck, or some bad treatment from others. He'd told Guitar that he didn't "deserve" his family's dependence, hatred, or whatever. That he didn't even "deserve" to hear all the misery and mutual accusations his parents unloaded on him. Nor did he "deserve" Hagar's vengeance. But why shouldn't his parents tell him their personal problems? If not him, then who? And if a stranger could try to kill him, surely Hagar, who knew him and whom he'd thrown away like a wad of chewing gum after the flavor was gone--she had a right to try to kill him too. Apparently he though he deserved only to be loved--from a distance, though--and given what he wanted. And in return he would be...what? Pleasant? Generous? Maybe all he was really saying was: I am not responsible for your pain; share your happiness with me but not your unhappiness." pain responsibility sorrow family happiness deserve maturity Toni Morrison
1f3b738 I find something repulsive about the idea of vicarious redemption. I would not throw my numberless sins onto a scapegoat and expect them to pass from me; we rightly sneer at the barbaric societies that practice this unpleasantness in its literal form. There's no moral value in the vicarious gesture anyway. As Thomas Paine pointed out, you may if you wish take on a another man's debt, or even to take his place in prison. That would be self-sacrificing. But you may not assume his actual crimes as if they were your own; for one thing you did not commit them and might have died rather than do so; for another this impossible action would rob him of individual responsibility. So the whole apparatus of absolution and forgiveness strikes me as positively immoral, while the concept of revealed truth degrades the concept of free intelligence by purportedly relieving us of the hard task of working out the ethical principles for ourselves. responsibility religion scapegoating immorality forgiveness redemption sin Christopher Hitchens
3c98bb6 Sometimes it isn't easy to be sane, smart, and responsible. Sometimes it sucks. Sucks wang. Camel wang. But that doesn't turn wrong into right or stupid into smart. responsibility right-and-wrong Jim Butcher
65d03f6 You can't blame anyone else, ... , no one but yourself. You have to make your own choices and live every agonizing day with the consequences of those choices. responsibility Max Brooks
c3390a7 Delirium: You use that word so much. Responsibilities. Do you ever think about what that means? I mean, what does it mean to you? In your head? Dream: Well, I use it to refer that area of existence over which I exert a certain amount of control or influence. In my case, the realm and action of dreaming. Delirium: Hump. It's more than that. The things we do make echoes. S'pose, f'rinstance, you stop on a street corner and admire a brilliant fork of lightning--ZAP! Well for ages after people and things will stop on that very same corner, stare up at the sky. They wouldn't even know what they were looking for. Some of them might see a ghost bolt of lightning in the street. Some of them might even be killed by it. Our existence deforms the universe. THAT'S responsibility. responsibility dream the-dreaming the-endless the-kindly-ones the-sandman neil-gaiman Neil Gaiman
f798659 There is no experience like having children.' That's all. There is no substitute for it. You cannot do it with a friend. You cannot do it with a lover. If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children. having-children responsibility family life love truth experience children Mitch Albom
c5e3c20 When you accept a leadership role, you take on extra responsibility for your actions toward others. responsibility leadership leaders Kelley Armstrong
626ee89 Why, oh why must one grow up, why must one inherit this heavy, numbing responsibility of living an undiscovered life? Out of the nothingness and the undifferentiated mass, to make something of herself! But what? In the obscurity and pathlessness to take a direction! But whither? How take even one step? And yet, how stand still? This was torment indeed, to inherit the responsibility of one's own life. responsibility D.H. Lawrence
41fb2e6 I am blind and limited. I would be a fool think myself wise. And so, not knowing what the universe means, I can only try to be responsible with the knowledge, the strength, and the time given to me. I must be true to my heart. responsibility knowledge Jim Butcher
7e95365 "As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost." responsibility de-politicization participation democracy Jean-Jacques Rousseau
c2feb15 The very good people did not convince me; I felt they'd never been tempted. But you knew; you understood; you felt the world outside tugging at one with all its golden hands - and you hated the things it asked of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and indifference. That was what I'd never known before - and it's better than anything I've known. responsibility temptation Edith Wharton
22b8b48 Our actions are like ships which we may watch set out to sea, and not know when or with what cargo they will return to port. responsibility karma pay-it-forward spiritual-guidance reciprocity consequences Iris Murdoch
