Choices Quotes

Part of growing up is narrowing your life choices to a manageable size. ~ Amy E. Spiegel

You will make better decisions once you begin thinking long-term rather than short-term. ~ Adam Kirk Smith

Every individual is a meeting ground for many different allegiances, and sometimes these loyalties conflict with one another and confront the person who harbors them with difficult choices ~ Amin Maalouf

Beware of those who are homeless by choice! You have no hold on human being whose affections are without a top-root! ~ Robert Southey

Every choice eventually leads to wisdom. ~ Dan Millman

Over the past decades, students who have blindly followed their passion, without rational analysis of whether their choice of career truly was wise, have been more unhappy with their job choices than those who coupled passion with rationality. ~ Barbara Oakley

When I'm triggered, I think, "This will last forever" or "What if this lasts forever?" I get thoughts about how I should give up, run away, hide, protect myself. These thoughts, I cannot change. What I can change is how I respond to them. Will I unconditionally believe these ideas, or will I accept them as side effects of the temporary experience of pain? Will I act on each thought that arises in the burning fire, or will I hold myself gently and say, "It'll be okay. I know it hurts. I love you"? My power lies in these choices. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

It is in my mind that a people faced with death or slavery as their only choices are not readily going to relinquish war. - Longinus Sdapeze ~ Manda Scott

There's an awful lot of choices in the world as far as what one can do for a living. It's best to be familiar with as many sectors of the working world as you can be so you'll be better at your creative job anyway. ~ Justine Bateman

It is not always the most brilliant speculations nor the choice of the most exotic materials that is most profitable. I prefer Monsieur de Reaumur busy exterminating moths by means of an oily fleece; or increasing fowl production by making them hatch without the help of their mothers, than Monsieur Bemouilli absorbed in algebra, or Monsieur Leibniz calculating the various advantages and disadvantages of the possible worlds. ~ Noel-Antoine Pluche

When you are surrounded by people who are much better than you, you have two choices: You can sh*t the bed, and the performance can go to hell. Or you can step up and rise to the occasion. ~ John Cena

We give violent movies a pass but come down hard on a rapper like Scarface, who is ultimately a storyteller just like Brian de Palma. And neither of them is responsible for the poverty and violence that really do shape people's lives
not to mention their individual choices. ~ Jay-Z

How did I look at you? I asked thickly. Like you had to, like I was a magnet you were pulled to. There was no choice, he said. And when you look at Jack, it's because when he's around, why would you want to look at anything else? You love him the way you could never love me. ~ Amanda Hocking

Summer is a Latvian chicken. We make foolish choices. We think we're young again. We run with outstretched arms toward an object of love and it pecks us and pecks us until we're standing there snot-nosed and teary in the middle of Astor Place and the sun sets fire to our Penguin shirts and all that is left to do is go to our air-conditioned homes and ponder the cruelty of our finest season. ~ Gary Shteyngart

He loved him enough to want to die for hurting him, loved him enough to kill himself slowly for fear of losing him, loved him enough to suffer silently if he thought it was in Boyd's interest. Sin loved Boyd enough to make difficult decisions easily, as if there were no contest; he went toward Boyd as if he hadn't even considered any other choices. ~ Santino Hassell

I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher ... You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool ... or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. ~ C.S. Lewis

I'm all for experimenting with sortition - randomly selected representative bodies of citizens. But I don't favor direct democracy. We're busy. We have lives. There is reddit. Who has time to work out the right answer to the thousand policy choices a gov't must make all the time? ~ Lawrence Lessig

Facilis descensus Averno:
Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
Sed revocare gradium superasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est.
(The gates of Hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this task and mighty labor lies.) ~ Virgil

I will die if I lose you, but I will die if I wait longer. ~ Jean Racine

I was standing amid floor-to-ceiling shelves of books in wonder and awe when my view of stories suddenly and forever changed. There were enormous piles of books lying in corners. Books covered the walls. Books even lined the staircases as you went up from one floor to the next. It was as if this used bookstore was not just a place for selling used books; it was like the infrastructure itself was made up of books. There were books to hold more books, stories built out of stories.

