Quotes About Responsibility

T]hat little voice shut up the instant I did something. And not just something: the exact thing I knew to be right. Because if the system was broken, if Carrie Johnstone wasn't going to ever pay consequences for her action, it wasn't because "the system" failed to get her. It was because people like me chose not to act when we could. The system was people, and I was part of it, part of its problems, and I was going to be part of the solution from now on.

That's why you never hear politicians talking about 'citizens,' it's all 'taxpayers,' as though the salient fact of your relationship to the state is how much you pay. Like the state was a business and citizenship was a loyalty program that rewarded you for your custom with roads and health care.

Sysadmins don't take holidays

I'm not magic. You lead yourselves.

Talk to your neighbors. Make them promise to vote. Make them promise to take the country back from the torturers and thugs. The people who laughed at my friends as they lay fresh in their graves at the bottom of the harbor. Make them promise to talk to their neighbors. Most of us choose none of the above. It's not working. You have to choose — choose freedom.

It was the fact that there was all this terrible stuff and no one seemed to be able to do anything about it.

They say that it's down to individual choice and responsibility, but reality is that you can't personally shop your way out of climate change. If your town reuses glass bottles, that does one thing. If it recycles them, it does something else. If it landfills them, that's something else, too. Nothing you do, personally, will affect that, unless it's you, personally, getting together with a lot of other people and making a difference.

The time to act is when you still have privilege and power, not when you've had it stripped from you.

The point is just that people usually only figure out that things are turning bad when they turn bad for them, and by then it's too late. The time to act is when you still have privilege and power, not when you've had it stripped from you.

It's hard to pay your own way when you're used to someone else picking up the tab.

we're problems to be solved, not citizens. That's why you never hear politicians talking about 'citizens,' it's all 'taxpayers,' as though the salient fact of your relationship to the state is how much you pay.

The environmental prescription has been to act as much as possible like you were already dead. Don't reproduce. Don't consume. Don't trample the earth or you'll compress the dirt and kill the plants. Every exhalation poisons the atmosphere with CO2. Is it any wonder we haven't gotten there?

Remember, it's not just 'to each according to her need,' it's 'from each according to her ability.' I know how to find factories that are perfect for direct action. I know how to get into them. I know how to pwnify their machines. I know how to throw a hell of a party. I have all this unearned, undeserved privilege. Apart from killing myself as an enemy of the human species, can you think of anything better for me to do with it?

Not even PEBKAC this time," Van said. Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair.

The worst thing is to be worrying about what someone else is doing, because that has nothing to do with whether you're doing right.

That's the walkaway dilemma. If you take without giving, you're a mooch. If you keep track of everyone else's taking and giving, you're a creep scorekeeper. It's our version of Christian guilt—it's impious to feel good about your piety. You have to want to be good, but not feel good about how good you are. The worst thing is to be worrying about what someone else is doing, because that has nothing to do with whether you're doing right.

As in, "When I forget to do the dishes, that's because no one's perfect. When you forget to do the dishes, it's because you're a selfish asshole.

most of what I hated about present-day America was stuff I helped to invent.

The anthropocene is about collective action, not individuals. That's why climate change is such a clusterfuck. In default, they say that it's down to the individual choice and responsibility, but reality is that you can't personally shop your way out of climate change.

Someday, people are going to realize that. Someday, enough white folks, enough rich white folks are going to realize that living in a lawless city where hooligans like you can administer beatings and then get your victims locked up for the crime of complaining about it is no good for them. "But long before then, everyone else is going to wake up to that fact. Brown people. White people. Chinese people and Puerto Ricans and everyone

Computers can control you or they can lighten your work—if you want to be in charge of your machines, you have to learn to write code.

When I forget to do the dishes, that's because no one's perfect. When you forget to do the dishes, it's because you're a selfish asshole.

No boy owes his parents. Parents owe their children everything, always and unconditionally, and that's just the way it goes.

Our boy owes us nothing. No boy owes his parents. Parents owe their children everything, always and unconditionally, and that's just the way it goes.