63f3d22 "It was all Mrs. Bumble. She do it," urged Mr. Bumble; first looking round, to ascertain that his partner had left the room. That is no excuse," returned Mr. Brownlow. "You were present on the occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and, indeed, are the more guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction." If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, "the law is a ass -- a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience -- by experience." -- marriage woman responsibility funny wives law matrimony husbands Charles Dickens
51e5278 I am sorry my decisions do not meet with your approval, but nevertheless, they are mine, and the consequences are also mine. responsibility the-dead-girls-dance decisions consequences Rachel Caine
8ade60d There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else (parents in the case of children, God in the case of adults) has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point. [...] Somebody else must be responsible for my well-being, and somebody else must be to blame if I am hurt. Is it a similar infantilism that really lies behind the 'need' for a God? responsibility religion life Richard Dawkins
30c0f22 If every time we choose a turd, society, at a great expense, simply allows us to redeem it for a pepperoni, then not only will we never learn to make smart choices, we will also surrender the freedom to choose, because a choice without consequences is no choice at all. responsibility freedom choice society redemption consequences Tom Robbins
7bcf361 If the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought. responsibility purpose Dante Alighieri
3d486e8 It's hard enough for a person to keep their own socks pulled up, let alone someone else's. responsibility Stephen King
4083938 He understood well enough how a man with a choice between pride and responsibility will almost always choose pride--if responsibility robs him of his manhood. man responsibility stephen running pride manhood Stephen King
51d872a When all this is over, people will try to blame the Germans alone, and the Germans will try to blame the Nazis alone, and the Nazis will try to blame Hitler alone. They will make him bear the sins of the world. But it's not true. You suspected what was happening, and so did I. It was already too late over a year ago. I caused a reporter to lose his job because you told me to. He was deported. The day I did that I made my little contribution to civilization, the only one that matters. responsibility deportation denunciation personal-responsibility nazis genocide civilization hitler willful-ignorance cowardice knowledge guilt evil Iain Pears
cd0fb33 Next you will cry about taxation without representation, and throw a basket of tea into the harbor. You are indeed a very Jacobin at heart, and I think I must give up trying to cure you of it; I can but wash my hands and deny responsibility responsibility rebel Naomi Novik
ecf4e54 "Once she was certain, she didn't waiver. I had to make her stop for water or a bite to eat. She obeyed, but she was restless. As clear as if she spoke to me, she was saying, "Very well, I know you want to keep my strength up, but scent fades, you know!" And I'd say, "I know, girl, but you're what I have and I'm going to take care of you." responsibility dog-handler scent-hound talking-to-animals trailing-a-scent partners Tamora Pierce
4e3e5a7 "You and I, we must carry on, Gemma. I cannot afford the luxury of love. I must marry well. And now I must look after you. It is my duty." "If you wish to suffer, you do so of your own free will, not on my behalf. Or Father's or Grandmama's or anyone's. You are a fine physician, Thomas. Why is that not enough?" "Because it isn't," he says with a rare candor. "Only this and the hope of nothing more? A quiet respectability with no true greatness or heroism in it, with only my reputation to recommend me. So you see, Gemma, you are not the only one who cannot rule her own life." responsibility life love thomas-doyle gemma-doyle yearn control Libba Bray
875dbe0 He is among those beings of great scope who spread their leafy branches willingly over broad horizons. To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible. It is to know shame at the sight of poverty which is not of our making. It is to be proud of a victory won by our comrades. It is to feel, as we place our stone, that we are contributing to the building of the world. responsibility society Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
e41cd37 Isn't that what everyone wants, just for a moment to be unencumbered? responsibility Ann Patchett
13ce4ea The ' pleasure' of being drunk is obviously the pleasure of escaping from the responsibility of Consciousness. responsibility Ayn Rand
0ccb67e Our parts now -- which perforce we must play -- are not father and daughter, but one old Abhorsen, making way for the new. But behind this, there is always my love. responsibility Garth Nix
d20462f "A young woman asked the great preacher Charles Spurgeon if it was possible to reconcile God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. "Young woman," said he. "You don't reconcile friends" responsibility christianity Elisabeth Elliot
