Self Responsibility Quotes

It is in no way, shape or form your cosmic duty or responsibility to take away the pain of other people. This is because by absorbing the pain of others, you are depriving them of a vital element of their spiritual evolution and karmic responsibility. ~ Mateo Sol

It should not be difficult to accept the idea that someone else is, in 'your experience of them', in part your self-creation. But it is difficult and sometimes impossible. Impossible because accepting the idea that you are in part creating your 'other' forces you to take on board a high degree of self responsibility. Few of us easily do that. p.234 ~ Stephanie Dowrick

Stand in your own two shoes. ~ T. Scott McLeod

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves. ~ William Shakespeare

Anarchism, to me, means not only the denial of authority, not only a new economy, but a revision of the principles of morality. It means the development of the individual as well as the assertion of the individual. It means self-responsibility, and not leader worship. ~ Voltairine De Cleyre

I did not write love songs as a sixteen-year-old. I did not write about crushes or about mean girls. I wrote about my life - about the injustices and inequities and the search for answers and self-responsibility. ~ Jewel

You want to set me free? Do it. You want to turn me in? You can do that too. You're the only one with the choice. And that bullet in your back doesn't mean you've got any less choice than you ever did. Live free of fear if you want to. We all carry something inside us that could kill us; yours just has a name. You want to change your life? Change it. You have no less of a right to be happy than the rest of us. ~ Greer Macallister

Only one who takes over his own life history can see in it the realization of his self. Responsibility to take over one's own biography means to get clear about who one wants to be. ~ Jurgen Habermas

No-one will come in to rescue you. You just have to step out somehow, and make your dreams come true. ~ Moffat Machingura

The transition from tenseness, self-responsibility, and worry, to equanimity, receptivity, and peace, is the most wonderful of all those shiftings of inner equilibrium, those changes of personal centre of energy, which I have analyzed so often; and the chief wonder of it is that it so often comes about, not by doing, but by simply relaxing and throwing the burden down. ~ William James

To evolve out of this position of psychological immaturity to the courage of self-responsibility and assurance requires a death and a resurrection. That's the basic motif of the universal hero's journey - leaving one condition and finding the source of life to bring you forth into a richer or mature condition. ~ Joseph Campbell

Don't try to be happy, just be happy. Because your happiness does not depend on others. Be the reason for your own happiness. ~ Vishwas Chavan

I was much happier when I had less responsibility ... when my only responsibility was to my work and to myself. ~ Robert Rauschenberg

If you take care of your immediate surroundings, the universe will take care of itself. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

We often forget that we are as we are until we're not. We are the same until we're changed. We can move that a bit further by putting into place healthy habits and to show up to our lives in a way that fosters growth, but we can't game timing.

Timing is the one thing that we often forget to surrender to.

Things are dark until they're not. Most of our unhappiness stems from the belief that our lives should be different than they are. We believe we have control -- and our self-loathing and self-hatred comes from this idea that we should be able to change our circumstances, that we should be richer or hotter or better or happier. While self-responsibility is empowering, it can often lead to this resentment and bitterness that none of us need to be holding within us. We have to put in our best efforts and then give ourselves permission to let whatever happens to happen--and to not feel so directly and vulnerably tied to outcomes. Opportunities often don't show up in the way we think they will.

You don't need more motivation or inspiration to create the life you want. You need less shame around the idea that you're not doing your best. You need to stop listening to people who are in vastly different life circumstances and life stages than you tell you that you're just not doing or being enough. You need to let timing do what it needs to do. You need to see lessons where you see barriers. You need to understand that what's right now becomes inspirat ~ Jamie Varon

Life is a balancing act. While we have all the rights to be in freedom, peace, harmony and bliss; we do have a responsibility to ensure that others too enjoy their own freedom, peace, harmony and bliss. ~ Vishwas Chavan

Self-responsibility is the core quality of the fully mature, fully functioning, self-actualizing individual. ~ Brian Tracy

Do not give your attention to what others do or fail to do; give it to what you do or fail to do. ~ Gautama Buddha

But whatever happens, I've been happy. I've been loved. I've amazed crowds and drunk in their applause. Not because of luck or favor or magic. Because of will. My will. I've been willing to do whatever it takes. That's the closest thing I have to a secret. And now it's yours."