I was standing in Daedalus Books in Charlottesville, Virginia, and I had recently read Mortimer J. Adler's How to Read a Book. I was alive with the desire to read. But at that particular moment, my glee turned to horror. For whatever reason, the truth of the numbers suddenly hit me. The year before, I had read about thirty books. For me, that was a new record. But then I started counting. I was in my early twenties, and with any luck I'd live at least fifty more years. At that rate, I'd have about 1,500 books in me, give or take.

There were more books than that on the single wall I was staring at.

That's when I had a realization of my mortality. My desire outpaced reality. I simply didn't have the life to read what I wanted to read.

Suddenly my choices in that bookstore became a profound act of deciding. The Latin root of the word decide - cise or cide - is to "cut off' or "kill." The idea is that to choose anything means to kill off other options you m ~ Justin Whitmel Earley

Make your choices well, my mom had said. It was what she thought she hadn't done, what she hoped above everything I'd do differently. On the flip side, though, there was Clyde, telling me that there were second chances, even-and especially- when you've given up all hope of them. But maybe, when a life and summer was going so fast, you couldn't wait for fate to punch the time card. You had to do it yourself. ~ Sarah Dessen

Choice
I needed it like I needed air.
Bit no one could hear me.
No one could listen.
No words. No sound.
No voice.
I couldn't even dream myself away.
Choices were made.
None of them mine.
At first I wondered if it was hell.
And then I knew it was. ~ Mary E. Pearson

If you are going to be a winner, you have to acknowledge the truth - it is you who took the actions, thought the thoughts, created the feelings, and made the choices that got you to where you now are. It was you! ~ Jack Canfield

Most people don't want to work in commercial sex. They have little choice. ~ Mechai Viravaidya

That's what building a body of work is all about. It's about the daily labor, the many individual acts, the choices large and small that add up over time, over a lifetime to a lasting legacy. It's about not being satisfied with the latest achievement, the latest gold star, because the one thing I know about a body of work is that it's never finished. It's cumulative. It deepens and expands with each day you give your best. You may have setbacks and you may have failures, but you're not done. ~ Barack Obama

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of the spring: no man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile. ~ Samuel Johnson

All mothers breed dead children.
They shall, perhaps, live later.
When no longer dead, they are born
Not - by coincidence, by choice. ~ Mie Hansson

Life is a temporary condition, Henry. And it's uncertain. That's why you have to seize chances when you find them. Pursue what you want. Take risks. Live, love...all of it. Every last one of us is going to die, but if we don't live as we truly want, if we're not with the one we want to be with, we're dead already. ~ Martha Brockenbrough

When someone has been mean to you, why would you want to be good to them?' 'You wouldn't want to. That's what makes it hard. You do it anyway. Being good is hard. Much harder than being bad. ~ Jeanne DuPrau

I like being able to provide consistent and frequent literary choices for my fans. ~ Janet Evanovich

The fact that we often judge the pleasure of an experience by its ending can cause us to make some curious choices. ~ Daniel M. Gilbert

If you accept that your only job is to be the keeper of your life force, you will make powerful choices. ~ Debbie Ford

Nobody gets everything in this life. You decide your priorities and you make your choices. I'd decided long ago that any cake I had would be eaten. ~ Donald E. Westlake

The Compound Effect is the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart choices ~ Darren Hardy

No matter what your choices are, you truly have no control about what people think of you. ~ Neve Campbell

To undo mistakes is always harder than not to create them originally, but we seldom have foresight. Therefore, we have no choice but to try to correct our past mistakes. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

A person is not the product of her experiences, but of her choices. That's what affects the brilliance of a soul. ~ Christina Daley

Angels speak. They appear and reappear. They feel with apt sense of emotion. While Angels may become visible by choice, our eyes are not conducted to see them ordinarily any more than we can see the dimensions of a nuclear field, the structure of atoms, or the electricity that flows through copper wiring ... ~ Billy Graham

Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it's about deliberately choosing to be different. ~ Michael Porter

Prejudice is the pinnacle of self injected ignorance. It enables poor choices to be pre-chosen. ~ Tom Althouse