9bfa0cf In the end there is nothing to be done but to state clearly what has been done, without shame or regret, and say: Here I am, and this is what I am. Now deal with me as you see fit. That is your right. Mine is to stand by the act, and pay the price. You do what you must do, and pay for it. So in the end all things are simple. responsibility self-determination penance judgment Ellis Peters
32905c1 When gods die, self-respect buds', murmured Orland Fank. 'Gods and their examples are not needed by those who respect themselves and, consequently, respect others. Gods are for children, for little, fearful people, for those who would have no responsibility to themselves or their fellows. responsibility gods self-respect Michael Moorcock
f06f865 "You know what my father said about innocent clients? ... He said the scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you fuck up and he goes to prison, it'll scar you for life ... He said there is no in-between with an innocent client. No negotiation, no plea bargain, no middle ground. There's only one verdict. You have to put an NG up on the scoreboard. There's no other verdict but not guilty." Levin nodded thoughtfully. "The bottom line was my old man was a damn good lawyer and he didn't like having innocent clients," I said. "I'm not sure I do, either." -- responsibility risk fear criminal-law justice-system innocence justice guilt Michael Connelly
db2337f To free a man from error is not to deprive him of anything but to give him something: for the knowledge that a thing is false is a piece of truth. No error is harmless: sooner or later it will bring misfortune to him who harbours it. Therefore deceive no one, but rather confess ignorance of what you do not know, and leave each man to devise his own articles of faith for himself. responsibility social-debt Arthur Schopenhauer
0564fdf The world has long ceased to be the author of your anguish. responsibility suffering blame recovery R. Scott Bakker
e54ec74 I met your father last week. Are you still interested in hearing how he is doing? No. It is very probable that you will be responsible for his death. It is virtually certain that he is responsible for my life. We are even. responsibility life Jean-Paul Sartre
eb82e10 As more people have found the courage to break through shame and speak about woundedness in their lives, we are now subjected to a mean-spirited cultural response, where all talk of woundedness is mocked. The belittling of anyone's attempt to name a context within which they were wounded, were made a victim, is a form of shaming. It is psychological terrorism. Shaming breaks our hearts. All individuals who are genuinely seeking well-being within a healing context realize that it is important to that process not to make being a victim a stance of pride or a location from which to simply blame others. We need to speak our shame and our pain courageously in order to recover. Addressing woundedness is not about blaming others; however, it does allow individuals who have been, and are, hurt to insist on accountability and responsibility both from themselves and from those who were the agents of their suffering as well as those who bore witness. Constructive confrontation aids our healing. pain responsibility honesty love healing-shame hurting-heart wounds-to-the-heart discussion wounds confrontation woundedness wounded self-love hurting bell hooks
74ffcc9 Panem et Circenses translates into 'Bread and Circuses.' The writer was saying that in return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power. responsibility Orson Scott Card
e558f9d When you do anything from a clear judgment that it ought to be done, never shrink from being seen to do it, even though the world should misunderstand it; for if you are not acting rightly, shun the action itself; if you are, why fear those who wrongly censure you? responsibility Epictetus
8afa5d3 "It's all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine. It's just as Yeats said: "In dreams begin responsibility. Turn this on its head and you could say that where there's no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise." [...] Just like Adolf Eichmann caught up in the twisted dreams of a man named Hitler. - Oshima" responsibility imagination eichmann kafka-on-the-shore murakami Haruki Murakami
b5ed59f You're afraid of imagination. And even more afraid of dreams. Afraid of the responsibility that begins in dreams. But you have to sleep, and dreams are a part of sleep. When you're awake you can suppress imagination. But you can't suppress dreams. responsibility imagination dreams Haruki Murakami
97fe362 That many if not most people...who want fresh leafy greens in January buy them at the supermarket after they've been bleached and plastic-bag shipped from California or beyond is not a tribute to modern technology; it's an unprecedented abdication of personal responsibility and a ubiquitous benchmark of abnormality. responsibility food-security Joel Salatin
4693a6b The fine thing about pacts with the devil is that when you sign them you are well aware of their conditions. Otherwise, why would you be recompensed with hell? fate responsibility destiny self-deception devil Umberto Eco
