Those who enjoy responsibility usually get it; those who merely enjoy exercising authority usually lose it.

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.

You can’t change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it.

To a greater force, and to a better nature, you, free, are subject, and that creates the mind in you, which the heavens have not in their charge. Therefore if the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought.

We all walk in the dark and each of us must learn to turn on his or her own light.

When an archer misses the mark, he turns and looks for the fault within himself. Failure to hit the bull's--eye is never the fault of the target. To improve your aim, improve yourself.

Without properly kept accounts it is impossible to maintain truth in its pristine purity.

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.

Blame it or praise it, there is no denying the wild horse in us.

The individual is not accountable to society for his actions, insofar as these concern the interests of no person but himself.

Let us remind ourselves that it is ordinary people – men and women, boys and girls – that make the world a special place.

I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the right of the people to peacefully to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. -First Amendment

If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

I had always hoped that this land might become a safe & agreeable Asylum to the virtuous & persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.

Our task must be to free ourselves…by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason.

The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest causes.

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.

I had made the religion of service my own, as I felt that God could be realized only through service.

The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

Are you one of the flock that follows, or Are you one that shall lead the way?

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really man it.

Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will - his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals.

The first method of estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.

Conceit spoils the finest genius… and the great charm of all power is modesty.

Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that's real power.

The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.

There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.

Next to the assumption of power is the responsibility of relinquishing it.

My way of joking is to tell the truth. It is the funniest joke in the world.

The primary imagination I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I am.

You are the only person who thinks in your mind. You are the power and authority in your world.

The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it continues the true source of national vigor and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.

You cannot subsidize irresponsibility and expect people to become more responsible.

I have noticed that even those who assert that everything is predestined and that we can change nothing about it still look both ways before they cross the street.

Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.

The resources, advantages, and the powers of the American people are very great, and they have, consequently, succeed to equally great responsibilities.

We do not do what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are—that is a fact.

We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye.

The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily.

I never encounter anything except my responsibility.

When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone.

If you compromise your own conscience, you will weaken your conscience. Soon your conscience will fail to guide you and you never will have real wealth based on peace of mind.

You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise.

You don't have to be big or well known to be great.

If everyone was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.

Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.