Jon Ronson Quotes

I fail to understand why gethes (Humans), talk about individuals versus society. They are the same thing. The action of every individual counts, and those individual acts of personal responsibility accumulate to create society. Snowflakes are equally blind to their role in causing avalanches.

Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty.

Somewhere along the line, the actions of this government are the actions of me.

Such is our need to shower blame on some distant entity when it is we who lack the courage to face up to what is there before us.

The only true hope for civilization-the conviction of the individual that his inner life can affect outward events and that, whether or not he does so he is responsible for them.

He chose a certain path in life, it proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say that at least. As for myself, I cannot even claim that. You see, I trusted. I trusted in his lorship's wisdom. All those years I served him, I trusted I was doing something worthwhile. I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really - one has to ask oneself - what dignity is there in that?

constituted a critical lapse in judgement and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely responsable

Default is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

It is a dangerous notion that we need a government to protect us from ourselves.

Blaming our behavior on forces outside ourselves is a way of avoiding responsibility.

It's always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming the world, but your successes or failures are entirely your own responsibility.

People need responsibility. They resist assuming it, but they cannot get along without it.

It's no good protecting people or even looking after them past a certain point. One can't grasp more than a piece of anyone. Most of the rest can only be protected by themselves and the remainder by hired specialists and doctors and dentists and professional protectors.

I cannot shift the blame for Chechnya, for the sorrow of numerous mothers and fathers. I made the decision, therefore I am responsible.

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.

A pitcher never gets me out. I get myself out. That's no disrespect to the pitcher, but there should be no excuse for failure. You can't have an excuse to fail.

The world you live in is 100 percent your own responsibility. If you don't like your world, it doesn't work to say, "Well, it's my mother's fault. She taught me how to think."

Don't try to blame the rest of the world. The blame only lies with you. Recognize that immediately.

We are the makers of our own state and...individuals who realize the fact need not, ought not, to wait for collective action.

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

If you mess something up, remember who got you there. Don't be pointing fingers, even if finger-pointing is called for. Only one you got to blame is your own self.

Every time that we try to lift a problem from our own shoulders, and shift that problem to the hands of the government, to the same extent we are sacrificing the liberties of our people.

[James] Baldwin explained that you have your own history, and that you cannot be responsible, for example, for slavery.

The flip side of freedom is this: When you're completely free, you're also completely on your own.

Peter must have thought, "Who am I compared to Mr. Faithfulness (John)?" But Jesus clarified the issue. John was responsible for John. Peter was responsible for Peter. And each had only one command to heed: "Follow Me." (John 21:20-22)