Martin Freeman Quotes

As you age, you start to realize that your emotions are in your hands and not someone else's. Once you put them in someone else's hands, that's when you give them the power, and you can't change it. Only they can change it.

I think it's really important for young audiences to see that you don't have to apologize for being angry when you're angry, and you don't have to apologize for standing up for yourself when people are pushing you around.

I had to take responsibility, even if it meant saying no to an authority figure, because I was the authority on me.

We don't want to give the controls to someone else; we want those reins ourselves. We want to get our way. And we get upset when things don't work out. . . . When we try to control someone else or events beyond the scope of our power, we lose. When we learn to discern the difference between what we can change and what we can't, we usually have an easier time expressing our power in our lives. Because we're not wasting all our energy using our power to change things we can't, we have a lot of energy left over to live our lives.

Before the heart attack, I used to do a lot of work - what's needed and what's not needed. I used to sing songs that leave an impact and those that didn't. I could never say 'No.' Now, I have learnt to say it, though, and believe me, it has not been easy to do so.

I don't do the victim mode. I don't do blame. I can't bear that.

Don't allow people to suck up all your time with their questions or problems. Learn to say 'no' more often.

Sometimes you have to say, 'I don't have to do everything that comes my way.'

I say 'no' a lot. And if I knew how easy it was to say no, I would have started saying it earlier.

If you choose to take a path in life, don't blame other people for the path you've chosen to take.

Here I am.... You get the parts of me you like and also the parts that make you uncomfortable. You have to understand that other people's comfort is no longer my job. I am no longer a flight attendant.

If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth.

How can we resent the life we've created for ourselves? Who's to blame, who's to credit, but us? Who can change it, any time we wish, but us?

At the same time I know that it’s not really their fault, at least not completely. I did my part too. I did it on a hundred different days and in a thousand different ways, and I know it. But this makes the anger worse, not better.

No one can make you a victim but yourself.

Looking for approval or blaming others or feeling like a victim. Whenever I feel myself doing that I try to stop and see myself as someone who's a creator in more ways than just what the word typically means.

People are effective because they say 'no,' because they say, 'this isn't for me.'

Politics is a lot like sex - if you want something, you have to ask for it, if they're not doing it right you've got to speak up and show them and if you still don't get what you want, then there is nothing wrong with doing it yourself.

The essential religion is taking the whole responsibility for whatsoever you are. And immediately an insight arises: 'If I am responsible for my suffering, then it is simple, I can drop it. It is my choice. I will not choose it any more.'

If you give way, you will instantly have to meet some greater demand, as having been frightened into obedience in the first instance; while a firm refusal will make them clearly understand that they must treat you more as equals.

I was 40 before I learned that 'No' was a complete sentence.

You should figure out who you are and what you need, and then don't apologize for it.

I exist, I am, I am here, I am becoming, I make my own life and no one else makes it for me. I must face my own shortcomings, mistakes, transgressions. No one can suffer my non-being as I do, but tomorrow is another day, and I must decide to leave my bed and live again. And if I fail, I don't have the comfort of blaming you or life or God.

We have some role in almost everything that happens in our lives. When "bad" things happen, the mistake is not in the role, but in calling them bad. For in calling them bad, we call ourselves bad, since we had a role in their creation. We then have only two choices: blame ourselves, or disown our creative power, neither of which is congruent with our highest purpose.