“It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously.”
BBC obituary (2004)
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Peter Ustinov59
English actor, writer, and dramatist 1921–2004Related quotes
George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States
2000s, 2004, Signing of Secure Fence Act of 2006
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
1930s, Mein Weltbild (My World-view) (1931)
Context: In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a disbeliever. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, that "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will," has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others'. This feeling mercifully mitigates the sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralyzing, and it prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of life in which humor, above all, has its due place.
Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Speech to the Empire Parliamentary Association's Conference in Westminster Hall (4 July 1935); published in This Torch of Freedom: Speeches and Addresses (1935), pp. 5-6.
1935
Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar
Book 2, Chapter 7 “A Mechanical Man” (p. 395)
The Steel Tsar (1981)
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Foreword (January 1960)
You Learn by Living (1960)
Context: One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In stopping to think through the meaning of what I have learned, there is much that I believe intensely, much I am unsure of. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
Friedrich Nietzsche Untimely Meditations
Wir haben uns über unser Dasein vor uns selbst zu verantworten; folglich wollen wir auch die wirklichen Steuermänner dieses Daseins abgeben und nicht zulassen, daß unsre Existenz einer gedankenlosen Zufälligkeit gleiche.
“Schopenhauer as educator,” § 3.1, R. Hollingdale, trans. (1983), p. 128
Untimely Meditations (1876)
“We are responsible for every situation in which we find ourselves.”
Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer
Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 4: Fire and Brimstone, Horns and Tail, p. 65
Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon
Source: Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (1990), p. 63