Quotes on Our Actions

The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.

We need a fundamental change of mindset with regards to the way we speak and behave about sex and sexuality. Boys and men have a particularly critical role in this regard, changing the chauvinist and demeaning ways sexuality and women were traditionally dealt with in both our actions and speaking.

Eventually we all have to accept full and total responsibility for our actions, everything we have done, and have not done.

The purpose of the present study is not as it is in other inquiries, the attainment of knowledge, we are not conducting this inquiry in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, else there would be no advantage in studying it. For that reason, it becomes necessary to examine the problem of our actions and to ask how they are to be performed. For as we have said, the actions determine what kind of characteristics are developed.

We are free to choose our actions, . . . but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions.

Both life and death manifest in every moment of existence. Our human body appears and disappears moment by moment, without cease, and this ceaseless arising and passing away is what we experience as time and being. They are not separate. They are one thing, and in even a fraction of a second, we have the opportunity to choose, and to turn the course of our action either toward the attainment of truth or away from it. Each instant is utterly critical to the whole world.

We make choices. No one else can live our lives for us. And we must confront and accept the consequences of our actions.

Our actions are in our own hands, but the consequences of them are not. Remember that, my dear, and think twice before you do anything.

If we don’t want to define ourselves by things as superficial as our appearances, we’re stuck with the revolting alternative of being judged by our actions.

The consequences of our actions take hold of us, quite indifferent to our claim that meanwhile we have 'improved.

Peace - the word evokes the simplest and most cherished dream of humanity. Peace is, and has always been, the ultimate human aspiration. And yet our history overwhelmingly shows that while we speak incessantly of peace, our actions tell a very different story.

There is only one basic human right: the right to do as you please, without causing others harm. With it comes our only basic human duty: the duty to accept the consequences of our actions.

When we cast our bread upon the waters we can presume that someone downstream whose face we will never know will benefit from our action, as we who are downstream from another will profit from the grantor's gift.

If at times our actions seem to make life difficult for others, it is only because history has made life difficult for us all.

We should be as careful of our words as of our actions.

When our actions do not, our fears make us traitors.

God is well pleased when all our actions proceed from love, love to Himself, and love to immortal souls.

We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race.

Wherever we go, wherever we remain, the results of our actions follow us.

In the space between stimulus (what happens) and how we respond, lies our freedom to choose. Ultimately, this power to choose is what defines us as human beings. We may have limited choices but we can always choose. We can choose our thoughts, emotions, moods, our words, our actions; we can choose our values and live by principles. It is the choice of acting or being acted upon.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.