Ability To Choose Quotes

You have the ability to choose your thoughts,
to control your emotions,
and to determine your actions.
Thus you decide your fate. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Politics, as he occasionally said, required three unchanging talents and
no virtues. More politicians, he claimed, had been destroyed by virtue than by any other cause; and the talents he enumerated in this fashion. The first talent was the ability to choose the winning side. Failing that, the second talent was the ability to extricate oneself from the losing side. And the third talent was never to make an enemy. ~ Howard Fast

Liberty is the essential precondition for achieving virtue ... In order to exercise virtue, we need to have the ability to choose freely. ~ Dinesh D'Souza

We have the ability to choose, we are God's higher form of creation, we surpass all other forms of life and we don't use the mental faculties we've been given. We don't even understand what we are capable of doing. School doesn't teach us anything about ourselves. So the more we learn about ourselves, the more we take control over our life. ~ Bob Proctor

To feel affection for people even when they make mistakes is uniquely human. You can do it, if you simply recognize: that they're human too, that they act out of ignorance, against their will, and that you'll both be dead before long. And, above all, that they haven't really hurt you. They haven't diminished your ability to choose. ~ Marcus Aurelius

Freedom is the ability to choose how you spend your time. ⁣ ~ Richie Norton

Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose. ~ Simone Weil

You hold the ability to choose to heal and to recuperate. This power is in your hand alone ~ Patricia Dsouza

The ability to choose well seems to depend in no small part upon our knowing our own minds. And when we ask for more choice, we seem to be saying, "I know what I want, so however much choice you give me, I will be able to pick out the thing that I want." We firmly believe that no matter how many alternatives we're given, ultimately we'll know which door we prefer to walk through. Yet, paradoxically, asking for more choice is also an admission that we don't always know what we want, or that we are changeable enough that we cannot know what we want until we are in the moment of choosing. And it's clear that after a certain point, the amount of time and energy directed toward choosing counteracts the benefits of the choice. ~ Sheena Iyengar

To be oppressed means to be deprived of your ability to choose. ~ Bell Hooks

I hope that you choose ultimately to follow your heart, and learn that whatever your plans, your goals, your dreams, life will take you in directions you haven't even dreamed of. Be open to the path not chosen, the door unopened, welcome your fear, and the choices that allow you that fear ... Through all the changes, through all the disappointments, the unexpected turns, the victories, and the pain, the losses that you will experience, there will always be a constant, along with your breath, there will always be one thing that you will know, that you have the ability to choose your heart. ~ Paul Michael Glaser

No matter what, we always have the power to choose hope over despair, engagement over apathy, kindness over indifference, enthusiasm over lethargy, love over hate. This is our true freedom. Whatever life may throw at us, we have the freedom and ability to choose our attitude. And I believe it is in those moments of choice that we manifest our destiny. ~ Cory Booker

Ultimately the way to win the game of life, is found in only one thing: Our ability to choose meaning in any life circumstance. Become the master of meaning and you master your life. ~ Tony Robbins

You only have so deep a well from which to make choices throughout the day. The same is true of willpower. If you accept that both your ability to choose and your ability to act are limited, you discover the virtue of routines. I try to pre-program as many of the mundane decisions as I can. A rough regularity on the insignificant things helps preserve energy for the significant ones. ~ Jimmy Soni

I believe in the ability to choose. I believe this life is made up of our choices and their consequences - the good and the bad. I do not believe in letting anything up to fate. We are the makers of our own destinies, our own futures, our own paths. To blindly follow is an insult to the miracle of being human. To be human is to make choices; the moment you allow others to make decisions for you is the moment you do an injustice to not only mankind but to yourself. ~ Kelseyleigh Reber

Science has proven that sin has the power to change us for the worse. In a healthy brain, rational thought can override impulsive behavior. Not so in a brain affected by addiction. This is how Satan steals our ability to choose wisely. Addiction costs us the ability to exercise our agency. ~ Toni Sorenson

Freedom is the awareness of alternatives and of the ability to choose. It is contingent upon consciousness, and so may be gained or lost, extended or diminished. ~ Allen Wheelis

The obligation to receive reduces our ability to choose whom we wish to be indebted to and puts that power in the hands of others. ~ Robert Cialdini

Options - the ability to choose - is real power. This book is all about how to see and create those options with the least effort and cost. It just so happens, paradoxically, that you can make more money - a lot more money - by doing half of what you are doing now. ~ Timothy Ferriss

The idea of a talent that was bigger than an artist's ability to choose to use it, that would dictate the artist's life more than the artist could dictate, was interesting to me. ~ Alexander Chee

