David A. Bednar Quotes

To be offended is a choice we make; it is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else.

When we speak of choice, what we mean is the ability to exercise control over ourselves and our environment. In order to choose, we must first perceive that control is possible.

It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.

Insult is powerful. Insult begets both rage and humor and often at the same time.

No one can make you feel anything you don't already feel.

The event is not what you should be working on. You should be working on your response or reaction to an event. You either react to it - that means you become victimized, and you say this thing is happening to you - or you respond to it and say the solution must come through you - that's where you stay focused, not on the rightness, wrongness, fairness of the event, but on the appropriateness of your response.

My dad always says, some people will treat you badly and you can't help that. But how you handle it and how it makes you feel, that's up to you.

When someone gives you offense, it doesn't mean you have to take it.

While we cannot always choose what happens to us, we can choose our responses.

It is not he who gives abuse that affronts, but the view that we take of it as insulting; so that when one provokes you it is your own opinion which is provoking.

Though I am not always responsible for what happens to me, I am responsible for how I handle what happens to me.

Remember that no one can hurt you except yourself. If someone does a mean thing to you, that person is hurt. You are not really hurt unless you become embittered, or unless you become angry and perhaps do a mean thing in return.

Crocker's Rules didn't give you the right to say anything offensive, but other people could say potentially offensive things to you, and it was your responsibility not to be offended. This was surprisingly hard to explain to people; many people would read the careful explanation and hear, "Crocker's Rules mean you can say offensive things to other people."

No one makes you feel anything. It is how you react and respond that determines your emotions.

Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be cause by another person. No one outside me can hurt me. That’s not a possibility. It’s only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I’m the one who’s hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don’t have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I’m the one who can stop hurting me. It’s within my power.

if you have to say “no offense” to someone, you have already offended them.

If you are capable of submitting to insult you ought to be insulted.

I take that as an insult, even at 36.

Everything you do is based on the choices you make. It's not your parents, your past relationships, your job, the economy, the weather, an argument or your age that is to blame. You and only you are responsible for every decision and choice you make. Period.

Choose not to be harmed and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed and you haven't been.

There was a time when I let go of the reins and thought, What's meant to happen will happen. That's probably one of my biggest faults as a person, and something that I've had to work really hard on: believing in this idea that the universe will decide for me. The universe is not going to decide in your favor.

An insult is either sustained or destroyed, not by the disposition of those who insult, but by the disposition of those who bear it.

It is just as much an offense to take offense as it is to give offense.

I believe that - love is a choice. I believe that we love, that if I'm forced to love you then I don't know that I've really loved you.

It is when people are told their own thoughts that they think they are being insulted.