“The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs.”

— Joan Didion

Source: "On Self-Respect", in Slouching Towards Bethlehem

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Joan Didion 48

American writer 1934

Petero Mataca (1933–2014) Catholic archbishop

Source: Statement to the media, 23 June 2005 http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id23578, on the government's proposal to establish a Reconciliation and Unity Commission (excerpts)

“People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 93
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice
Context: People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief of the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility.

“…one should accept the truth from whatever source it proceeds.”

Maimónides (1138–1204) rabbi, physician, philosopher

Foreword to The Eight Chapters Of Maimonides On Ethics, translated by Joseph I. Gorfinkle, Ph.D. Columbia University Press, New York (1912). Page 35-36. https://archive.org/details/eightchaptersofm00maim
Variant: "Accept the truth from whatever source it comes." Introduction to the Shemonah Peraqim, as quoted in Truth and Compassion: Essays on Judaism and Religion in Memory of Rabbi Dr. Solomon Frank (1983) Edited by Howard Joseph, Jack Nathan Lightstone, and Michael D. Oppenheim, p. 168
Variant: You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes.

“But I think happiness springs from another source, a far deeper one that doesn't depend on will because it comes from love.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Quo Vadis

Source: Quo Vadis

“Chronic disputes which divert precious resources from the needs of the people or drain the energies of both sides serve the interests of no one — and the badge of responsibility in the modern world is a willingness to seek peaceful solutions.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, UN speech

“Many people operate as if there are two separate and equal sources of information—the self and others, where the number of others is irrelevant. The result is a “truly” false-consensus effect in the context of knowing one’s own plus a certain number of others’ responses.”

Robyn Dawes (1936–2010) American psychologist

Source: Everyday Irrationality: How Pseudo-Scientists, Lunatics, and the Rest of Us Systematically Fail to Think Rationally (2001), Chapter 8, “Connecting Ourselves with Others, Without Recourse to a Good Story” (p. 148)

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

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

“Some Shi'ites are asking that Islam be the only source of laws, which means turning Iraq into an Islamic regime, and that is unacceptable. We accept that the religion of Iraq is Islam, and we must respect Islam and the Islamic identity of Iraqi people. But we think Islam should only be one source of the Iraqi laws.”

Jalal Talabani (1933–2017) Iraqi politician

Jim Muir (February 10, 2005) "Shia demands 'risk turning Iraq into an Islamic regime' into Islamic regime constitution will be fierce, says Talabani", The Daily Telegraph.

“It is time to return to those core values, time to get back to basics: to self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family, and not shuffling it off on other people and the state.”

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Nicholas Wood, Jill Sherman, Sheila Gunn, "Major gives seal of approval to Tories' right-wing agenda", The Times, 9 October 1993
Conservative Party conference speech, 8 October 1993. The phrase was associated with personal morality and backfired when a succession of senior Conservatives fell to scandals that winter.
1990s, 1993

“Rather will it be a public of inherently free individuals w'ho can keep an individual purpose, learnt in the fields of intense suffering and experience. Such a public are likely to accept and wield responsibility in respect of their own government and their own religion and education.”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter XXXV The Opportunity Today

“The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs.”

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Joan Didion 48

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