Responsibility

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. Frederick Douglass

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.

Noblesse oblige; or, superior advantages bind you to larger generosity.

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.

I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.

The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

Do your little bit of good where you are;it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.

It is widely recognied in the academy that we don't need to be first causes or uncaused causers to be held responsible and have standards of right and wrong. Holding each other responsible is one important way we are caused to ehave responsibly and ethically.

Success is the process of having a wonderful experience going for, getting, and having what you want.

New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth.

The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother's need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another's good.

In leadership writ large, mutually agreed upon purposes help people achieve consensus, assume responsibility, work for the common good, and build community.

Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually.

Peace . . . starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighboring communities, and so on. When we feel love and kindness towards others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace. And there are ways in which we can consciously work to develop feelings of love and kindness. For some of us, the most effective way to do so is through religious practice. For others it may be non-religious practices. What is important is that we each make a sincere effort to take our responsibility for each other and for the natural environment we live in seriously.

Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.

If the village elders don't provide the scripts (for youth success), the village idiots will.

Organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.

Due to circumstances
beyond my control,
I am master of my fate
and captain of my soul.

A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.

The man of great wealth owes a particular obligation to the state because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government.

We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise . . . It is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations.

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice - that is, until we have stopped saying 'It got lost,' and say, 'I lost it.'

We can learn from history how past generations thought and acted, how they responded to the demands of their time and how they solved their problems. We can learn by analogy, not by example, for our circumstances will always be different than theirs were. The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.

Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.

Responsibility . . . lies with each of us individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighboring communities, and so on. When we feel love and kindness towards others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace. And there are ways in which we can consciously work to develop feelings of love and kindness. For some of us, the most effective way to do so is through religious practice. For others it may be non-religious practices. What is important is that we each make a sincere effort to take our responsibility for each other and for the natural environment we live in seriously.

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

At length, when death approaches one of you, Our angels take his soul, and they never fail in their duty. Then are men returned unto God, their Protector, the (only) reality: is not His the Command? And He is the swiftest in taking account.

God will not call you to account for what is futile in your oaths, but He will call you to account for your deliberate oaths: for expiation, feed then indigent persons, on a scale of the average for the food of your families; or clothe them; or give a slave his freedom.

God is swift in calling to account.

And there are men who say: ‘Our Lord! give us good in this world and good in the Hereafter, and defend us from the torment on the fire!’ To these will be allotted what they have earned, and God is quick in account.

The person who sins, he alone shall die. A child shall not share the burden of a parent’s guilt, nor shall a parent share the burden of a child’s guilt; the righteousness of the righteous shall be accounted to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him alone, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be accounted to him alone.

Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.

But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

These injunctions are not contradictory, for whosoever must be punished for the crimes which he has committed, suffers his injury not through the ill-will of the judge but on account of his evildoing. His own acts have brought upon him the injury that the executor of the law inflicts. When a magistrate punishes, let him not harbor hatred in his breast, yet a murderer, when put to death, should consider that this is the fruit of his own act.

Our good or evil deeds follow us continually like shadows. That which is most needed is a loving heart!

Bring thyself to account each day ere thou art summoned to a reckoning; for death, unheralded, shall come upon thee and thou shalt be called to give account for thy deeds.

Set before thine eyes God's unerring Balance and, as one standing in His Presence, weigh in that Balance thine actions every day, every moment of thy life.

I believe life is a series of near misses. A lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It's seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future. It's seeing what other people don't see. And pursuing that vision.

Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world.

Why in moments of crisis do we ask God for strength and help? As cognitive beings, why would we ask something that may well be a figment of our imaginations for guidance? Why not search inside ourselves for the power to overcome? After all, we are strong enough to cause most of the catastrophes we need to endure.

The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.

When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become the foundation of a new race.

We can learn from history how past generations thought and acted, how they responded to the demands of their time and how they solved their problems. We can learn by analogy, not by example, for our circumstances will always be different than theirs were. The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.

Yes, our greatness as a nation has depended on individual initiative, on a belief in the free market. But it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, of mutual responsibility. The idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we're all in it together and everybody's got a shot at opportunity. Americans know this. We know that government can't solve all our problems - and we don't want it to. But we also know that there are some things we can't do on our own. We know that there are some things we do better together.

The true test of the American ideal is whether we’re able to recognize our failings and then rise together to meet the challenges of our time. Whether we allow ourselves to be shaped by events and history, or whether we act to shape them. Whether chance of birth or circumstance decides life’s big winners and losers, or whether we build a community where, at the very least, everyone has a chance to work hard, get ahead, and reach their dreams.

