Individual Responsiblity, Personal Responsibility Quotes

Our landings … have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops …. The troops, the air, and the navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.

Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing.

I object to Parliament trying to regulate private morality in matters which only affects the person who commits the offence.

Considering mankind's indifference to freedom, their easy gullibility and their facile response to conditioning, one might very plausibly argue that collectivism is the political mode best suited to their disposition and their capacities. Under its regime, the citizen, like the soldier, is relieved of the burden of initiative and is divested of all responsibility, save for doing as he is told.

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.

Your life is yours to live, no matter how you choose to live it. When you do not think about how you intend to live it, it lives you. When you occupy it, step into it consciously, you live it.

A fool always accuses other people; a partially wise man himself; a wholly wise man, neither himself nor others.

An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

Being proactive is more than taking initiative. It is recognizing that we are responsible for our own choices and have the freedom to choose based on principles and values rather than on moods or condition. Proactive people are agents of change and choose not to be victims, to be reactive, or to blame others.

I am blind and limited. I would be a fool think myself wise. And so, not knowing what the universe means, I can only try to be responsible with the knowledge, the strength, and the time given to me. I must be true to my heart.

Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.

I'm glad the universe is pointless. It means if I get to the end of my life, the universe can't turn to me and go, 'What have you been doing, you idiot? That's not the point!

No one is coming to save you.

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.

It is often tragic to see how blatantly a man bungles his own life and the lives of others yet remains totally incapable of seeing how much the whole tragedy originates in himself, and how he continually feeds it and keeps it going. Not consciously, of course—for consciously he is engaged in bewailing and cursing a faithless world that recedes further and further into the distance. Rather, it is an unconscious factor which spins the illusions that veil his world. And what is being spun is a cocoon, which in the end will completely envelop him.

In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present - I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world?

There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.

Leadership is taking responsibility while others are making excuses.

The world doesn't owe you anything. It was here first.

In the age of information, ignorance is a choice.

Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path.

We were all born carrying a promise -- a promise to make the world better -- and there's a yearning to make good on that promise that none of us can suppress forever.

Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.