Responsibility.
Taking responsibility for one's thoughts, words and actions.

We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care what you think. Vivekananda, quoted in: Nikhilananda, Vivekananda, A Biography, P.196.

Do not blame anybody; our own deeds are responsible for whatever happens. As I did, so do I fare; why then blame others for it? Attributed to Guru Nanak. Quoted after: Miriam Bokser Caravella, The Holy Name. P.50.

God is managing the whole universe, down to the most minute detail - and we are made in His image. Therefore we cannot make excuses for failure to succeed. Paramahansa Yogananda, Man's Eternal Quest, P.204.

Those that blame others - and alas! the number of them is increasing every day - are generally miserable, with helpless brains. They have brought themselves to that pass through their own mistakes, and blame others; but it does not alter their position. It does not serve them in any way. (...) Therefore blame none for your faults; stand upon your own feet and take the whole responsibility upon yourself. Say, "This misery that I am suffering is of my own doing, and that very thing proves that it will have to be undone by me alone." That which I have created I can demolish; (...). Therefore stand up, be bold, be strong! Vivekananda, quoted in: Nikhilananda, Vivekananda, A Biography, P.191.

(...) unless you take your responsibility, nothing is ever going to be right. Osho, Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic, P.163.

Just be responsible to yourself. Do whatsoever you feel like doing. If it is wrong, the punishment will immdiately follow. If it is right, the reward will follow (...); there is no other way. Osho, Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic, P.164.

Everything that happens to you, you are responsible for. That gives you great freedom. Osho, Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic, P.165.

(...) the feeling that 'I am responsible for my misery,' opens the door. Then you start looking for methods and means to get out of this miserable state. Osho, Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic, P.177.

Buddhism (...) assures us that our thoughts and actions do have consequences, and leaves it up to us to take the proper responsibility for them. Even if we're born into an unsatisfactory situation, we have the power to free ourselves. Jack Maguire. (2001). Essential Buddhism. P.112.

If man is not but makes himself, and if in making himself he makes himself responsible for the whole species - if there is no value or morality given a priori, so that we must in every instance decide alone and without any basis or guidelines, yet for everyone - how could we possibly help feeling anguished when we have to act? each of our acts puts the world's meaning and man's place in the universe in question. With each of them, whether we want to or not, we constitute a universal scale of values. (...) The Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre. Vol.2. P.158.

(...) anguish, far from being an obstacle to action, is the very condition for it, and is identical with the sense of that crushing responsibility of all before all which is the source of both our torment and our grandeur. The Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre. Vol.2. P.158.

(...) you're like the others. You think you're original, like the rest. You're a decent man, like all the rest, a guy who is always saying, "It isn't me. I didn't do anything" - like all the rest. Everybody says that things are going the way they are because other people are bad, and since each man ultimately thinks that it's the others who did everything, each man is alone and condemns the other to be alone. The Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre. Vol.2. P.205.

When we are angry with others we should not seek solitude on the grounds that there, at least, no one will provoke us to anger, and that in solitude the virtue of long-suffering can easily be acquired. Our desire to leave our brethren is because of our pride, and because we do not wish to blame ourselves and ascribe to our own laxity the cause of our unruliness. So long as we assign the causes for our weakness to others, we cannot attain perfection in long-suffering. St. John Cassian (360-435), quoted in: The Philokalia, Vol. I., P.85.

If our purpose is to fight the spiritual fight and to defeat, with God's help, the demons of malice, we should take every care to guard our heart from the demon of dejection. Just as a moth devours clothing and a worm devours wood, so dejection devours a man's soul. It persuades him to shun every helpful encounter and stops him accepting advice from his true friends or giving them a courteous and peaceful reply. Seizing the entire soul, it fills it with bitterness and listlessness. Then it suggests to the soul that we should go away from other people, since they are the cause of its agitation. It does not allow the soul to understand that its sickness does not come from without, but lies hidden within (...). St. John Cassian (360-435), quoted in: The Philokalia, Vol. I., P.87.

Do not say: 'I don't want it, but it happens.' For even though you may not want the thing itself, yet you welcome what causes it. St. Mark the Ascetic (4th Century C.E.), quoted in: The Philokalia, Vol. I., P.120.

Real knowledge is patiently to accept affliction and not to blame others for our own misfortunes. St. Mark the Ascetic (4th Century C.E.), quoted in: The Philokalia, Vol. I., P.130.


Last updated: 2007/01/07

See the related subjects: Courage, Duty, Faith, Mind

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