Quotes About Choice

Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone.

Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.

Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them.

Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.

There were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you become the plaything to circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity.

Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you. There

It is we ourselves who must answer the questions that life asks of us, and to those questions we can respond only by being responsible for our existence.

As long as a self is driven by an id to a Thou, it is not a matter of love, either. In love the self is not driven by the id, but rather the self chooses the Thou.

You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.

Quién es, en realidad, el hombre? Es el ser que siempre decide lo que es.

No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).

Life is not something, it is the opportunity for something!

al hombre se le puede arrebatar todo, salvo una cosa: la libertad humana —la libre elección de la acción personal ante las circunstancias— para elegir el propio camino.

Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.

La historia nos brindó la oportunidad de conocer la naturaleza humana quizá como ninguna otra generación. ¿Qué es, en realidad, el hombre? Es el ser que siempre decide lo que es. Es quien ha inventado las cámaras de gas, pero también el que ha entrado en ellas con paso firme, musitando una oración

The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.

U]ntil his last breath no one can wrest from a man his freedom to take one or another attitude toward his destiny.

that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.

For in every case man retains the freedom and the possibility of deciding for or against the influence of his surroundings.

T]he full gravity of the responsibility that every man bears throughout every moment of his life: the responsibility for what he will make of the next hour, for how he will shape the next day.

al hombre se le puede arrebatar todo salvo una cosa: la última de las libertades humanas —?la elección de la actitud personal que debe adoptar frente al destino—? para decidir su propio camino.

he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).

It is we ourselves who must answer the questions that life asks of us, and to these questions we can respond only by being responsible for our existence.