Quotes About Choice

Are we to mark this day with a white or a black stone?

You cannot eat your cake and have your cake.

There is no true love save in suffering, and in this world we have to choose either love, which is suffering, or happiness. Man is the more man -- that is, the more divine -- the greater his capacity for suffering, or rather, for anguish.

Cásate con la mujer que te quiera, aunque no la quieras tú. Es mejor casarte para que le conquisten a uno el amor que para conquistarlo.

No creo en la libertad humana, y el que no cree en la libertad no es libre.

Las cosas podían haber sucedido de cualquier otra manera y, sin embargo, sucedieron así.

Não disse que era o vil povo, disse apenas que é o povo português, tal como o vejo: preferem a ordem à liberdade, preferem que alguém decida por eles, em vez do fardo de terem de ser eles a decidirem e baterem-se pelo seu destino.

Não, não basta estar vivo. Depende de como se está vivo. Não se encontra só o que se encontra, mas também o que se procura. Nós não somos folhas levadas pelo vento, não somos animais à deriva. Somos seres humanos, com uma vontade própria.

Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason.

If everything was determined by the common human condition, by social and cultural categories, and by chance, it would be useless to reflect on ways to make one's life excellent. Fortunately there is enough room for personal initiative and choice to make a real difference. And those who believe this are the ones with the best chance to break free from the grip of fate.

Instead of accepting the unity of purpose provided by genetic instructions or by the rules of society, the challenge for us is to create harmony based on reason and choice.

I am free, free in my work, because I do whatever I want. If I don't do something today I will do it tomorrow. I don't have a boss, I am the boss of my own life. I have kept my freedom and I have fought for my freedom.

Instead of feeling oppressed by the necessity to work hard, they share the opinion of Giuliana B., a seventy-four-year-old lady: "I am free, free in my work, because I do whatever I want. If I don't do something today I will do it tomorrow. I don't have a boss, I am the boss of my own life. I have kept my freedom and I have fought for my freedom." Certainly

To the extent that a glamorous ad makes us salivate for the product sold or that a frown from the boss spoils the day, we are not free to determine the content of experience

Of course we don't have to undertake any of these plans. But if we don't, chances are, sooner or later, we will regret it.

A similar distinction is that between discovered life themes, when a person writes the script for her actions out of personal experience and awareness of choice; and accepted life themes, when a person simply takes on a predetermined role from a script written long ago by others. Both

It is precisely because the unknowns are so great and dangerous that we require some manner of faith to choose our path and to give us courage.

But if one assumes that people have a choice in how they respond to external events, in what meaning they attribute to suffering, then one can interpret the constructive response as normal and the neurotic one as a failure to rise to the challenge, as a breakdown in the ability to flow.

Si realmente queremos vivir, sería mejor que empezáramos de una vez a intentarlo; Si no queremos, no importa, pero sería mejor que empezáramos a morir.

In contemporary preliterate societies this knowledge is so deeply ingrained that a person who likes to be alone is assumed to be a witch, for a normal person would not choose to leave the company of others unless forced to do so.

If we really want to live, we'd better start at once to try; If we don't, it doesn't matter, but we'd better start to die.

It is better to look suffering straight in the eye, acknowledge and respect it's presence, and then get busy as soon as possible focusing on things we choose to focus on.

It is how we choose what we do, and how we approach it, that will determine whether the sum of our days adds up to a formless blur, or to something resembling a work of art.

Ne valgis ir g?rimas dievotum? rodo.Kvaila paisyti, kaip žmogus miega –virviniame gulte ar ant p?k? patal?. Valgau, k? noriu, ir miegu, kaip noriu, ir niekas negali man?s už tai smerkti. Tegul mano, kad aš kvaila, jei nori. Man tik geriau.