"Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility." -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Responsibility is a better predictor of action than intellect. What someone knows or thinks may not produce much more than a malaise that keeps them up at night, but responsibility gets a man out of bed in the morning.
When someone or something depends on you and you take that weight seriously, you are compelled to act. You push through discomfort and difficulty and do something. When something matters to you, you move.
Ideas do have consequences, but action isn’t necessarily always one of them. A thought may move a man without him moving a finger.
"The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children." -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Does the next generation figure into any of your current plans? Are you cultivating what you hope to pass along to them or exhausting what you have because you can't bear to part with it. Is your children's inheritance something you're working hard to grow now or something your cold, dead fingers will be forced to hand over.
Moral stupidity is cured by moral responsibility. An immoral generation will not reform until it takes responsibility for the next generation. Civilizations are built and sustained by men with mouths to feed. Nothing motivates like someone else's livelihood depending on your hardihood.
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