Quotes About Responsibility

It's painful to face how we harm others, and it takes a while. It's a journey that happens because of our commitment to gentleness and honesty, our commitment to staying awake, to being mindful. Because of mindfulness, we see our desires and our aggression, our jealousy and our ignorance. We don't act on them; we just see them. Without mindfulness

Whatever you're given can wake you up or put you to sleep. That's the challenge of now: What are you going to do with what you have already—your body, your speech, your mind?

Seeing when you justify yourself and when you blame others is not a reason to criticize yourself, but actually an opportunity to recognize what all people do and how it imprisons us in a very limited perspective of this world.

Taking the . . . vow to help others implies that instead of holding our own individual territory and defending it tooth and nail, we become open to the world that we are living in. It means we are willing to take on greater responsibility, immense responsibility. In fact, it means taking a big chance. —CHÖGYAM TRUNGPA RINPOCHE

Everything in our lives can wake us up or put us to sleep, and basically it's up to us to let it wake us up.

What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.

When we find ourselves in a mess, we don't have to feel guilty about it. Instead, we could reflect on the fact that how we relate to this mess will be sowing the seeds of how we will relate to whatever happens next. We can make ourselves miserable, or we can make ourselves strong. The amount of effort is the same. Right now we are creating our state of mind for tomorrow, not to mention this afternoon, next week, next year, and all the years of our lives.

We are all children of the Great Spirit, we all belong to Mother Earth. Our planet is in great trouble and if we keep carrying old grudges and do not work together, we will all die. —CHIEF SEATTLE

The third reminder is karma: every action has a result. One could give a whole seminar on the law of karma. But fundamentally, in our everyday life, it's a reminder that it's important how we live.

It's up to you how to use your life. It doesn't mean that you have to be the best one at cheering up, or that your habitual tendencies never get the better of you. It just has to do with this sense of reminding yourself.

Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there's some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us. It means thinking there's always going to be a babysitter available when we need one. We all are inclined to abdicate our responsibilities and delegate our authority to something outside ourselves. Nontheism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves.

when we harm another, we are harming ourselves.

To abandon yourself to rage is often to bring upon yourself the fault of another.

The anger of those in authority is always weighty.

The only one you get even with is yourself.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal while blaming our misery on the person who started the fire.

A kinsman in trouble had to be saved, not blamed; anger against a brother was felt in the flesh, not in the bone.

It's my duty as a human being to be pissed off

I didn't want to hurt him!" Ender cried. "Why didn't he just leave me alone!

Politically, the weakness of the argument has always been that those who choose the lesser evil forget very quickly that they chose evil.

Give no answer to contentious arguments or irresponsible accusations. Let such things "fly out open windows" until they spend themselves.

My argument has always been that this is not an anti-Bush film, it's a pro-democracy film. And if George W.Bush comes out on the wrong side of democracy, that's his problem.

The most convincing argument against early parenthood is that you are in a relationship that is likely to fall apart before that child grows up.

I used to buy into a former Supreme Court justice's argument that you can't scream fire in a crowded theater. Well, I think you can.