It's a lot to think about, and he can't quite digest it. But there's a spark there. Maybe she's right about him. Maybe it is up to him, how much he lets the bullet, and the fear, take over his life. Maybe. Not a curse, but a choice. His agency and no one else's. ~ Greer Macallister

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands. ~ Anne Frank

An afternoon drive from Los Angeles will take you up into the high mountains, where eagles circle above the forests and the cold blue lakes, or out over the Mojave Desert, with its weird vegetation and immense vistas. Not very far away are Death Valley, and Yosemite, and Sequoia Forest with its giant trees which were growing long before the Parthenon was built; they are the oldest living things in the world. One should visit such places often, and be conscious, in the midst of the city, of their surrounding presence. For this is the real nature of California and the secret of its fascination; this untamed, undomesticated, aloof, prehistoric landscape which relentlessly reminds the traveller of his human condition and the circumstances of his tenure upon the earth. "You are perfectly welcome," it tells him, "during your short visit. Everything is at your disposal. Only, I must warn you, if things go wrong, don't blame me. I accept no responsibility. I am not part of your neurosis. Don't cry to me for safety. There is no home here. There is no security in your mansions or your fortresses, your family vaults or your banks or your double beds. Understand this fact, and you will be free. Accept it, and you will be happy. ~ Christopher Isherwood

Insecurity must follow the transfer of responsibility from self to others, particularly when transferred to arbitrary and capricious government. Genuine security is a matter of self-responsibility, based on the right to the fruits of one's own labor and freedom to trade. ~ Leonard Read

Attack the evil that is within yourself, rather than attacking the evil that is in others. ~ Confucius

While it is positive for young black males and females to learn discipline and self-responsibility, those attitudes, values, and habits of being can be taught with pedagogical strategies that are liberatory, that do not rely on coercive control and punishment to reinforce positive behavior. ~ Bell Hooks

The contradictions were apparent to Makhaya, and perhaps there was no greater crime as yet than all the lies Western civilization had told in the name of Jesus Christ. It seemed to Makhaya far preferable for Africa if it did without Christianity and Christian double-talk, fat priests, golden images, and looked around at all the thin naked old men who sat under trees weaving baskets with shaking hands. People could do without religions and Gods who died for the sins of the world and thereby left men without any feeling of self-responsibility for the crimes they committed. This seemed to Makhaya the greatest irony of Christianity. It meant that a white man could forever go on slaughtering black men simply because Jesus Christ would save him from his sins. Africa could do without a religion like that. 135 ~ Bessie Head

Blame is the lie by which we convince ourselves that we are victims. It is the lie that robs us of our serenity, our generosity, our confidence, an our delight in life ... For it is the act of blaming that can't co-exist with self-responsibility
or with freedom from inner agitation and strained relationships. Abandon the practice of blaming, and we see the fear melt away that we have associated with being honest about ourselves and taking the full measure of responsibility for our emotional and spiritual condition. ~ C. Terry Warner

Each individual in fact has moral responsibility for the acts which he personally performs; no one can be exempted from this responsibility, and on the basis of it everyone will be judged by God himself. ~ Pope John Paul II

Check your passions that you may not be punished by them. ~ Epictetus

The fascist dictator declares that the masses of people are biologically inferior and crave authority, that basically, they are slaves by nature. Hence, a totalitarian authoritarian regime is the only possible form of government for such people. It is significant that all dictators who today plunge the world into misery stem from the suppressed masses of people. They are intimately familiar with this sickness on the part of masses of people. What they lack is an insight into natural processes and development, the will to truth and research, so that they are never moved by a desire to want to change these facts.

On the other hand, the formal democratic leaders made the mistake of assuming that the masses of people were automatically capable of freedom and thereby precluded every possibility of establishing freedom and self-responsibility in masses of people as long as they were in power. They were engulfed in the catastrophe and will never reappear.

Our answer is scientific and rational. It is based on the fact that masses of people are indeed incapable of freedom, but it does not - as racial mysticism does - look upon this incapacity as absolute, innate, and eternal. It regards this incapacity as the result of former social conditions of life and, therefore, as changeable. ~ Wilhelm Reich

Obedience is detachment from the self. This is the most radical detachment of all. But what is the self? The self is the principle of reason and responsibility in us. It is the root of freedom, it is what makes us men. ~ Bede Griffiths

It is man's intrinsic and irreducible self-responsibility to humanize himself, to exercise his entire range of rational and moral resources to raise his mode of being and seeing and acting above not just that of animals, but also above that of the majority of subhuman (never to be self-realized) humans who will never draw themselves into a self-punishing position of focal self-diagnosis and self-accountability. ~ Kenny Smith

Most people believe the apple merely represented Knowledge. But we know better. It was the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Nothing less than the curse of consciousness. Of moral responsibility. Of always, ever after, having to choose between what is right and what is wrong. ~ Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

