Quotes About Choice

The secret of success isn't knowing what you want, it is knowing what you don't want.

Choice is a matter of selection. Decision is a matter of direction.

The best choice you can make for yourself is to socialize with lesser evil.

If I'd had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

Now you've got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? - Inspector Harry Callahan

You can be a famous poisoner or a successful poisoner, but not both, and the same seems to apply to Great Train Robbers.

Freedom is not the greatest thing; how we decide to use our freedom is the greatest thing.

the liberal believes in the permanence of humanity's imperfection, he resigns himself to a regime in which the good will be the result of numberless actions, and never the object of a conscious choice. Finally, he suscribes to the pessimism that sees, in politics, the art of creating the conditions in which the vices of men will contribute to the good of the state. —RAYMOND ARON, L'OPIUM

Sartre's existentialism, where it essentially means having the chutzpah to do what it takes so that you may suit yourself—not quite the same thing as being true to yourself.)

Lose it for yourself, if you want to, but not for anyone else.

She'd come to understand that God was present for the good and the bad, and it wasn't that He was cruel, but that He knew—goodness was a choice. Rightness was a choice. Free will was the road to salvation, and God wasn't going to make you do the right thing. God's job was to be there if you chose Him, there if you didn't.

Ich glaube nicht, dass wir geboren werden mit einem vorherbestimmten Weg und einem bekannten Ende. Vielmehr sind wir das Ergebnis unserer eigenen Handlungen, die wiederum beeinflußt werden von dem, was das Leben gegen uns unternimmt. Die Summe all dessen macht uns zu dem, was wir sind.

When kids made a decision for themselves they have a vested interest in showing they were right. Lee wanted to prove to me that he had made the right choice so he worked hard and did well. If we'd forced him to go to college somewhere else all the incentives would've been different. Then he would have had a motive to prove that we were wrong.

If you don't like a book, you can close it. But you have no right to say I can't open it.

Two princes. Fine men indeed. But neither is the prince of my heart.

Es gibt im Leben nur drei große Ereignisse: den Tod, die Berühmtheit oder die Liebe. Mein lieber blauer Leutnant, welches von den dreien wird mir wohl als erstes auf den Kopf oder ins Herz fallen?

just because you can you does not mean you have to

My life will not be significantly impoverished if I never see another Shakespearian comedy.

I renounced complete happiness in order to secure a part of it.

Freedom means choosing your burden.

What use are these people's wits, who let themselves be led by speechmakers, in crowds, without considering how many fools and thieves they are among, and how few choose the good? The best choose progress toward one thing, a name forever honored by the gods, while others eat their way toward sleep like nameless oxen.

Asses prefer garbage to gold.

For the best men choose one thing above all—immortal glory among mortals; but the masses stuff themselves like cattle.

Isn't it nice that people who prefer Los Angeles to San Francisco live there?