Power can be hoarded by the mighty or stolen from the innocent.Power provides the ability to choose. But has a proclivity for corruption. The use of power is not to be taken lightly, for it is never without consequence. ~ Emily Thorne

Feminism is the ability to choose what you want to do. ~ Nancy Reagan

I thought I had to be alone to be free. But I am only ever truly myself when I am with you, Azhar. I know, that is such an -- an extravagant thing to say, but it is true. I have to realize that freedom means having the ability to choose. To choose to share your life, to choose to love unconditionally. The two are inseparable. There is no freedom without love and there is no love without freedom. ~ Marguerite Kaye

And she liked it. The power over this man. The ability to choose who survived. To take lives and twist them as she pleased. She was power. ~ Michael Walterich

It had taken skill, tact, an ability to choose friends well, and a great deal of luck ~ Guy Gavriel Kay

With self-acceptance, we have the ability to choose compassion and forgiveness over anger and self-hatred. ~ Michelle Cruz-Rosado

Your ability to choose became your superpower. ~ Robin Jones Gunn

I love him, and I love us together more than I love myself. I will do what you ask, but if," Kara swallowed hard, " ... if I lose him, I'll join him in death." Vena resisted the urge to stroke the fine mass of dark curls away from the heart-shaped face that gazed at her so fiercely. The woman who faced her, proudly announcing her ability to choose, was no longer the winsome, pliable girl of the garden. ~ Anna LaForge

Knowledge is the facts and information accumulated through researching, observing or experience; Wisdom is the ability to choose certain aspects of knowledge acquired to be true, right and applicable to your life and society. Do not confuse the two. ~ Unarine Ramaru

But we all still have the ability to choose, in the end. ~ Victoria Aveyard

The ability to choose is at the essential core of our grandeur. Even evil exists because God respects our ability to choose. ~ William P. Young

Free again, but it's just a feeling; freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit yourself to what is best for you. ~ Paulo Coelho

I suspect that here theists and atheists would agree: Human beings have within them the ability to choose evil or good. We wake up each day facing the age-old struggle of good and evil. In some situations, mental illness clouds our judgment. ~ Adam Hamilton

Be very attentive towards the child's evolving World of Senses that needs Stability, Routine, & Structure, World of Emotions that needs Love, Freedom & Creativity and World of Thoughts that needs Discrimination as an Ability to choose Right Thinking, Emotions, Behaviour. ~ Natasa Nuit Pantovic

The greatest power within a person is the ability to choose change. This requires self-examination, this requires determination, this requires judging what needs to be changed, this requires moving from shame into guilt, and this requires repentance. There is a reason we struggle and react the way we do, but there is no excuse. ~ Paul Hegstrom

We inherited the reactivity of this part of our brain, and particularly the sensitive amygdala, from our skittish fight-or-flight ancestors. Yet so much of the inner journey means freeing ourselves from this evolutionary response so that we do not flip our lid or lose our higher reasoning when facing stressful situations. The real secret of freedom may simply be extending this brief space between stimulus and response. Meditation seems to elongate this pause and help expand our ability to choose our response. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

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. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling. ~ Stephen Covey

An ability to choose is a necessity for the artist. ~ Eric Maisel

My motto in life is 'aim true'. It came from my love of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. She inspired me to sport a gold arrow around my neck because it reminded me of her strength and that I can always hit my mark when I set intention, follow what makes my heart beat, and aim true. The arrow was a reminder that I can cut through any obstacles, that I have power, beauty, and the ability to choose love over fear every moment of my life. ~ Kathryn Budig

Ham rubbed his chin. I don't know, Breeze. It's an interesting question. By influencing her emotions, did you take away her ability to choose? If, for instance, she were to kill or steal while under your control, would the crime be hers or yours? ~ Brandon Sanderson

Make New Year's goals. Dig within, and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year. This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you're interested in fully living life in the year to come.

Goals give us direction. They put a powerful force into play on a universal, conscious, and subconscious level. Goals give our life direction.

What would you like to have happen in your life this year? What would you like to do, to accomplish? What good would you like to attract into your life? What particular areas of growth would you like to have happen to you? What blocks, or character defects, would you like to have removed?

What would you like to attain? Little things and big things? Where would you like to go? What would you like to have happen in friendship and love? What would you like to have happen in your family life?

What problems would you like to see solved? What decisions would you like to make? What would you like to happen in your career?

Write it down. Take a piece of paper, a few hours of your time, and write it all down - as an affirmation of you, your life, and your ability to choose. Then let it go.