"Dr. King didn't get famous giving a speech that said,"I have a complaint."

We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too.

They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.

It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.

A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back -- but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

All we have to do to create the future is to change the nature of our conversations, to go from blame to ownership, and from bargaining to commitment, and from problem solving to possibility.

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.

My life is an influence on every life mine touches. Whether I realize it or not, I am responsible and accountable for that influence.

Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.

There are rules, necessities and duties, and limits, possibilities and impossibilities. Until doom, one can accept them and make the best of them, much to one’s pleasure and honor, or one can do the opposite and suffer the consequences. The choice between these two options is the very essence of freedom.

Although life comes with many strings attached – many determining factors, internal or external – humans are not mere puppets in the hands of circumstances. They may suffer, but they have the power to react against their suffering, unless they are mentally and physically incapacitated in the extreme. The more they passively claim to be the victim of a bad situation, the more they are an undeclared accomplice to it, for lack of struggling to better it or make the best of it.

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.

Look at the weaknesses of others with compassion, not accusation. It’s not what they’re not doing or should be doing that’s the issue. The issue is your own chosen response to the situation and what you should be doing. If you start to think the problem is “out there,” stop yourself. That thought is the problem.

We must now surrender to the obligation to understand and to care. We must surrender ourselves to becoming conscious, thinking members of the human race. We must put down the temptation to powerlessness and surrender to the questions of the moment.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

God does not have hands, we do. Our hands are God’s. It is up to us what God will see and hear, up to us, what God will do. Humanity is the organ of consciousness of the universe ... Without our eyes the Holy One of Being would be blind.

It is not the "courage to be" that we must develop as much as the "courage to become." We are responsible for our destiny. The meaning of life is not located in some hidden crevice in the womb of nature but is created by free persons, who are aware that they are responsible for their own futures and have the courage to take this project into their own hands.

It is a natural aspect of the world’s design that life forms are interdependent. If compassion means empathic awareness of that natural interconnection, then compassion is a law of nature we cannot deny. If we want to live in harmony with the logic of our world, we can’t ignore the parts of us that are custodians of the earth and our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. We’re responsible for one another’s wellbeing whether we choose to act in accordance with that responsibility or not, because our wellbeing is inescapably collective.

The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here--that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

True patriots believe that freedom from responsibility is selfishness, freedom from sacrifice is cowardice, freedom from tolerance is prejudice, freedom from stewardship is exploitation, and freedom from compassion is cruelty. 

It is better to fail at doing something, than to succeed in doing nothing.

A virtuous man concentrates on his own work, not that of others. 

In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves.  The process never ends until we die.  And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

The final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.

Those who think they have no responsibilities are those who have not sought them out.

Luck means the hardships you have not hesitated to endure;
the long nights you have devoted to your work.
Luck means the appointments you have never failed to keep,
the airplains you never filed to catch.

It's amazing how lucky I become whenever I consistently put out my best effort.

Success doesn't come to you.  You go to it.

It is our own thoughts that lead us into trouble, not other people.

Everything that happens to us is the result of what we ourselves have thought, said, or done.

We alone are responsible for our lives.

How you choose to respond each moment to the movie of life determines how you see the next frame, and the next, and eventually how you feel when the movie ends.

Who can protest and does not, is an accomplice in the act.

He that lives upon hope will die fasting.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm... As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

Nothing strengthens the judgement and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility.

The first duty of a human being is to assume the right functional relationship to society -- more briefly, to find your real job, and do it.

The most eminent virtue is doing simply what we have to do.

One should perform even an insignificant task with respect.

Every job is a portrait of the person who does it. Autograph your work with excellence.

Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders and know that you are the creator of your destiny.

As long as we require someone else to make us happy, we are slaves.

The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own.  No apologies or excuses.  No one to lean on, rely on, or blame.  The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey - and you alone are responsible for the quality of it.  This is the day your life really begins.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

Good men prefer to be accountable.

Accountability breeds response-ability.

The reality of life is that your perceptions -- right or wrong -- influence everything else you do. When you get a proper perspective of your perceptions, you may be surprised how many other things fall into place.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought. Let us have faith that right makes might and in that faith let us; to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

I describe family values as responsibility towards others, increase of tolerance, compromise, support, flexibility. And essentially the things I call the silent song of life—the continuous process of mutual accommodation without which life is impossible.