Quotes about Ownership

It wasn't that Europe wasn't beautiful; everything was just as I imagined it. It just wasn't mine. I felt as if I was living out someone else's romance; the incompleteness of my own history stood between me and the sites I saw like a hard pane of glass.

But nothing on this earth is guaranteed, when you get right down to it, you know? I've been thinking about that. About how your kids aren't really YOURS, they're just these people that you try to keep an eye on, and hope you'll all grow up someday to like each other and still be in one piece. What I mean is, everything you get is really just on loan. Does that make sense? Sure, I said. Like library books. Sooner or later they've all got to go back into the nightdrop.

One percent of the brotherhood has their hands on most of the bread. They own the country, their god is the free market, and most people are so unhorrified they won't even question the system. If it makes a profit, that's the definition of good. If it grows, you have to stand back and let it. The free market has exactly the same morality as a cancer cell.

We're responsible for our own lives.

Anytime we think the problem is "out there," that thought is the problem. We empower what's out there to control us.

Look at the word responsibility—"response-ability"—the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior.

Anytime we think the problem is "out there," that thought is the problem. We empower what's out there to control us. The change paradigm is "outside-in"—what's out there has to change before we can change. The

Taking initiative means] recognizing our responsibility to make things happen

Look at the word responsibility—"response-ability"—the ability to choose your response.

Don't get into a blaming, accusing mode. Work on things you have control over. Work on you. On be

We are free to choose our response in any situation, but in doing so, we choose the attendant consequence. When we pick up one end of the stick, we pick up the other

We are responsible for our own effectiveness, for our own happiness, and ultimately, I would say, for most of our circumstances.