The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals. ~ Melody Beattie

Neoclassical theology corrects misconceptions about God that are neither experientially true nor biblically grounded. If God were "omnipotent" in the sense of absolute determinism, then creation, and especially humans, would have no freedom. Freedom and absolute determinism negate one another. From the perspective of process metaphysics, if God were fully deterministic, then one could not speak of freedom of the will, the ability to choose to participate in God's creativity or not. God is in control, but God is not a control freak! God is not a "tyrant," puppeter, or robotic engineer! ~ Karen Baker-Fletcher

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. ~ William James

As a teenager, I loved how I looked in the outfit of using drugs and exercising poor judgement. I had tried it on, spun around in the mirror, and decided I would choose this look, this image, this identity. But eventually and without realising it, the ability to choose had gone. I had become what at first I had only pretended to be. ~ Nadia Bolz-Weber

Hope is one of the three great Christian virtues because Christ Himself is the master of life and therefore the master of hope. We are free to choose because we were made free from the beginning, and He honors our agency and our right and ability to choose. The choice He offers is life, and life offers hope. Any other choice is a choice of spiritual death that will bring us into the power of the devil ... Part of that hope in Christ is hope in the future, a future that includes resurrection and salvation and exaltation. ~ Chieko N. Okazaki

The ability to choose who governs us, and the freedom to change laws we do not like, were secured for us in the past by radicals and liberals who took power from unaccountable elites and placed it in the hands of the people. ~ Michael Gove

Response-ability is the ABILITY to choose our response to any circumstance or condition. ~ Stephen Covey

You have the ability to choose which way you want to go. You have to believe great things are going to happen in your life. Do everything you can - prepare, pray and achieve - to make it happen. ~ Ben Carson

It is the ability to choose which makes us human. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

Countless people live their whole lives without ever knowing this...this unnameable thing that we share. This exclusive and secret club that we are so blessed to be a part of. I suppose that by many people's definition, it would simply be called 'Love'. And yet, this is unlike any other love or feeling or emotion that I have ever felt. Simply calling it 'Love' would be an injustice...it would do a massive disservice to this feeling that seems to envelop me with every breath I take. It's as if wherever I go, it goes; and whichever direction I look, it sees. It moves with me as if we've been doing this dance forever...like we are one being and of one mind. It has to uncanny ability to affect change by just existing; it speaks to me and with me and through me and every time it says my name, it cloaks my entire being with a warm comforting familiar glow...like it's only ever meant to be said that way and no different. It's not just simply love...it's everything. ~ Charles R. Mackriel

Our conviction that we are free to choose what we make of a photograph hides the complicity to which we are recruited in the very act of looking. ~ Victor Burgin

Each one of us is left to choose our own quality of life and take pleasure where we find it with the understanding that, like Mom used to say, sooner or later something's gonna get you. ~ David Sedaris

As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life ethic and the quality of life ethic. I have no trouble identifying the answer our nation has always given to this basic question, and the answer that I hope and pray it will give in the future. ~ Ronald Reagan

He who asks to receive his daily bread does not automatically receive it in its fullness as it is in itself: he receives it according to his own capacity as recipient. The Bread of Life (cf. Jn. 6:35) gives Himself in His love to all who ask, but not in the same way to all; for He gives Himself more fully to those who have performed great acts of righteousness, and in smaller measure to those who have not achieved so much. He gives Himself to each person according to that person's spiritual ability to receive Him. ~ Maximus The Confessor

Athletes train 15 years for 15 seconds of performance. Ask them if they got lucky. Ask an athlete how he feels after a good workout. He will tell you that he feels spent. If he doesn't feel that way, it means he hasn't worked out to his maximum ability.
Losers think life is unfair. They think only of their bad breaks. They don't consider that the person who is prepared and playing well still got the same bad breaks but overcame them. That is the difference. His threshold for tolerating pain becomes higher because in the end he is not training so much for the game but for his character. Alexander Graham Bell was desperately trying to invent a hearing aid for his partially deaf wife. He failed at inventing a hearing aid but in the process discovered the principles of the telephone. You wouldn't call someone like that lucky, would you?Good luck is when opportunity meets preparation. Without effort and preparation, lucky coincidences don't happen. ~ Shiv Khera

Shame is the deepest of the "negative emotions," a feeling we will do almost anything to avoid. Unfortunately, our abiding fear of shame impairs our ability to see reality. ~ Gabor Mate

