Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

I believe we've been given free will, and we can take responsibility for our own lives and for creating our own environments - which I think at times can be a little much for people to deal with.

Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.

As human beings, we are endowed with freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is our responsibility.

The first principle of freedom is the right to go to hell in your own handbasket.

For a man to act himself, he must be perfectly free; otherwise he is in danger of losing all sense of responsibility or of self- respect.

It must always be remembered that you can never do right until you are first free to do wrong; since the doing of a thing under compulsion is evidence neither of good nor bad intent; and if under compulsion, who shall decide what would be the substituted rule of action under full freedom?

The nature of freedom of choice is that some people will misuse their responsibility and hurt themselves in the process. We should do our best to educate them, but without diminishing choice for everyone else.

I am inclined to believe that a man may be free to do anything he pleases if only he will accept responsibility for whatever he does.

Each human being has been granted a virtue: the capacity to choose. For he who does not use this virtue, it becomes a curse - and others will always choose for him.

If the whole responsibility is thrown upon our own shoulders, we shall be at our highest and best; when we have nobody to grope towards, no devil to lay our blame upon, no Personal God to carry our burdens, when we are alone responsible, then we shall rise to our highest and best. I am responsible for my fate, I am the bringer of good unto myself, I am the bringer of evil.

It's not your freedom to choose that makes you free. It's what you choose in that freedom that makes you free.

I just do what I want to do without hurting other people and you know, I wish other people would do the same.

We are product of neither nature nor nurture; we are a product of choice, because there is always a space between stimulus and response. As we wisely exercise our power to choose based on principles, the space will become larger.

Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge of thine own cause.

I don't think I have something that's pronounceable as a philosophy. ... When it was fashionable to say, "May the Force be with you," I always said, "Force yourself." ... I'll say again then, "The Force is within you. Force yourself."

No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone.

It’s up to you, not fate. True. But it was also up to Lily. That was the trickiest part.

Keeping your commitment to your purpose does not depend on other people keeping theirs.

People are going to do stupid things, but you don't take away the freedom because somebody makes a stupid decision.

If you want sense, you'll have to make it yourself.

It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.

Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.

Freedom means the capability to say yes when yes is needed, to say no when no is needed, and sometimes to keep quiet when nothing is needed - to be silent, not to say anything. When all these dimensions are available, there is freedom.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.