I disagree with the analysis that you've put about what happened in relation to the student demonstrations and protests and the incident with the Prince of Wales' car. We're very clear that we have to separate out the political responsibility from operational responsibility of the police. ~ Theresa May

It's an unbelievable responsibility to influence decisions, shareholder value and most important to me, people's careers and livelihoods. ~ Andrea Jung

The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn't the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility. ~ John Lennon

Books have played a role in almost every one of the world's great civil and human rights movements, but only because people who read them decided to act. Reading brings with it responsibility. ~ Will Schwalbe

That is your greatest responsibility. To live a life of breathless wonder, so that when it begins to fade from you, you will feel the shadow of its happiness still inside you and the blissful sense that you laughed the loudest, loved the deepest, and lived fearlessly, even as the specifics of it all melt away. ~ Catherine Doyle

Change in the world begins with change in your neighborhood. And change in your neighborhood begins with change in you - a change from indifference to responsibility - a change from purpose-less survival to purpose-full living. ~ Abhijit Naskar

All of us have a responsibility to help pay for health care. ~ Newt Gingrich

Make not, when you work a deed of shame, The scoundrel's plea, 'My forbears did the same. ~ Al-Ma'arri

In my life, I have learned to accept personal responsibility for my circumstances and that acceptance has given me the power to change them."
~Elissa Gabrielle ~ Elissa Gabrielle

He swallowed again. "Why?"
When I opened my mouth to answer, my lips started trembling - from nerves or regret I don't know - and it took a few seconds to actually force the words out. "Because you have to find Nicholas. And I can't handle that right now. I know I said I could, but I can't." Breathing as deeply as I could, I took Daniel's closeness inside me, feeling all the while like I was on the edge of suffocating. "I'm about to fall apart, and I need time."
"I need you."
"You need me to kill-"
"No!" Daniel's face flushed, and he fixed his mouth shut, inhaling rapidly through his nose while trying to regain control. "You aren't going anywhere near Dmitri. Not ever. He's my responsibility. ~ Angela B. Wade

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In stopping to think through the meaning of what I have learned, there is much I believe intensely, much I am unsure of. But this, at least, I believe with all my heart: 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 own responsibility. Hyde ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Dogs are more of a responsibility than kids - you can send a kid off to their grandparents or a nanny, but with a dog you can't do that. ~ Jason Gann

Conscious evolution begins as we take responsibility for clearing our own obstructions. ~ Dan Millman

Personal Responsibility is the acknowledgement of the fact that I am personally responsible for what is happening in my life, in my surrounding and in my nation. ~ Sunday Adelaja

It's the nature of reactive people to absolve themselves of responsibility. It's so much safer to say, "I am not responsible." If I say "I am responsible," I might have to say, "I am irresponsible." It would be very hard for me to say that I have the power to choose my response and that the response I have chosen has resulted in my involvement in a negative, collusive environment, especially if for years I have absolved myself of responsibility for results in the name of someone else's weaknesses. ~ Stephen R. Covey

In our search for more, we have blinded ourselves to our personal responsibility for challenging these absurdities. A resource-based society considers us all equal shareholders of Earth. We are responsible both for the planet and for our relationship with each other. ~ Jacque Fresco

Life is about getting and sharing. The more you share, the more you get ... and the more you get, the more your sharing responsibility multiplies. ~ Israelmore Ayivor

Halakha, as the human way of life in accordance with the Torah, does not aim at absolute truth, nor does it run after the fata- morgana of universal truth. Neither of them is accessible to human beings. Its aim is "earthly truth" that the human intellect is able to grasp and for whose pursuance in life man must accept personal responsibility. ~ Eliezer Berkovits

Thus there is not a grievance in the nation for which the government does not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it surprising, then, that every failure increases the threat of another revolution in France? And what remedy is proposed for this? To extend indefinitely the domain of the law; that is, the responsibility of government. ~ Frederic Bastiat

Being good is good business ~ Anita Roddick

Responsibility is knowing you are cause. ~ Meir Ezra

I don't know how you perceive my mission as a writer, but for me it is not a responsibility to reaffirm your concretized myths and provincial prejudices. It is not my job to lull you with a false sense of the rightness of the universe. This wonderful and terrible occupation of recreating the world in a different way, each time fresh and strange, is an act of revolutionary guerrilla warfare. I stir the soup. I inconvenience you. I make your nose run and your eyeballs water. ~ Harlan Ellison

In the first place, the church can ask the state whether its actions are legitimate and in accordance with its character as state, i.e., it can throw the state back on its responsibilities. Secondly, it can aid the victims of state action. The church has an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering of society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community. The third possibility is not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to put a spoke in the wheel itself. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A black bird of guilt hovers over the death of a man, waiting to perch where it may find room in the minds that remain. It is an easy thing to be deceived by the happenings of the world into believing you are responsible for them. It is part of man's great conceit that he can believe himself responsible for the universe and its actions. It is a part of his conceit that he can believe himself guilty of the death of every other man, and take the guilt of the world on himself.