When you choose to be pleasant and positive in the way you treat others, you have also chosen, in most cases, how you are going to be treated by others. ~ Zig Ziglar

had we not been brought to where we stood by a certain kind of faith? For did we not believe in our own reasoning? Did we not have confidence in our ability to think? What was that but a sort of faith? Yes, we had been faithful, abjectly faithful to the God of Reason. So, in one way or another, we discovered that faith had been involved all the time! We found, too, that we had been worshippers. What a state of mental goose flesh that used to bring on! Had we not variously worshipped people, sentiment, things, money, and ourselves? And then, with a better motive, had we not worshipfully beheld the sunset, the sea, or a flower? Who of us had not loved something ~ Alcoholics Anonymous

We practice mastering ourselves in the moment so that we can better open ourselves to being a servant leader and to harness our emotions and choose what to do with our reactions. ~ Lyssa Adkins

Life is a miracle, and we need to not fear trying to achieve our potential and reveal the remarkable creation we and all living things are and that our Creator has built into us the ability to induce self-healing. ~ Bernie Siegel

Free spirits, the ambitious, ex-socialists, drug users, and sexual eccentrics often find an attractive political philosophy in libertarianism, the idea that individual freedom should be the sole rule of ethics and government. Libertarianism offers its believers a clear conscience to do things society presently restrains, like make more money, have more sex, or take more drugs. It promises a consistent formula for ethics, a rigorous framework for policy analysis, a foundation in American history, and the application of capitalist efficiencies to the whole of society. But while it contains substantial grains of truth, as a whole it is a seductive mistake. . . .

The most fundamental problem with libertarianism is very simple: freedom, though a good thing, is simply not the only good thing in life. . . .

Libertarians try to get around this fact that freedom is not the only good thing by trying to reduce all other goods to it through the concept of choice, claiming that everything that is good is so because we choose to partake of it. Therefore freedom, by giving us choice, supposedly embraces all other goods. But this violates common sense by denying that anything is good by nature, independently of whether we choose it. . . .

So even if the libertarian principle of "an it harm none, do as thou wilt," is true, it does not license the behavior libertarians claim. Consider pornography: libertarians say it should be permitted because if someone doesn ~ Robert Locke

In painting, you have unlimited power. You have the ability to move mountains. You can bend rivers. But when i get home the only thing i have power over is the garbage. ~ Bob Ross

I believe in the power of women. As nurturers, we have a unique ability to care and share and make the world a better place. Women Who Inspire are women who are making a difference. ~ Donna Karan

As Baudelaire said it so beautifully, Emma Bovary is an androgynous character. She cannot be reduced to a gender or a sociological type. She represents something bigger than herself. That was the genius of Flaubert: the ability to combine the general and the particular. ~ Sophie Barthes

School success is not predicted by a child's fund of facts or a precocious ability to read as much as by emotional and social measures; being self-assured and interested: knowing what kind of behavior is expected and how to rein in the impulse to misbehave; being able to wait, to follow directions, and to turn to teachers for help; and expressing needs while getting along with other children. ~ Daniel Goleman

So whenever that brittle voice of dissatisfaction emerges within me, I can say "Ah, my ego! There you are, old friend!" It's the same thing when I'm being criticized and I notice myself reaching with outrage, heartache, or defensiveness. It's just my ego, flaring up and testing its power. In such circumstances, I have learned to watch my heated emotions carefully, but I try not to take them too seriously, because I know that it's merely my ego that has been wounded--never my soul It is merely my ego that wants revenge, or to win the biggest prize. It is merely my ego that wants to start a Twitter war against a hater, or to sulk at an insult or to quit in righteous indignation because I didn't get the outcome I wanted.

"At such times, I can always steady my life one more by returning to my soul. I ask it, "And what is it that you want, dear one?"

"The answer is always the same: "More wonder, please."

"As long as I'm still moving in that direction---toward wonder--then I know I will always be fine in my soul, which is where it counts. And since creativity is still the most effective way for me to access wonder, I choose it. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

It's the show jumpers that I find the most interesting to watch. Small kids being taken around low courses by calm, professional ponies. Teenage riders on fit ponies with their show jackets slung over the front of their saddles and their feet dangling out of their stirrups, who call out greetings to Tabby as they ride past. All different shapes and sizes of horses, because all that really matters in show jumping is their ability to clear a jump. Thoroughbreds with weedy necks and tight martingales, clunky Roman-nosed horses that look like they'll never be able to lift themselves off the ground, big Warmbloods being held back in gag bits, their shoulders slick with sweat. ~ Kate Lattey

