Choosing Sides Quotes

I had learned volleyball in the Navy, where all the captains and admirals wanted to be spikers, and I found then that a man who can subdue his own desires and master the art of serving others can make himself invaluable. In choosing sides the team captain always chose the good spikers on the first and second choice, but then the spikers would grab his arm and whisper, 'Take Michener.' I was never chosen lower than third, because I was needed. I wasn't good, but I was faithful. ~ James A. Michener

When you live on a round planet, there's no choosing sides. ~ Wayne Dyer

Climate change has taken on political dimensions. That's odd because I don't see people choosing sides over E=Mc2 or other fundamental facts of science. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

And if I want to get involved in choosing sides, I usually pick hockey or football. ~ Dierks Bentley

Question."
"Yes," Candace asked expectantly, eyes fixed on the dark street ahead.
"Have you ever had to chose sides between a friend and a boyfriend?"
Candace nodded.
"Which side are you suppose to pick?"
"The right one."
"What if they're both right?"
"They're not."
"But they are," Melody insisted. "That's the problem."
"No." Candace slowly rolled past a police cruiser. "They both think they're right. But who do you think is right? Which side represents the thing you think is worth fighting for?"
Melody glanced out the window as though she was expecting the answer to be revealed on a neighbor's lawn. Every house except hers had the lights turned off. "I dunno."
"You do," Candace insisted. "You just don't have the courage to be honest with yourself. Because then you'd have to do the thing you don't want to do, and you hate doing anything that's hard. Which is why you gave up singing and why you have no life and why you've always been a -"
"Um okay! Can we get back to the part where you were sounding like Oprah?"
"I'm just saying, Melly, what would you do if you weren't afraid? That's your answer. That's your side." She turned into the circular driveway and put the SUV in PARK. "And if you don't choose it, you're lying to yourself and everyone around you." She opened the door and grabbed her purse. "Oprah out!"
The door slammed behind her. ~ Lisi Harrison

Don't be eager in believing lies by ignoring the truth. Don't fall for lies when you know the truth, because of your loyalty and support to the person who is telling the lies. ~ De Philosopher DJ Kyos

Choosing sides, the captain of the Red Team says, "We'll give you our best -pitcher. ... "
And we'll take the kid who picks his nose and eats it. And we'll take the kid who smells like piss. We'll take the leper and the left-handed Satanist and the HIV-infected hemophiliac and the hermaphrodite and the pedophile. We'll take drug addiction and we'll take JPEGs of the world instead of the world, MP3s instead of music, and we'll trade real life for sitting at a keyboard. We'll spot you happiness and we'll spot you humanity, and we'll sacrifice mercy just so long as you keep Cannibal at bay. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Whenever someone makes out a guest list, the people not on it become officially uninvited, and that makes them the enemies of the invited. Guest lists are just a way of choosing sides. ~ E.L. Konigsburg

You can't choose up sides on a round world. ~ Wayne Dyer

You cannot carry water on both shoulders. ~ Charles Portis

All successful people learn that success is buried on the other side of frustration. ~ Tony Robbins

Novelist-Citizen of Two Countries Interpreter of his Generation on both Sides of the Sea. ~ Henry James

The way your parents try to talk to you about politics and pull you to their side, that's an exciting moment in your family. ~ Patricia Arquette

There aren't many honest men or women in Washington anymore. Politicians get where they are by the sheer force of their egos, not their convictions. And you know what? It's our fault as voters. We don't demand better candidates, so we end up getting what we deserve - on both sides of the aisle. ~ Brad Thor

We are surrounded by the dry thorns of the Inquisition on all four sides; throwing around words burning like fire is the shortest way to one's grave! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

The idea of God grew side by side with the idea of materialism. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Choosing to honor the tidal nature of life, I do not push for artificial solutions born of haste and indiscretion. I allow the universe to unfold with divine timing. I attune myself to the tempo of my highest good. ~ Julia Cameron

Electra Heart is the antithesis of everything I stand for. And the point of introducing her and building a concept around her is that she stands for the corrupt side of American ideology, and basically that's the corruption of yourself. My worst fear - that's anyone's worst fear - is to lose myself and become an empty person. And that happens a lot when you're very ambitious. ~ Marina And The Diamonds

There's three sides to every story."
"What do you mean?"
"There's your version, the other person's, and then there's the truth, which is somewhere in the middle of the two. ~ Helena Hunting