But there is no guilt to be taken. it is not necessary that the responsibility be assigned. It is not the concern of those who remain, but a thing between the world and the one who is dead. that which was, is not. It is a simple thing. ~ Don Berry

More than 100 people are involved in a transplant operation ... and we can't waste time and resources if there is a chance the caretakers aren't up for an awesome responsibility. ~ Leonard Bailey

Nevertheless, no school can work well for children if parents and teachers do not act in partnership on behalf of the children's best interests. Parents have every right to understand what is happening to their children at school, and teachers have the responsibility to share that information without prejudicial judgment ... Such communication, which can only be in a child's interest, is not possible without mutual trust between parent and teacher. ~ Dorothy H Cohen

At headquarters, where everyone lived under the tremendous pressure of responsibility, probably nothing was more welcome than a dictate from above. That meant being freed of a decision and simultaneously being provided with an excuse for failure. ~ Albert Speer

To make an excuse sidesteps responsibility. But to make a choice automatically assumes responsibility. ~ Brooklyn James

Until fairly recently, every family had a cornucopia of favorite home remedies--plants and household items that could be prepared to treat minor medical emergencies, or to prevent a common ailment becoming something much more serious. Most households had someone with a little understanding of home cures, and when knowledge fell short, or more serious illness took hold, the family physician or village healer would be called in for a consultation, and a treatment would be agreed upon. In those days we took personal responsibility for our health--we took steps to prevent illness and were more aware of our bodies and of changes in them. And when illness struck, we frequently had the personal means to remedy it. More often than not, the treatment could be found in the garden or the larder. In the middle of the twentieth century we began to change our outlook. The advent of modern medicine, together with its many miracles, also led to a much greater dependency on our physicians and to an increasingly stretched healthcare system. The growth of the pharmaceutical industry has meant that there are indeed "cures" for most symptoms, and we have become accustomed to putting our health in the hands of someone else, and to purchasing products that make us feel good. Somewhere along the line we began to believe that technology was in some way superior to what was natural, and so we willingly gave up control of even minor health problems. ~ Karen Sullivan

Freedom without responsibility? What freedom is that? None at all. ~ David Clement-Davies

Freedom cannot simply mean doing whatever strikes you at the moment: that way you're a slave to any whim or passing fancy. Real freedom involves control over your life as a whole, learning to make plans and promises and decisions, to take responsibility for your actions' consequences. ~ Susan Neiman

I think I would co-direct because I love actors and I've got a very good eye. I'm not a second-guesser. I don't think that I would be very happy, getting inundated by financial issues. I would love to co-direct with somebody because that would be a real freedom and an adventure, and then I could leave all the pain and misery to them. I'm not glib about it. I would take the responsibility to make a really good movie. ~ Lance Henriksen

Citizenship in the 21st century requires more than paying your taxes and voting and occasionally running for office. That even if you're never in political office, you have political responsibilities. You can make your society stronger and better. ~ William J. Clinton

I held on to those other sources of income for so long because I never wanted to burden my writing with the responsibility of paying for my life. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

I've been desperately unhappy in my life." Her voice was quiet. "Have you, Chief Inspector?"
It wasn't a response he could have predicted. He nodded.
"I thought so. I think people who have had that experience and survived have a responsibility to help others. We can't let someone drown where we were saved. ~ Louise Penny

If and when family planning is the responsibility of females, males are best kept under lock and key. ~ Nell Zink

My favourite mentor brother told me that there were three kinds of people: followers, leaders and scouts. Scouts are capeable of leadership, but they could not tolerate the responsibility of it. Disinclined to take orders either, they invariably flouted authority and fomented strife. This is why scouts, he said wryly, were the first to be sent into danger, It was half hoped they would be killed. 'I fear you are destined to trouble us as a scout, little sister' he said ~ Isobelle Carmody

You are a child of the divine, you are compressed stardust, you are a human being. You have a responsibility to cause as little harm to yourself and others as possible. To live the best, biggest life you can and to leave everyone you come across better than you found them. ~ Bakara Wintner