Cast yourself upon the waters. Trust in your ability to swim. ~ Marty Rubin

One of the most amazing things about elephants mourning in the wild is their ability to grieve hard, but then truly, unequivocally, let go. Humans can't seem to do that. I've always thought it's because of religion. We expect to see our loved ones again in the next life, whatever that might be. Elephants don't have that hope, only the memories of this life. Maybe that's why it is easier for them to move on. ~ Jodi Picoult

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't. ~ Anatole France

If you are teaching Muslim sixth formers in a school, and you tell them they can't have their God and Darwin, there is a risk they will choose their God and be lost to science. ~ Martin Rees

Certain music, jazz in particular, has the ability to make you a better citizen of the world. It helps you expand your world view and gives you more confidence in your cultural achievements. Improvisational jazz teaches you about yourself while the swing in jazz teaches you how to work with others ~ Wynton Marsalis

I Kenneth Robert Livingstone, having been elected to the office of mayor of London, declare that I take that office upon myself, and will duly and faithfully fulfil the duties of it to the best of my judgement and ability. ~ Ken Livingstone

Respond to your ability, play your part and make your mark in history. ~ Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

But even in that very brief period of time I was made abundantly aware of the extent to which various things inside me had degenerated without my even knowing it. I'd always hated working, and I'd never cared much about the kinds of jobs I took or whether I had one or not or anything like that, and none of that had changed at all, it wasn't that...it was something like guts, the ability to move on to the next thing when I had to... ~ Banana Yoshimoto

That is the artistic task: To choose the best from these solutions. ~ Arne Jacobsen

When textbooks make racism invisible in American history, they obstruct our already poor ability to see it in the present. ~ James W. Loewen

If I could have a Super Power, it would be reverse ability. Whatever you do to me, Good or bad, is reversed to you. Call me "MirrorMan. ~ Yohann Dafeu

The first principle of child-rearing is to choose a good mother. ~ Christian Morgenstern

He came to believe that this was the very sort of thing that happened when you let yourself get caught in one culture's insistence that love ought to be like this or that. The key for people like him, he ultimately concluded, in this as in most matters, was to be nimble. Your privilege as an immigrant was to pick and choose your inheritance, maintain what suited you and participate merely to the extent of your patience and interest. It was not in your nature to align with one side fully, and so you couldn't help but make a life that was both apart and among. You didn't make one choice and stick with it but, rather, hundreds of minor choices with which you created a unique path through the corridors of old traditions and the avenues of the new. And you cultivated this dividedness because you carried always the imprint of that first move -- the decision to leave home. Indeed, this initiating choice, more than anything, was your true inheritance. ~ Saher Alam

You are searching for the magic key that will unlock the door to the source of power; and yet you have the key in your own hands, and you may use it the moment you learn to control your thoughts. ~ Napoleon Hill

The attributes for entrepreneurs cut both ways. You need the ability to ignore inconvenient facts and see the world as it should be and not as it is. This inspires people to take huge leaps of faith. But this blindness to facts can be a liability, too. The characteristics that help entrepreneurs succeed can also lead to their failure. ~ Eric Ries

The propositions that accompany most of the chapters . . . are not as snappy as I would prefer - but there's a reason for their caution and caveats. On certain important points, the clamor of genuine scientific dispute has abated and we don't have to argue about them anymore. But to meet that claim requires me to state the propositions precisely. I am prepared to defend all of them as "things we don't have to argue about anymore" - but exactly as I worded them, not as others may paraphrase them.

Here they are:

1. Sex differences in personality are consistent worldwide and tend to widen in more gender-egalitarian cultures.

2. On average, females worldwide have advantages in verbal ability and social cognition while males have advantages in visuospatial abilities and the extremes of mathematical ability.

3. On average, women worldwide are more attracted to vocations centered on people and men to vocations centered on things.

4. Many sex differences in the brain are coordinate with sex differences in personality, abilities, and social behavior.

5. Human populations are genetically distinctive in ways that correspond to self-identified race and ethnicity.

6. Evolutionary selection pressure since humans left Africa has been extensive and mostly local.

7. Continental population differences in variants associated with personality, abilities, and social behavior are common.

8. The share ~ Charles Murray

Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given you by good people, by people who love you. ~ Orson Scott Card

Choose GEC Cabinet Depot for Small Kitchen Renovation in Minneapolis

Want to renovate your small kitchen? If yes, then rush to GEC cabinet depot immediately. Their talented designers and craftsman will help you give your kitchen a new look. So, do not waste any more time and become the first caller to grab the exiting offers at your nearest GEC Cabinet Depot store. ~ Sean Graham

It's ironic. At last I have my freedom. But at a price. Now my destiny is mine to choose. - Stanley aka Nine ~ Pittacus Lore