Quotes About Freedom

Happiness is a choice

She ran her own train. She didn't feel she had to get married, she wore her hair and makeup the way she wanted to, she furnished her home the way she wanted to, she did everything the way she wanted to.

We are free to be the authors of our own lives, but we don't know what kind of lives we want to 'write.

Apparently we always think we want choice, but when we actually get it, we may not like it. Meanwhile, the need to chose in ever more aspects of life causes us more distress than we realize.

The choice of when to be a chooser may be the most important choice we have to make.

But by restricting our options, we will be able to choose less and feel better.

But if unrestricted freedom can impede the individual's pursuit of what he or she values most, then it may be that some restrictions make everyone better off. And if "constraint" sometimes affords a kind of liberation while "freedom" affords a kind of enslavement, then people would be wise to seek out some measure of appropriate constraint.

If you shatter the fish bowl so that everything is possible you don't have freedom you have paralysis. Everybody needs a fishbowl.

Over two centuries ago Adam Smith observed that individual freedom of choice ensures the most efficient production and distribution of society's goods. A competitive market, unhindered by the government and filled with entrepreneurs eager to pinpoint consumers' needs and desires, will be exquisitely responsive to them.

Lane writes that we are paying for increased affluence and increased freedom with a substantial decrease in the quality and quantity of social relations.

The more we are allowed to be the masters of our fates, the more we expect ourselves to be.

But if you've been convinced by the arguments and the evidence in this book, you now know that choice has a downside, an awareness that should make it easier for you to adopt, and live with, a "two options is my limit" rule. It's worth a try.

It is choosers who create new opportunities for themselves and everyone else. But when faced with overwhelming choice, we are forced to become "pickers," which is to say, relatively passive selectors from whatever is available.

NOVELIST AND EXISTENTIALIST PHILOSOPHER ALBERT CAMUS POSED the question, "Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?" His point was that everything in life is choice.

Every choice we make is a testament to our autonomy, to our sense of self-determination.

the fact that some choice is good doesn't necessarily mean that more choice is better.

there is a cost to having an overload of choice.

philosopher Isaiah Berlin made an important distinction between "negative liberty" and "positive liberty." Negative liberty is "freedom from"—freedom from constraint, freedom from being told what to do by others. Positive liberty is "freedom to"—the availability of opportunities to be the author of your life and to make it meaningful and significant.

I believe that many modern Americans are feeling less and less satisfied even as their freedom of choice expands. This book is intended to explain why this is so and suggest what can be done about it.

Those who value freedom of choice and movement will tend to stay away from entangling relationships;

Every choice we make is a testament to our autonomy, to our sense of self-determination. Almost every social, moral, or political philosopher in the Western tradition since Plato has placed a premium on such autonomy. And each new expansion of choice gives us another opportunity to assert our autonomy, and this display our character.

Having the opportunity to choose is no blessing if we feel we do not have the wherewithal to choose wisely.

The Paradox of Choice has a simple yet profoundly life-altering message for all Americans. Schwartz's eleven practical, simple steps to becoming less choosey will change much in your daily life…. Buy This Book Now!" —PHILIP G. ZIMBARDO

CHOICE HAS A CLEAR AND POWERFUL INSTRUMENTAL VALUE; IT enables people to get what they need and want in life.