538d1a9 It didn't matter he was brilliant and dedicated and good. He was a child. He was young. No he isn't, thought Ender. Small, yes. Bur Bean has been through a battle with a whole army depending on him and on the soldiers that he led. and he performed splendidly, and the won. There's no youth in that. No childhood. live responsibility good life small young childhood Orson Scott Card
d5d014c A man must be prepared to face life, as well as death, there's no escape from either. responsibility courage death life Ellis Peters
8de45eb To be part of a family, or any community, is to have duties and responsibility, to be bound by the rules of that group. socialism responsibility relationship family friendship community duties rules Robin Hobb
6ec70cc But no matter how much parents and grandparents may have sinned against the child, the man who is really adult will accept these sins as his own condition which has to be reckoned with. Only a fool is interested in other people's guilt, since he cannot alter it. The wise man learns only from his own guilt. He will ask himself: Who am I that all this should happen to me? To find the answer to this fateful question he will look into his own heart. responsibility self-possession self-reflection C.G. Jung
e44d266 This generation seems to see children as a financial burden and responsibility to be avoided. responsibility sad-but-true finances Francine Rivers
ebf3a5f We naturally try to forget our personal tragedies, serious or trifling, as soon as possible (even something as petty as being scorned or disdained by a stranger on a street corner). We try not to carry these things over to tomorrow. It is not strange, therefore, that the whole human race is trying to put Hiroshima, the extreme point of human tragedy, completely out of mind. tragedy responsibility Kenzaburō Ōe
1d154f8 A responsible Warrior is not someone who takes the weight of the world on his shoulders, but someone who has learned to deal with the challenges of the moment. responsibility world learning life shoulders warrior Paulo Coelho
4acef04 I truly wanted to live a life in which I could make my own choices, independent of the 'duties' of my birth and position. It was only when fate granted that to me that I realized the cost of it. I could set aside my responsibilities to others and live my life as I please only when I also severed my ties to them. I could not have it both ways. fate responsibility freedom life-lessons duties Robin Hobb
263c1c0 The birth of a better world is not ultimately up to you, though I know, each day, there are grown men and women who tell you otherwise. The world needs saving precisely because of the actions of these same men and women. I am not a cynic. I love you, and I love the world, and I love it more with every new inch I discover. But you are a black boy, and you must be responsible for your body in a way that other boys cannot know. Indeed, you must be responsible for the worst actions of other black bodies, which, somehow, will always be assigned to you. And you must be responsible for the bodies of the powerful--the policeman who cracks you with a nightstick will quickly find his excuse in your furtive movements. And this is not reducible to just you--the women around you must be responsible for their bodies in a way that you never will know. You have to make your peace with the chaos, but you cannot lie. responsibility race Ta-Nehisi Coates
a552cca How many of us lobby for green energy or protected lands, but don't engage with the local bounty to lay by for tomorrow's unseasonal reality? That we tend to not even think about this as a foundation for solutions in our food systems shows how quickly we want other people to solve these issues. responsibility food-security Joel Salatin
ac4dfac In my father's last letter he said that the world is run by those willing to take the responsibility for the running of it. If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. responsibility world life helpless impotent impotence willingness letter willing streets law helplessness government father Cormac McCarthy
233a1ba I'm responsible. I chose to put myself in a situation where I'm responsible, wanting to look after her, a small, dependent, vulnerable creature. It's innate and I don't even have to think about it. It's like breathing -- for some people. responsibility Gail Honeyman
f24212e It seems that the Parisian Oulipo group has recently constructed a matrix of all possible murder-story situations and has found that there is still to be written a book in which the murderer is the reader. Moral: there exist obsessive ideas, they are never personal; books talk among themselves, and any true detection should prove that we are the guilty party. responsibility writing readership paradoxes detective-stories guilt Umberto Eco
b957959 But what were you supposed to do with that weight? Once it was on you? Just be a man? Just suck it up? Maybe you were. Maybe that was the real test. Maybe that is exactly the thing that made you a man: the ability to function with the worst possible secrets in your brain. Which was why so many grown-up men seemed so ridiculous. They never felt that responsibility. They were untested, unproven; they were boys in grown-up clothes. killing man responsibility murder depression secret survival secrets guilt Blake Nelson
