Whom To Blame Quotes & Sayings

My life is like shattered glass." said the visitor. "My soul is tainted with evil. Is there any hope for me? "Yes," said the Master. "There is something whereby each broken thing is bound again and every stain made clean." "What?" "Forgiveness" "Whom do I forgive?" "Everyone: Life, God, your neighbor especially yourself." "How is that done?" "By understanding that no one is to blame," said the Master. "NO ONE. — Anthony De Mello

The power behind taking responsibility for your actions lies in putting an end to negative thought patterns. You no longer dwell on what went wrong or focus on whom you are going to blame. You don't waste time building roadblocks to your success. Instead, you are set free and can now focus on succeeding. — Lorii Myers

As to when I shall visit civilization, it will not be soon, I think. I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities. Do you blame me then for staying here, where I feel that I belong and am one with the world around me? It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty ...
Even from your scant description, I know that I could not bear the routine and humdrum of the life that you are forced to lead. I don't think I could ever settle down. I have known too much of the depths of life already, and I would prefer anything to an anticlimax. — Everett Ruess

Ninety percent of politics is deciding whom to blame. — Meg Greenfield

If there is someone in need whom you wish to help, whether the initiative came from him or from you, do no more than he expects of you, not what you might personally wish to do. If you overstep the mark, you will not deserve thanks, but blame from him and others and you will attract hostility, not friendship. — Ibn Hazm

There can be no nobler training than that, he replied. And therefore, I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognise and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar. Yes, — Plato

And if the child feels loved, the body is relaxed, the eyes are bright, there is a smile on the face; in some way the flesh becomes "transparent." A child that is loved is beautiful. But what happens when children feel they are not loved? There is tension, fear, loneliness and terrible anguish, which we can call "inner pain," the opposite of "inner peace." Children are too small and weak to be able to fend for themselves; they have no defense mechanisms. If a child feels unloved and unwanted, he or she will develop a broken self-image. I have never heard any of the men or women whom we have welcomed into our community criticize their parents, even though many of them have suffered a great deal from rejection or abandonment in their families. Rather than blaming their parents, they blame themselves. "If I am not loved, it is because I am not lovable, I am no good. I am evil. — Jean Vanier

Finding a 'sacrificial lamb' on whom to tag blame for complicated problems is an important instrument in the toolkit of politicians, because it deflects blame for the nation's economic woes away from their own regulatory lapses, economic mismanagement and coddling to labor unions. — Clayton Christensen

Self-understanding is crucial for understanding another person; self-love is crucial for loving others. When you've understood your suffering, you suffer less, and you are capable of understanding another person's suffering much more easily. When you can recognize the suffering in the other person and see how that suffering came about, compassion arises. You no longer have the desire to punish or blame the other person. You can listen deeply, and when you speak there is compassion and understanding in your speech. The person with whom you're speaking will feel much more comfortable, because there is understanding and love in your voice. — Thich Nhat Hanh

I knew by this time what Thea thought of these people and in fact of most people, with their faulty humanity. She couldn't stand them. And what her eccentricity amounted to was that she proposed a different kind of humanity altogether. I guess nothing restrains people from demanding ideal conditions. Very little restrains them from anything. Thea's standard was high, but she wasn't exactly to blame as having arbitrarily set it high. For when she talked to me about some particular person she'd be more frightened than scornful. People with whom she had to struggle scared her, and what I'd call average hypocrisy, just the incidental little whiffs of the social machine, was terribly hard on her. As for greediness or envy, fat self-smelling of appreciation, hates and destructions, fraud, gnawing, she had a very poor tolerance of them, and I'd see her go out in the eyes in a really dangerous way at a gathering. — Saul Bellow

And therefore, I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognize and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar ...
... Thus much of music, which makes a fair ending; for what should be the end of music if not the love of beauty? — Plato

How do they know what to do?" Mary Frances said. "To just rip into a building like that and expect it to stay standing."
"For the parts you want to stay standing," Tim said.
"Exactly."
"Practice," Al said. "And of course, one of them is in charge."
Mary Frances studied the tangle of men, all dressed alike, movingly easily together. "I can't tell them apart."
"Well, it's like war, I guess," Al said. "If you knew whom to blame, it'd be too easy to shoot him. — Ashley Warlick

Tariff policy beneficiaries are always visible, but its victims are mostly invisible. Politicians love this. The reason is simple: The beneficiaries know for whom to cast their ballots, and the victims don't know whom to blame for their calamity. — Walter E. Williams

