Quotes About Agency

CIA officers had already visited a mushroom-producing region of Pennsylvania and told a couple of growers that they might be asking for help producing a rare fungus. Gottlieb cautioned, however, that research into the psychoactive properties of mushrooms must "remain an Agency secret.

we're responsible for our own lives.

They [Nazi captors]had more liberty, more options to choose from in their environment; but he [Viktor Frankl] had more freedom, more internal power to exercise his options.

Between stimulus and response is our greatest power—the freedom to choose.

As humans, our tendency is to play the victim. And unless you're watchful, it will sneak up on you and you'll start blaming outside forces—parents, spouses, bosses, the weather, the government, circumstances, "the Man," whomever—for your problems. In reality, we are not victims. We're agents. We are the creative forces of our lives, and we are free to choose. But we have to be reminded of this all the time.

First, take responsibility for your life; and second, take initiative. It's that simple. Be an agent, not a victim. Don't wait for life to happen to you; happen to it. Be the driver of your life, not just a passenger. Live out of your imagination, not your past.

We feel surprise when travelers tell us of the vast dimensions of the Pyramids and other great ruins, but how utterly insignificant are the greatest of these, when compared to these mountains of stone accumulated by the agency of various minute and tender animals. This is a wonder which does not at first strike the eye of the body, but, after reflection, the eye of reason.

cognitive habits of overattributing design and agency to natural phenomena

We have the ability to construct our own futures, albeit not in circumstances of our own choosing

men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they make it under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.

Who will live and who will die are not inscribed in a Book of Life. They are affected by human knowledge and agency, as the world becomes more intelligible and life becomes more precious.

God loves us and believes in us and has done and will do anything he can to help us, but he will not impose on our free agency.

About a year ago, an entire suburb in this man's jurisdiction turned from the police and erected a substitute agency. To all intents and purposes, several thousand people here have severed their relationship with the South African Police Service. He appears not to have noticed.

So rules there will be—but, please, not too many. We are ambivalent about rules, even when we know they are good for us. If we are spirited souls, if we have character, rules seem restrictive, an affront to our sense of agency and our pride in working out our own lives. Why should we be judged according to another's rule?

Viver é se sentir fatalmente forçado a exercer a liberdade, a decidir o que vamos ser neste mundo. Nossa atividade de decisão não descansa um instante sequer. Mesmo quando, desesperados, nos abandonamos ao que vier, estamos decidindo não decidir.

I used my aviation contacts to open a travel agency. I used to book Caribbean flights.

La libertà che vogliamo noi non è il diritto astratto di fare il proprio volere, ma il potere di farlo; quindi suppone in ciascuno i mezzi di poter vivere ed agire senza sottoporsi alla volontà altrui.

Is it natural to sever low beings from their true and rightful destinies? From their natural-born purpose? To give them a false sense of agency? As if some creatures are not put here in the service of others. As if cows don't exist to be eaten." He turned his glass in his hands. "Nothing is accidental in the works of nature. Do you know who said that? Aristotle. He said, Nothing is accidental, everything is, absolutely, for the sake of something else.

to live the life of a free man.

as Jean-Paul Sartre put it, "Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you." What

Circumstances rule men and not men rule circumstances.

For working with non-professional actors, you have to have this particular desire to work with people who are reluctant to play in a movie. I like this relationship. I'm like a recruiter, an employment agency giving someone employment.

I think it is important to remind people of the extent of our free will.

White communities - and I exempt poor white communities from this - have power over their representation. White people have the ability to define themselves, to exert their agency in a way that they get to be believed. No one believes black people. No one. Until a white person vouches for them.