d85c05d "That is surely childhood's end, when you look at a thing like a rabbit needing skinned and have to say: "Nobody else is going to do this." responsibility Barbara Kingsolver
e3d0f98 So much about life in a global economy feels as though it has passed beyond the individual's control--what happens to our jobs, to the prices at the gas station, to the vote in the legislature. But somehow food still feels a little different. We can still decide, every day, what we're going to put into our bodies, what sort of food chain we want to participate in. We can, in other words, reject the industrial omelet on offer and decide to eat another. responsibility food Michael Pollan
097d606 It is hard to understand how a compassionate world order can include so many people afflicted by acute misery, persistent hunger and deprived and desperate lives, and why millions of innocent children have to die each year from lack of food or medical attention or social care. This issue, of course, is not new, and it has been a subject of some discussion among theologians. The argument that God has reasons to want us to deal with these matters ourselves has had considerable intellectual support. As a nonreligious person, I am not in a position to assess the theological merits of this argument. But I can appreciate the force of the claim that people themselves must have responsibility for the development and change of the world in which they live. One does not have to be either devout or non devout to accept this basic connection. As people who live-in a broad sense-together, we cannot escape the thought that the terrible occurrences that we see around us are quintessentially our problems. They are our responsibility-whether or not they are also anyone else's. As competent human beings, we cannot shirk the task of judging how things are and what needs to be done. As reflective creatures, we have the ability to contemplate the lives of others. Our sense of behavior may have caused (though that can be very important as well), but can also relate more generally to the miseries that we see around us and that lie within our power to help remedy. That responsibility is not, of course, the only consideration that can claim our attention, but to deny the relevance of that general claim would be to miss something central about our social existence. It is not so much a matter of having the exact rules about how precisely we ought to behave, as of recognizing the relevance of our shared humanity in making the choices we face. responsibility freedom social-commitment development economics Amartya Sen
7632518 But the answer isn't just to intimidate people into consuming more 'serious' news; it is to push so-called serious outlets into learning to present important information in ways that can properly engage audiences. It is too easy to claim that serious things must be, and can almost afford to be, a bit boring. The challenge is to transcend the current dichotomy between those outlets that offer thoughtful but impotent instruction on the one hand and those that provide sensationalism stripped of responsibility on the other. responsibility presentation sensationalism interest news thoughtfulness seriousness engagement Alain de Botton
1d83c27 There is no liberty, save wisdom and self-control. Liberty is within--not without. It is each man's own affair. responsibility liberty self-control H.G. Wells
c92e02e In bad times, a king or a queen can be a rock for the waters to crash against, so those less strong are not washed away. I will be such a rock. Only give me a chance, sweet Zoria, and I will be a rock for my people. responsibility queen Tad Williams
418fae4 . . . chronosophy does involve ethics. Because our sense of time involves our ability to separate cause and effect, means and end. The baby, again, the animal, they don't see the difference between what they do now and what will happen because of it. They can't make a pulley, or a promise. We can. Seeing the difference between now and not now, we can make the connection. And there morality enters in. Responsibility. To say that a good end will follow from a bad means is just like saying that if I pull a rope on this pulley it will lift the weight on that one. To break a promise is to deny the reality of the past; therefore it is to deny the hope of a real future. If time and reason are functions of each other, if we are creatures of time, then we had better know it, and try to make the best of it. To act responsibly. responsibility ethics Ursula K. Le Guin
1a5f351 By exiling human judgment in the last few decades, modern law changed role from useful tool to brainless tyrant. This legal regime will never be up to the job, any more than the Soviet system of central planning was, because ti can't think. The comedy of law's sterile logic--large POISON signs warning against common sand, spending twenty-two years on pesticide review and deciding next to nothing, allowing fifty-year-old white men to sue for discrimination--is all too reminiscent of the old jokes we used to hear about life in the Eastern bloc. Judgement is to law as water is to crops. It should not be surprising that law has become brittle, and society along with it. responsibility human-judgment bureaucrats law regulation tyranny Philip K. Howard