Becoming is the action that births our womanhood, rather than passive act of being born (an act none of us has a choice in). This short, powerful statement assured me that I have the freedom, in spite of and because of my birth, body, race, gender expectations, and economic resources, to define myself for myself and for others. ~ Janet Mock

You are a Chosen Man. You are Parmenion, the Death of Nations. A hundred thousand souls will you
send to the dark river, screaming and wailing, lamenting their fate. It is right and just that you
should know your choices. ~ David Gemmell

People tend to think of breakthroughs in medicine as a new drug, a laser, or a high-tech surgical procedure. They often have a hard time believing that the simple choices that we make in our lifestyle. What we eat, how we respond to stress, whether or not we smoke cigarettes, how much exercise we get, and the quality of our relationships and support can be as powerful as drugs and surgery. And they often are. ~ Dean Ornish

Every choice one makes either expands or contracts the area in which he can make and implement future decisions. When one makes a choice, he irrevocably binds himself to the consequences of that choice. ~ Marion G. Romney

Celebrity mentality sometimes misguides us to make wrong choices. That's why T.V screens sometimes lie to us! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

I was a total floral hippie as a child so when I finally could make my own choices, I've been living in different black suit jackets and been really drawn to masculine clothes. ~ Lykke Li

You are never wrong doing the right thing. ~ Wayde Goodall

Duncan climbed out my bedroom window, practically falling onto the roof. After he was out, he half jumped, half fell off the roof. Finn watched him apprehensively for a moment, holding my curtain open, but he didn't follow after immediately.
Instead,he straightened up, looking over at me. My anger and resolution were fading, leaving me hopeful that Finn wouldn't really leave things this way.
"Once I'm out this window, lock it behind me," Finn commanded. "Make sure all the doors are locked, and never go anywhere alone. Never go anyplace at night, and if at all possible, always take Matt and Rhys with you." He looked past me for a moment, thinking of something.
"Although neither of them are really good for much of anything..." His dark eyes rested on mine once again. His expression was imploring, and he raised his hand as if he meant to touch my face, but he lowered it again. "You must be careful."
"Okay," I promised him.
With Finn standing right in front of me, I could feel the warmth of his body and smell his cologne. His eyes were locked on mine, and I remembered the way it felt when he tangled his fingers in my hair and held me so close to him I couldn't breathe.
He was so strong and controlled. In the brief moments he allowed himself to let go of his passion with me, it was the most wonderfully suffocating feeling I'd ever had.
I didn't want him to leave, and he didn't want to leave. But we had both made choices we were unwilling to chang ~ Amanda Hocking

Fate often allows a future to take shape with no regard for our expectation, plan, or readiness. Fate's skillful editing of our life choices is like the careful grooming of lads on their first day of school: combed, polished, scrubbed, newly dressed, and glowing too. This is how we become ready for our life lessons. ~ David Richo

What we share with animals is a desire for choice. It's a desire to have control over our life and a desire to live and use choice as a way in which we can facilitate our ability to live and that is something we really were born with. ~ Sheena Iyengar

You cannot expect the guy who drove the car into the ditch to navigate it out of the ditch. You have to put a new driver in the seat. I'm not saying the new driver is going to be any better, but we need a new driver. Kerry is the only choice. ~ John Mellencamp

I could see, in the haze to the north, the tall stacks of the mighty Borden phosphate and fertilizer plant in Bradenton, spewing lethal fluorine and sulphuric-acid components into the vacation sky. In the immediate area it is known bitterly as the place where Elsie the Cow coughed herself to death. I have read where it had been given yet another two years to correct its massive and dangerous pollution. Big Borden must have directors somewhere. Maybe, like the Penn Central directors, they are going to sit on their respective docile asses until the roof falls in. There are but two choices. Either they know they condone poisoning and don't give a damn, or they don't know they condone poisoning and don't give a damn. Anybody can walk into any brokerage office and be told where to look to find a complete list of the names of the directors and where they live. Drop the fellows a line, huh? ~ John D. MacDonald

I believe its a lifestyle choice and like any lifestyle choice it will be what you make of it and how fully you live and enjoy it. ~ Arlene Dickinson