Wrong was easy; gravity helped it. Right is difficult and long. In choosing what is difficult we are free, the mind too making its little flight out from the shadow into the clear in time between work and sleep. ~ Wendell Berry

Kindness is not the same as niceness or putting our heads in the sand, or avoiding conflict. It is acknowledging that no life is as it seems on the surface. It is understanding that we never know all the layers in a life and choosing to speak and act from that difficult gray place in all of us. ~ Kerry Egan

Perch Rory on their backs and they'd stand still for a second but by the time I'd backed up and gotten them in focus they'd turn around like, "What are you doing? Why is there a raccoon on my back? Why do they even let you be in charge of things?" and then they'd just flop over on their sides like a bunch of ingrates who didn't understand art. Rory would gently tumble onto the floor, which I suspect sent the cats mixed messages because he was still waving his hands in the air like he just didn't care, as if he were celebrating the cats being assholes, and I was like, "You're killin' me, Smalls," but then he just celebrated the fact that I was frustrated. Honestly, it is impossible to stay mad at that raccoon. ~ Jenny Lawson

We can reframe and recast our lives -- not with lies, not with deceptions, but with the truth of who we are and of who we are choosing to become. ~ Sandra Marinella

Such an act [testifying for an accused prison guard of the Shah's regime] can only be accomplished by someone who is engrossed in literature, has learned that every individual has different dimensions to his personality ... Those who judge must take all aspects of an individual's personality into account. It is only through literature that one can put oneself in someone else's shoes and understand the other's different and contradictory sides and refrain from becoming too ruthless. Outside the sphere of literature only one aspect of individuals is revealed. But if you understand their different dimensions you cannot easily murder them ... If we have learned this one lesson from Dr. A our society would have been in a much better shape today. ~ Azar Nafisi

Keeping my weight in constant check had resulted in choosing alcohol as my primary means of caloric intake. ~ Sam Harris

Eyes see only dust and earth, but feel with the heart, and know pure joy.
The delights blossom on all sides in every form, but where is your heart's thread to make a wreath of them?
My master's flute sounds through all things, drawing me out of my lodgings wherever they may be, and while I listen I know that every step I take is in my master's house.
For he is the sea, he is the river that leads to the sea, and he is the landing-place. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

When the position is such that neither side will gain by making the first move, it is called temporising ground. ~ Sun Tzu

The key to dealing with people in general is that they have to know that you care about them. You have to deal with people in gentleness. You have to come along side of them. You can't push them. You can't pull them. You have to walk with them. In order to do that, you've got to demonstrate care for that individual. That's my whole thing ~ Lance Berkman

to say that man is a social animal is also to say that man never lives in a world completely of his own choosing. ~ Gresham M. Sykes

Once you see that your skin and your gift are two sides of the same coin, you can never forget it. It preserves religion from any arrogance and denial. ~ Richard Rohr

I recall an 18-year-old girl named Rachel in Zambia who was given a grant to start a business of her choosing. She decided to breed goats so she could sell the meat and the milk, and donate the kids to orphan children. She herself was an orphan, stepping into young adulthood with no resources, and it was her first opportunity to earn her own money. ~ Ann Cotton

Every advance in information technology involves choosing what you want to preserve and what you want to ditch. Scanning rare books on to microfilm is a costly business. The library won't let you do it yourself - they decide first which books should be scanned and which should just rot away in the basement.
Against that eventuality, people should start hoarding the kind of books committees of rational people will decide against scanning into a database. ~ Robert Twigger

To me, the term 'middle-class' connotes a safe, comfortable, middle-of-the road policy. Above all, our language is 'middle-class' in the middle of our road. To drive it to one side or the other or even off the road, is the noblest task of the future. ~ Christian Morgenstern

IT is not impossible that among the English readers of this book there may be one who in 1915 and 1916 was in one of those trenches that were woven like a web among the ruins of Monchy-au-Bois. In that case he had opposite him at that time the 73rd Hanoverian Fusiliers, who wear as their distinctive badge a brassard with ' Gibraltar ' inscribed on it in gold, in memory of the defence of that fortress under General Elliot; for this, besides Waterloo, has its place in the regiment's history.

At the time I refer to I was a nineteen-year-old lieutenant in command of a platoon, and my part of the line was easily recognizable from the English side by a row of tall shell-stripped trees that rose from the ruins of Monchy. My left flank was bounded by the sunken road leading to Berles-au-Bois, which was in the hands of the English ; my right was marked by a sap running out from our lines, one that helped us many a time to make our presence felt by means of bombs and rifle-grenades.