13db5a6 And the truth is that as a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he do.... responsibility power Ursula K Le Guin
215fef6 "The problem with ID, of course, is that it leaves open the possibility that the intelligence behind nature may have a moral interest in us, having communicated already with humanity in the past, and might try to boss you around in your private affairs. responsibility science aliens extraterrestrials moral-responsibility multiple-universe multiple-universes new-scientist dawkins multiverse richard-dawkins judgement id intelligent-design theism David Klinghoffer
0eed77b "And then you got us. Yeah, we stopped the zombie menace, but we're the ones who let it become a menace in the first place. At least we're cleaning up our own mess, and maybe that's the best epitaph to hope for. "Generation Z, they cleaned up their own mess." responsibility Max Brooks
d07c499 "The real social contract, (Edmund Burke) argued, was not Rousseau's social contract between the noble savage and the General Will, but a "partnership" between the present generation and future generations." responsibility legacy Niall Ferguson
c4edbd8 <> said he, pointing with his finger to Legree, who stood with his back to them, <> responsibility culpability Harriet Beecher Stowe
4b0410c What has been done to you is one thing. Yet to really suffer, to truly be burdened with guilt and shame, such pain always begins not with what has been done to you--but with what you have done. Andre Chevalier responsibility emotional-pain shame guilt Nikki Sex
8fffa95 You are responsible for your own life and what happens in it, so are the other people. responsibility Cecelia Ahern
55ac730 What do Chile, Biafra, the boat people, Bologna, or Poland matter? All of that comes to be annihilated on the television screen. We are in the era of events without consequences (and of theories without consequences). responsibility nihilism Jean Baudrillard
fcc6e11 I think that she is everything I have ever loved about our religion distilled down to fit into one person, everything about the faith that is both selfless and responsible. responsibility religion love selflessness Ann Patchett
dca754b The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth an light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium. From the hurricane and the great whale's sounding to the fall of a dry leaf and the gnat's flight, all they do is done within the balance of the whole. But we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility. mankind responsibility nature Ursula K. Le Guin
8abaca1 You know what's wrong with scientific power?... It's a form of inherited wealth... Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual Guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline. Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it. But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step... There is no discipline... no mastery: old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature... A karate master does not kill people with his bare hands. He does not lose his temper and kill his wife. The person who kills is the person who has no discipline, no restraint, and who has purchased his power in the form of a Saturday night special. And that is the kind of power that science fosters, and permits. responsibility science life meaning-of-life hard-work experience Michael Crichton
744ae83 [D]ie Leute [lesen] nichts, was sie nicht interessiert, und wenn sie etwas interessier[t], [sind] sie auch reif dafur. responsibility Isabel Allende
afdb53c "Desert heat or not, the idea that my younger self was facing her last moments was a bucket of cold water in the face. I didn't like her, but she appeared to have her shit together in a way I hadn't for a long time, and she had, frankly, deserved better than me. I tried to wet my lips, had nothing to do it with and croaked, "Sorry." "Don't be sorry. Be good. Be right. Be a hero." responsibility C.E. Murphy
6a0b7dc Da imash dete e kato da si napravish tatuirovka na litseto. Naistina triabva da si sigurna, che tochno tova iskash, predi da mu se posvetish. kids responsibility family commitment baby children Elizabeth Gilbert
59846d7 As much as I had always longed to be freed of my duties and obligations, being released from such bonds was as much a severing as an emancipation. responsibility freedom reality truth duties duty emancipation end obligation outcome responsibilities sever ties release Robin Hobb
d981e5b "Euere Schuld, Deichgraf!" schrie eine Stimme aus dem Haufen." prejudice responsibility mobs ignorance guilt Theodor Storm
f74bdb4 "They ought not to have let things come to this," he said, but he was never very clear even to himself who or why "They" were nor what "This" was. Some person or persons unknown was to blame. He hated these unknowns in general. But he was unable to focus his hatred into hating some responsible person or persons in particular. If only he could find who it was had neglected to do something, or had done something wrong or messed about with things, they would catch it. He'd get even with them somehow." hatred responsibility society H.G. Wells