Brother dear," I said, "did your soul leave your body while Amos was talking, or did you actually hear him? Egyptian gods real. Red Lord bad. Red Lord's birthday: very soon, very bad. House of Life: fussy magicians who hate our family because dad was a bit of a rebel, whom you could take a lesson from. Which leaves us - just us - with Dad missing, an evil god about to destroy the world, and an uncle who just jumped off the building - and I can't actually blame him." I took a breath. [Yes, Carter, I do have to breathe occasionally.] — Rick Riordan

It is difficult to hate an idea. That requires a certain intellectual discipline and a slightly obsessive, sick mind. There aren't too many of those. It's much easier to hate someone with a recognizable face whom we can blame for everything that makes us feel uncomfortable. It doesn't have to be an individual character. It could be a nation, a race, a group ... anything. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

A coal miner from Chongjin whom I met in 2004 in China told me, People are not stupid. Everybody thinks our own government is to blame for our terrible situation. We all know we think that and we all know that everybody else thinks that. We don't need to talk about it. — Barbara Demick

It was relatively easy, we now realize, to categorize countries and nations. You knew who your enemies were and whom you could count on as collaborators and friends. And even more importantly, you had ready-made scapegoats to take the blame when things were going wrong. — Desmond Tutu

To gain your heart's desire you have to lose some part of your old life, your old self. To do that you have to have courage; without it, you can't make the leap. And if you don't make the leap you have only three choices: You can hate yourself for not taking the chance, you can hate the person from whom you've sacrificed your happiness, or you can hate the one who offered you happiness, and blame them for your lack of courage, convince yourself it wasn't real. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Betty, whom I recently discovered sorting through the contents of my suitcase, turns on the overhead light in my room, wrinkles her brow, and peers in like a camp counselor on an inspection tour, as if she suspects I might be entertaining someone who has paddled in from across the lake. She must keep an eye out. I am a schemer. There are things going on behind her back, plans afoot, she fears. She has no intention of cooperating with any of them. When the phone rings, she listens to every word, not sure if she can trust me with her independence. I don't blame her. I am an unlikely guardian. A month ago I thought the Medicare doughnut hole was a breakfast special for seniors. I am a care inflictor. She's — George Hodgman

There's a Drunk Midget in My House
Ah, babies! They're more than just adorable little creatures on whom you can blame your farts. Like most people who have had one baby, I am an expert on everythiing and will tell you, unsolicited, how to raise your kid! — Tina Fey

There are people whom a lowered position degrades morally, to whom loss of connection costs loss of self-respect: are not these justified in placing the highest value on that station and association which is their safeguard from debasement? If a man feels that he would become contemptible in his own eyes were it generally known that his ancestry were simple and not gentle, poor and not rich, workers and not capitalists, would it be right severely to blame him for keeping these fatal facts out of sight
for starting, trembling, quailing at the chance which threatens exposure? The longer we live, the more our experience widens; the less prone are we to judge our neighbor's conduct, to question the world's wisdom: wherever an accumulation of small defences is found, whether surrounding the prude's virtue or the man of the world's respectability, there, be sure, it is needed. — Charlotte Bronte

Early laurels weigh like lead and of many of the boys whom I knew at Eton, I can say that their lives are over ... Once again romanticism with its death wish is to blame, for it lays an emphasis on childhood, on a fall from grace which is not compensated for by any doctrine of future redemption. — Cyril Connolly

Man had created God in his own image, not the other way around. He had done it through sheer terror, and who could blame him? Unfortunately he had made too good a job. The god he had invented was just as cruel and careless as man himself. Not a deity to whom one should seriously address a prayer. — Richard Herley

There is only one person to whom we can expose our catalogue of grievances, one person who can be the recipient of all our accumulated rage at the injustices and imperfections of our lives. It is of course the height of absurdity to blame them. But this is to misunderstand the rules under which love operates. It is because we cannot scream at the forces who are really responsible that we get angry with those we are sure will best tolerate us for blaming them. We take it out on the very nicest, most sympathetic, most loyal people in the vicinity, the ones least likely to have harmed us, but the ones most likely to stick around while we pitilessly rant at them. The — Alain De Botton

Here haue I cause, in men iust blame to find,
That in their proper prayse too partiall bee,
And not indifferent to woman kind,
To whom no share in armes and cheualrie
They do impart, ne maken memorie
Of their brave gestes and prowess martiall;
Scarse do they spare to one or two or three,
Rowme in their writs; yet the same writing small
Does all their deeds deface, and dims their glories all,
But by record of antique times I find,
That women wont in warres to beare most sway,
And to all great exploits them selues inclind:
Of which they still the girlond bore away,
Till enuious Men fearing their rules decay,
Gan coyne straight laws to curb their liberty;
Yet sith they warlike armes haue layd away:
They haue exceld in artes and policy,
That now we foolish men that prayse gin eke t'enuy. — Edmund Spenser