One's own independent judgment is the means by which one must choose one's actions, but it is not a moral criterion nor a moral validation; only reference to a demonstrable principle can validate one's choices. ~ Ayn Rand

It is so simple: the choices we make in our everyday lives, the things we do (or not) for others, define the world we live in. ~ Bernard Jan

When I was young, I believed that life might unfold in an orderly way, according to my hopes and expectations. But now I understand that the Way winds like a river, always changing, ever onward.. My journeys revealed that the Way itself creates the warrior; that every path leads to peace, every choice to wisdom. And that life has always been, and will always be, arising in Mystery. ~ Socrates

Open your hearts to the Lord. The Lord is waiting for you and the Church will welcome you if your willingness to serve good is as clear and public as your choice to serve evil was. ~ Pope Francis

In my whole career, in fact, I can remember only two first nights when a show was at its peak on the first night. And I just wish we could devise a system where critics came not on a single evening but were given a choice of performances to attend. ~ Richard McCabe

Don't project his mistakes from the past onto him now. Don't let past choices define present actions. ~ Nicole Williams

I believe in one that all people are dreaming. This now, past and future is just a long dream, some people wake up by dieing, other by suicide everything is about a choice. But the people which are dead in our world, there aren't dead in the other they are still alive and watching us and they are smiling at us and they want we to make our choice. To think then to do it! ~ Deyth Banger

When you present people with things from the heart and from the soul, they make better choices: They make better choices about their bodies, they make better choices about their partners, they make better choices about the environment. ~ Billy Corgan

You always have to take responsibility for the choices you made. Once you can come to that truth, it's a very satisfying and relieving feeling. You don't have to fight anymore, you just get to do. ~ Andrew W.K.

Although censorship from others is not acceptable, you practice it every day when you decide with what people you will share what information, otherwise our deepest feelings would be shared with all the wrong people. ~ D.S. Mixell

To be or not to be! Hamlet!! I beg to differ! How much more limiting could that question be? How much more restraining could it ever get? Do we only have two possible answers to a question? Do we only have two things to choose from? Are our options so restricted? Are we so grounded? Have we gone color blind? When did our retinas stop seeing the colors of a rainbow? Why do we print our experiences in duotone? In a game of multiple choice questions, how many answers could be correct? What number of choices do we have? Who gives us the options? When do we have to submit our selections? Who decides if we passed or failed? ~ Marwa Rakha

I never really called myself pro-choice. ~ Mitt Romney

If I hold on to choices of any kind, just because they are my choice; if I give any room to my private likes and dislikes, then I know nothing of Calvary love. Then Jesus said unto his disciples, If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me (Matthew 16:24). Please take all of me, Lord, that I may be wholly yours. Help me to hold loosely those things, even those blessings, that I have here, that I may be available for service to you at any time. ~ Amy Carmichael

I find it impossible to subscribe to a philosophy that believes that the destruction of human life is a legitimate solution to a problem that is mostly social, economic and psychological, ... In reality, most women 'choose' abortion because they believe they have no other choice. ~ Patricia Heaton

You'll beat this. I know it doesn't feel like it, but you will. You're a survivor."
"I don't want to survive it."
"I know that, too," Nell had said. "And it's fair enough. But sometimes we don't have a choice ... ~ Kate Morton

Any young man coming of age has a lot to go through. Peter Parker certainly has a lot of responsibility, and without doubt, so does Pippin - his role, his life, and how he is going to perform it. It's all about choices and how we make them. ~ Matthew James Thomas

Private Manning is the world's pre-eminent prisoner of conscience, having remained true to the Nuremberg principle that every soldier has the right to 'a moral choice.' His suffering mocks the notion of the land of the free. ~ John Pilger

Sometimes I think if we didn't have these problems the whole world would stop spinning on her axis, we'd all stop spinning on our axises, axes, or whatever you want to call them, and then we'd have to settle into the nasty business of finding a way to be happy. ~ Daniel Clausen

Analyzing everyday situations using a systematic approach similar to that utilized by physicians when investigating a medical mysteries can result in better choices. ~ Dr. Russ Hill