ad19ed2 This life is only a test' is a counter-productive mindset; it encourages wishful thinking toward and elusive and likely non-existent afterlife while often enabling the believer to squander this life as somehow less important. responsibility counter-productive god-test life-is-a-test test David G. McAfee
78977fa Of course the servants had chosen not to follow me; I'd failed them already by refusing to be a man they could believe in. responsibility leadership σοφός following Megan Whalen Turner
d7c7049 ... privilege was obligation; command was service; power, the gift itself, entailed a heavy loss of freedom. responsibility power Ursula K. Le Guin
c66fcef Most people will do just about anything you tell them to do, if you act with authority, give them no choice, and accept the responsibility for their actions. It's kind of scary, isn't it? responsibility Ilona Andrews
4a4a799 Is there a notion of hope (and of our responsibility to the future) that could be shared by believers and nonbelievers? What can it be based on now? Does an idea of the end, one that does not imply disinterest in the future but rather a constant examination of the errors of the past, have a critical function? If not, it would be perfectly all right to accept the approach of the end, even without thinking about it, sitting in front of our TV screens (in the shelter of our electronic fortifications), waiting for someone to while meantime things go however they go. And to hell with what will come. responsibility history future past religion hope life end-of-time end-of-the-world entertainment Umberto Eco
a3b5f7c It is an almost overpowering effort to be just, informed, sane and strong when you are worried about a roof over your head, money for food, for the children's shoes, for coal, for a little fun, worried and harassed by the daily unending problem of living. But it is an effort that must be made, for lasting peace is not going to come of itself, nor cheaply, nor due to someone else. responsibility Martha Gellhorn
62f5092 Power makes you lazy. Insofar as our earlier theoretical discussion of structural violence revealed anything, it was this: that while those in situations of power and privilege often feel it as a terrible burden of responsibility, in most ways, most of the time, power is all about what you don't have to worry about, don't have to know about, and don't have to do. responsibility structural-violence privilege David Graeber
e1bdc7b A lord who does not distribute wealth is a lord who will lose the allegiance of his men, money responsibility greed politics leadership rulership facts Bernard Cornwell
13cba70 "Jack, I'm just telling you, if it turns out. . .I want you to shoot me." "Dee--" "I'm not kidding, not exaggerating, just telling you that I do not have it in me to handle that." "You have a daughter, too. You don't have the luxury not to handle shit." responsibility perceverance Blake Crouch
3d0cc60 There's panic, and then there's panic, Commander. Fear of the odds, of the enemy, even of death is one thing. All of us feel that. We'd be fools if we didn't. But we learn not to let it dictate our responses. We can't, if we're going to do our jobs. But there's another sort of terror: the terror of failure, of being blamed for some disaster, or of assuming responsibility. It's not just the fear of dying; it's the fear of living through something like Seaford while everyone laughs behind your back at what an idiot you were to allow yourself to be placed in such a disastrous situation. responsibility panic terror David Weber
015a284 I cannot pretend that I regard this with favor, but the purpose of life is not to do what we want but what needs to be done. This is what fate demands of us. - Oromis responsibility inspirational-quotes life-and-living life-lessons life-philosophy Christopher Paolini
23ccf05 ...the meaning of a few moments of forgetfulness in an evil hour and in a dangerous place. Had they been lived through and remained unknown, there on the kapia, they would have meant nothing at all; one of those youthful pranks later told to friends during dull patrol duties at night. But thus, reduced to a question of definite responsibility, they meant everything. They meant more than death, they meant the end of everything, an unwanted and unworthy end. There would be no more full and frank explanations either to himself or to comrades. There would be no more letters from Kolomea, no more family photographs, no money orders such as he had sent home with pride. It was the end of one who has deceived himself and allowed others to deceive him. responsibility life existentialism Ivo Andrić
b58c1f3 If your faith is genuine, then you meet your responsibilities, fulfill your obligations, and wait until you are found. It will come. If not to you, then to your children, and if not to them, then to their children. responsibility Mark Helprin
0c498a7 He believed that rank without power was a sham. responsibility statesmanship Barbara W. Tuchman
ec233ba Sister Simone Campbell: responsibility faith wisdom on-being enoughness community Krista Tippett
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