Quotes About Decision

By making the choice to stay you are participating in a crime.

There's a feeling of power in reserve, a power that drives right through the bone, like the shiver you sense in the shaft of an axe when you take it into your hand. You can strike, or you can not strike, and if you choose to hold back the blow, you can still feel inside you the resonance of the omitted thing.

I think, if you're going to kill a man, do it. Don't write him a letter about it. Don't bluster and threaten and put him on his guard.

Henry stirs into life. 'Do I retain you for what is easy? Do you think it is for your personal beauty? The charm of your presence? I keep you, Master Cromwell, because you are as cunning as a bag of serpents. But do not be a viper in my bosom. You know my decision. Execute it.' pg. 585

The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman's sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.

You can strike, or you can not strike, and if you choose to hold back the blow, you can still feel inside you the resonance of the omitted thing.

This is Maximilien de Robespierre, barrister-at-law: unmarried, personable, a young man with all his life before him. Today against his most deeply held convictions he has followed the course of the law and sentenced a criminal to death. And now he is going to pay for it.

Each action contains its opposite. Each action contains the shadow-trace of the choice not made, the seeds of infinite variation. Each choice, once made, trips contingencies, alternatives; each choice breeds its own universe.

His councillors caution, 'No haste, Majesty. As soon as you choose, you forfeit advantage. You can marry only once.' 'Can he?' Fitwilliam mutters. 'This is Henry we're talking about.

He had meant to write to Gregory and say, I have seen such a sweet girl, I will find out who she is and, if I steer our family adroitly in the next few years, perhaps you can marry her. He has not written this. In his present precarious situation, it would be about as useful as the letters Gregory used to write to him: Dear father, I hope you are well. I hope your dog is well. And now no more for lack of time.

My father always says, choosing a wife is like putting your hand into a bag full of writhing creatures, with one eel to six snakes. What are the chances you will pull out the eel?

He draws a line under his conclusions. Says, 'Gregory, what should I do about the great worm?' 'Send a commission against it, sir,' the boy says. 'It must be put down.' He gives his son a long look. 'You do know it's Arthur Cobbler's tales?' Gregory gives him a long look back. 'Yes, I do know.' He sounds regretful. 'But it makes people so happy when I believe them.

I can't divide Camille's loyalties. Who knows? He might make the wrong choice.

There is a time to stand on your dignity, but there is a time to abandon it in the interests of your safety.

Harsh, yes . . . but the question is, have you picked your prince? Because that is what you do, you choose him, and you know what he is. And then, when you have chosen, you say yes to him—yes, that is possible, yes, that can be done. If you don't like Henry, you can go abroad and find another prince, but I tell you—if this were Italy, Katherine would be cold in her tomb.

Let us say, his will is convinced, but not his conscience.

The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes:

He has always done what was needed to survive, and if his judgement of what was necessary was sometimes questionable. . . that is what it is to be young.

Mother," said Janna, "if the Frosches were here first, why do they have the fourth floor? Why did they not take the one we have?" "The Baron arranged it all," her mother said curtly.

La ocasión en fugaz la experiencia insegura y el juicio difícil

There's nothing happy about having your fate decided for you! You have to grab your own happiness!

You have three choices, you can give up, give in or give it your all.

The object of my relationship with Vietnam has been to heal the wounds that exist, particularly among our veterans, and to move forward with a positive relationship ... Apparently some in the Vietnamese government don't want to do that and that's their decision.

No trouble ever got fixed late at night," he said. "Midnight is for regrets.