#responsibility

"Take responsibility for your own happiness, do not expect people or things to bring you happiness, or you could be disappointed."

"Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self."

"To me, history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me, it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is."[The Title Always Comes Last; NEH 2003 Jefferson Lecturer interview profile]"

"Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility."

"you don't have to worry about burning bridges, if you're building your own"

"I realized that conservatism was the philosophy that best suited me, with its emphasis on individual liberty, personal responsibility, and merit."

"I don't want anyone to look to me, not for protection, not for happiness, not for love, not for anything."

"If you hang out with chickens, you're going to cluck and if you hang out with eagles, you're going to fly."

"People have forgotten this truth,"the fox said. "But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose."

"The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon."

"Still, he figured, sometimes you've got to do what you've got to do, and then sometimes you've just got to run like hell after it's done."

"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."

"People like to say love is unconditional, but it's not, and even if it was unconditional, it's still never free. There's always an expectation attached. They always want something in return. Like they want you to be happy or whatever and that makes you automatically responsible for their happiness because they won't be happy unless you are ... I just don't want that responsibility."

"The master of the garden is the one who waters it, trims the branches, plants the seeds, and pulls the weeds. If you merely stroll through the garden, you are but an acolyte."

"An important decision I made was to resist playing the Blame Game. The day I realized that I am in charge of how I will approach problems in my life, that things will turn out better or worse because of me and nobody else, that was the day I knew I would be a happier and healthier person. And that was the day I knew I could truly build a life that matters."

"Never compromise your values."

"It's always seemed to me that flirtation is a man's device for avoiding responsibility. He can say whatever he wants and knows he won't be taken seriously."

"A man who has come to the full realization of his responsibility to men won't stick to one man. It will be foolhardy if he does that."

"We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society."

"Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must — at that moment — become the center of the universe."