For a few political turncoats there is real excuse. One can hardly blame those whom one ministry have seen fit to throw overboard for having the strength to swim to the other side. — Dorothy Nevill

The notion that evil is non-rational is a more significant claim for Eagleton than at first appears, because he is (in this book [On Evil] as in others of his recent 'late period' prolific burst) anxious to rewrite theology: God (whom he elsewhere tells us is nonexistent, but this is no barrier to his being lots of other things for Eagleton too, among them Important) is not to be regarded as rational: with reference to the Book of Job Eagleton says, 'To ask after God's reasons for allowing evil, so [some theologians] claim, is to imagine him as some kind of rational or moral being, which is the last thing he is.' This is priceless: with one bound God is free of responsibility for 'natural evil' - childhood cancers, tsunamis that kill tens of thousands - and for moral evil also even though 'he' is CEO of the company that purposely manufactured its perpetrators; and 'he' is incidentally exculpated from blame for the hideous treatment meted out to Job. — A.C. Grayling

Romance is a lie that gives people an excuse to act like fools and later blame it on the one whom they had bestowed their supposed love upon. — Quinn Loftis

So it must be!" thought Prince Andrei as he was driving out of the avenue of the house at Bald Hills. "She, a pathetic, innocent being, stays to be devoured by a senile old man. The old man feels he's to blame, but cannot change himself. My boy is growing up and rejoices at life, in which he will be the same as everybody else, the deceived or the deceiver. I'm going to the army - why? I don't know myself, and I wish to meet a man whom I despise, in order to give him an occasion to kill me and laugh at me! — Leo Tolstoy

He answered, "The woman whom You gave to be with me" (Gen 3:9-12), he did not say, "the woman deceived me," but "The woman whom You gave to me," as if he wanted to say: "This catastrophe has come upon me because of You." So it is, brethren, since Man is not accustomed to blame himself. He does not hesitate to consider even God as the cause of evil. — Dorotheus Of Gaza

did I not tell you to tell your father and mother that you were to set out for the court? And you know that lies to the north. You must learn to use far less direct directions than that. You must not be like a dull servant that needs to be told again and again before he will understand. You have orders enough to start with, and you will find, as you go on, and as you need to know, what you have to do. But I warn you that perhaps it will not look the least like what you may have been fancying I should require of you. I have one idea of you and your work, and you have another. I do not blame you for that - you cannot help it yet; but you must be ready to let my idea, which sets you working, set your idea right. Be true and honest and fearless, and all shall go well with you and your work, and all with whom your work lies, and so with your parents - and me too, Curdie,' she added after a little pause. — George MacDonald

I know it isn't right to put the blame easily on anyone. But, won't you feel sad if you know that those people are the reasons of your misery? Those people whom you never expected to be like this. But still, i hope that someday i will say thanks to you i didn't get there so i can be as great and successful as i am right now — Amalia Azizah

Respect for character is always diminished in proportion to the number among whom the blame or praise is to be divided. — James Madison

To the extent that the West is to blame at all for the ills of the Third World it is to the extent that the West created Marx and his successors, among whom must be numbered many of those who advised the Third World leaders in post-war years. — Margaret Thatcher

When Proposition 8 passed in California, some were quick to blame minority voters, some of whom had voted for both President Obama and Proposition 8; however, these claims were later debunked as being overstated. — Christine Pelosi

In real markets, agents make bad choices. They are often ignorant, misinformed, and irrational. Yet, markets tend to punish agents for making bad choices, and they tend to learn from their mistakes. For instance, if you fail to pay your bills, your credit rating declines and you have a harder time getting loans. If you fail to do research and buy an unreliable car, you suffer from repair bills. In contrast, when people in government make bad choices, the political process almost never punishes them. Studies show that voters are terrible at retrospective voting - they do not know whom to blame for bad government - and so politicians are not punished for making bad choices. — Jason Brennan

Commentators frequently blame MMORPGs for an increasing sense of isolation in modern life. But virtual worlds are less a cause of that isolation than a response to it. Virtual worlds give back what has been scooped out of modern life. The virtual world is in important ways more authentically human than the real world. It gives us back community, a feeling of competence, and a sense of being an important person whom people depend on. — Jonathan Gottschall

Till now, society has protected the adult and blamed the victim. It has been abetted in its blindness by theories, still in keeping with the pedagogical principles of our great- grandparents, according to which children are viewed as crafty creatures, dominated by wicked drives, who invent stories and attack their innocent parents or desire them sexually. In reality, children tend to blame themselves for their parents' cruelty and to absolve the parents, whom they invariably love, of all responsibility. — Alice Miller