I daresay this reader remembers, too, the white tom-cat, lamed in one foot by a stray bullet, who had his headquarters in No-man's-land. He used often to pay me a visit at night in my dugout. This creature, the sole living being that was on visiting terms with both sides, always made on me an impression of extreme mystery. This charm of mystery which lay over all that belonged to the other side, to that danger zone full of unseen figures, is one of the strongest impressions that the wa ~ Ernst Junger

Every single time you crossed over for me and met me on my side. I realize now, I don't think I ever met you in the middle. And I don't think I ever once said that you for that. ~ Cecelia Ahern

Well Australia's been in Afghanistan from the get go, way back in 2001, but we have been resolute throughout and with support from both sides of Australian politics. ~ Kevin Rudd

The great thing is that the funny side of getting old is fuel for my comedy. ~ Steve Coogan

The year showed me beyond a doubt that everyone practices cafeteria religion ... But the important lesson was this: there's nothing wrong with choosing. Cafeterias aren't bad per se ... the key is in choosing the right dishes. You need to pick the nurturing ones (compassion), the healthy ones (love thy neighbor), not the bitter ones. ~ A. J. Jacobs

Why do we insist on building the largest and most impressive structures in our city when people on the other side of town are hungry, jobless and worshipping in storefronts? ~ K.P. Yohannan

Who can say what goes through the mind of a clapper in the moments before carrying out that evil deed? No doubt whatever those thoughts are, they are lies. However, like all dangerous deceptions, the lies that clappers tell themselves wear seductive disguises.

For clappers who have been led to believe their acts are smiled upon by God, their lie is clothed in holy robes and has outstretched arms promising a reward that will never come.

For clappers who believe their act will somehow bring about change in the world, their lie is disguised as a crowd looking back at them from the future, smiling in appreciation for what they've done.

For clappers who seek only to share their personal misery with the world, their lie is an image of themselves freed from their pain by witnessing the pain of others.

And for clappers who are driven by vengeance, their lie is a scale of justice, weighted evenly on both sides, finally in balance

It is only when a clapper brings his hands together that the lie reveals itself, abandoning the clapper in that final instant so that he exits this world utterly alone, without so much as a lie to accompany him into oblivion.

Or her. ~ Neal Shusterman

Wait, we can not break bread with you. You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides, and you will play golf, and eat hot h'ors d'ourves. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They said do not trust the pilgrims, especially Sarah Miller. And for all of these reasons I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground. ~ Paul Rudnick

I want to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain't a color, disease ain't the Negro side a town. I want to stop that moment from coming - and it come in ever white child's life - when they start to think that colored folks ain't as good as whites ... I pray that wasn't her moment, Pray I still got time. ~ Kathryn Stockett

Choosing not only the battle but also the timing is the best way to deal with what may occur. ~ Steven Redhead

It is a cheering thought to think that God is on the side of the best digestion. ~ Don Marquis

God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave. ~ Francis Bacon

The Battle of Koom Valley is the only one known to history where both sides ambushed each other. ~ Terry Pratchett

If you are the sensing type, the intuitive's words may seem to ignore or even contradict facts you know to be true, but don't ignore what was said or dismiss it as foolish. It may contain an idea that could be useful, and your facts should be useful to the author of the idea. The constructive course is to state your facts as a contribution to the subject, not as a refutation of the idea. Progress in almost any direction needs contributions from both sides, facts from the sensing type and unfamiliar ideas from the intuitive. ~ Isabel Briggs Myers

Everybody has some talents - we all have an art side and some talent - but you have some areas where you are better than others. My area is acting, I guess. I hope. ~ Olivier Martinez

At morning assembly we were read the words of Cyprian of Carthage: 'Let us on both sides of death always pray for one another.' Then we bowed our heads and beseeched God to protect our troops, and to send us peace and plentiful rain, and to grant us an ample harvest. But God remained pretty meager with his miracles: the dead stayed dead, the war went on, the rain either came too early and too strong or not at all, and the harvest depended in whether or not we'd had eelworm and blight. ~ Alexandra Fuller

I just want to keep exploring music and hopefully the orders will keep coming in and I'll be able to keep growing the interior and exterior sides of my life. ~ John McLaughlin

I never saw anything more like real warfare in my life - only the attack was all on one side. The police, in spite of their numbers, apparently thought they could not cope with the crowd. ~ Walter Crane