Think thoughts that make you feel good, make choices that make you feel good, and take actions that make you feel good. ~ Cheryl Richardson

The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default. Instead of making choices reactively, the Essentialist deliberately distinguishes the vital few from the trivial many, eliminates the nonessentials, and then removes obstacles so the essential things have clear, smooth passage. In other words, Essentialism is a disciplined, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, then making execution of those things almost effortless. ~ Greg McKeown

Life has taught you many things, and the people close to you want you to have a good future, but it isn't their future in the end ... its your choice you pick the path and lead the way. All your family will do is follow you while you are on that path and support you when you find the light at the end of your road. ~ Julia Serano

I think early on it's important to put that at the back of your mind and make your own choices. Sometimes you do pick the same choices, just as a matter of course - not because someone else did it first, but because it was the best choice to make. But any actor worth his salt makes something their own. ~ Jacki Weaver

You make choices that are good and sound, but the gods have other plans for you. ~ Lisa See

But that's the thing about choices; you don't regret them until after they've been made. ~ Rachel Van Dyken

You may believe that you are responsible for what you do, but not for what you think. The truth is that you are responsible for what you think, because it is only at this level that you can exercise choice. What you do comes from what you think. ~ Marianne Williamson

The choice people have to make is never between slavery and freedom. We will always have to choose between slavery and the unknown. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

The forces of good and evil are working within and around me, I must choose, and in a free will universe I do have a choice. ~ Martin Luther

Sometimes we fall in love and end up losing ourselves. We allow ourselves to become different people. But we have choices, Lily. We can choose to find the person we used to be, the person we really are. Or we can continue on as this new being."

-Conall. ~ Chani Lynn Feener

You know, whether it be humans or animals. So even humans - before we can speak or we can understand a baby's cognition - they're already showing us signs that they want choice. ~ Sheena Iyengar

We make choices every day about what will inspire us and what we will allow to get us down. ~ Lisa A. Mininni

While artists fervently believe that the art marketplace was invented by the devil and remains in his henchman's hands, they have no choice but to carry long spoons and sup there. ~ Eric Maisel

Fate determines what comes into your life,
you decide what you want in your life,
and your choices decide what stays in your life. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries - eventually - reflect popular choices. ~ David Crystal

When making a decision, focus on what feels "shackles off" versus "shackles on". ~ Martha Beck

These women, genteel and beautiful, are the rebels who say no to the choices made by silly mothers, incompetent fathers (there are seldom any wise fathers in Austen's novels) and the rigidly orthodox society. They risk ostracism and poverty to gain love and companionship, and to embrace that elusive goal at the heart of democracy: the right to choose. ~ Azar Nafisi

Once the facts are clear the decisions jump out at you. ~ Peter Drucker

As the attuning of music arouses emotions in the body to an unusual degree, well that there be choices made regarding what emotions are aroused and what character of music. ~ Edgar Cayce

The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices. ~ Irvin D. Yalom

We create our own worlds. We destroy our own worlds. It is that simple.. ~ Patricia Cornwell

Now that I'm feeling the responsibilities of adulthood, the choices we make become an incredible weight. ~ Laura Marling

Regardless of the magnitude of the decision, our brains make it hard for us to keep the perspective we need to make good choices. ~ Travis Bradberry

Only by taking responsibility for oneself, to the greatest extent possible, can one ever be free, and only a free person can make responsible choices - between right and wrong, saving and spending, giving or taking. ~ Paul Ryan

A choice with no consequences has no value. Making a choice knowing there will be consequences, and being willing to bear them, is what distinguishes the right choices from the wrong ones. ~ James A. Owen

Destiny is just the inevitable result of choice, from the choices that came before us to the choices we make. They are a river that can only flow in one direction. ~ Alex London

We can all afford to do a little soul-searching about the choices we make and the way we live our lives, but sometimes searching one's soul doesn't provide the answers we seek. ~ Danielle De Niese

I chose him. If I chose him, he had to be the right choice. I wouldn't love him if it weren't right. ~ Kiersten White