The universe may be tenderly indifferent to our fate, but we shouldn’t be. We are our brothers’ keepers. There is right, and there is wrong. There are consequences to our actions or inactions. Disregard can be an act of violence.
— John Dufresne
Unique Consequences Of Our Actions quotations
Punishment damages goodwill and self-esteem, and shifts our attention from the intrinsic value of an action to external consequences.
The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.
While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.
Glory ought to be the consequence, not the motive of our actions.
We make choices. No one else can live our lives for us. And we must confront and accept the consequences of our actions.
There are eternal consequences resulting from all our thoughts, words and actions, of which we take far too little account.
We demand entire freedom of action and then expect the government in some miraculous way to save us from the consequences of our own acts.... Self-government means self-reliance.
The consequences of our actions take hold of us, quite indifferent to our claim that meanwhile we have 'improved.
I think that's the moment when we all grow up, when we stop blaming our parents for the messes we've made out of our lives and start owning the consequences of our actions.
Only as long as we believe in our own identity over time does it make sense for us to make future plans, avoid risks, and treat our fellow human beings fairly - for the consequences of our actions will, in the end, always concern ourselves.
Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.
Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits-a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.
It would be immoral to walk away from the consequences of our actions, leaving behind anarchy and civil war in Iraq.
So long as we are brave enough to accept the consequences of our actions, no one can take away our freedom of choice.
What our Seventh Generation will have is a consequence of our actions today.
To engage in civil disobedience is to feel the abundance of courage, the gratitude for a democracy that still invites us to speak from our hearts, to act from our conscience and have faith in the consequences of moral action. Abundance is a form of consciousness.
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.
Are not half our lives spent in reproaches for foregone actions, of the true nature and consequences of which we were wholly ignorant at the time?
If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can't know better until knowing better is useless.
[A] private property regime makes people responsible for their own actions in the realm of material goods. Such a system therefore ensures that people experience the consequences of their own acts. Property sets up fences, but it also surrounds us with mirrors, reflecting back upon us the consequences of our own behavior.
...the only thing that continues is the consequences of our action.
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.
It's a matter of ABC: When we encounter ADVERSITY, we react by thinking about it. Our thoughts rapidly congeal into BELIEFS. These beliefs may become so habitual we don't even realize we have them unless we stop to focus on them. And they don't just sit there idly; they have CONSEQUENCES. The beliefs are the direct cause of what we feel and what we do next. They can spell the difference between dejection and giving up, on the one hand, and well-being and constructive action on the other. The first step is to see the connection between adversity, belief, and consequence. The second step is to see how the ABCs operate every day in your own life.
Our religious belief usurps the place of our sensations, our imaginations of our judgment. We no longer look to actions, trace their consequences, and then deduce the rule; we first make the rule, and then, right or wrong, force the action to square with it.
For each of our actions there are only consequences.
Wisdom is not developable, as if it's a matter of luck or personality or genetics. Well it's just not the case. Wisdom involves our accumulated knowledge about a subject but also a reverence for life, for an understanding that our immediate actions have long-term consequences, and for an appreciation that there are different ways of knowing and understanding situations.
I'm gut all the way, which is why I think I'm so connected to shows like Falling Water and even The Walking Dead, which is all about the mortal consequences of our actions. Generally, we act first and realize the consequences later.
It's obvious that there are vast variety of consequentialist views, depending on what we think goodness consists in, what our notion of consequence is, and what level (or levels) of human action we think the principle should be applied.
To have an idea of a thing is not just to get certain sensations from it.
It is to be able to respond to the thing in view of its place in an inclusive scheme of action; it is to foresee the drift and probable consequence of the action of the thing upon us and of our action upon it.
Many of our actions degrade our habitat because we undertake them in order to reach goals whose allure blinds us to myriad dire consequences. In order to fuel our complex civilizations, we are lacing our planet's atmosphere with carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that, if it has not already begun doing so, will soon warm the Ice Age climate to which we owe our very existence.
In order not to be misunderstood, I want it perfectly clear that I believe it is incumbent on us to conduct our lives in a way that takes into account all the consequences of our actions, including the consequences to other people, and the consequences to the environment.
Leadership is the behavior each of us exerts when we take responsibility for our actions and their consequences.
Clearly, one primary purpose of our existence upon the earth is to obtain a body of flesh and bones. We have also been given the gift of agency. In a thousand ways we are privileged to choose for ourselves. Here we learn from the hard taskmaster of experience. We discern between good and evil. We differentiate as to the bitter and the sweet. We discover that there are consequences attached to our actions.
The emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government.