Quotes About Choice

could I justify doing something with my life, my one wild and precious life, that I knew, undone, would not be missed?

At a certain point in her life, she realizes it is not so much that she wants to have a child as that she does not want not to have a child, or not to have had a child' (109).

Between religion and knowledge, he said, a person must choose knowledge.

She believed that, in our culture, at least, people were much freer than they thought they were and had more options than they seemed willing to acknowledge.

Surely she had never asked God for anything except that He should let her have her will. And every time she had been granted what she asked for—for the most part. Now here she sat with a contrite heart—not because she had sinned against God but because she was unhappy that she had been allowed to follow her will to the road's end.

Don't do it if it's not something you want to do, Marta. These matters can't possibly look the same to you, standing in the midst of life, as they do to me. You should understand that you mustn't do it for my sake, but for your own.

All of this could have been different if both of his parents had taken a breath.

El suicidio, bajo mi punto de vista, no constituye un crimen legal ni moral, y nadie debería considerarlo como tal.

Power and shekels are no guarantee of personal satisfaction. As you attempt to claw your way to the top, do not lose sight of your psychological needs. Make choices that bring you satisfaction and joy. (…) If being top dog makes you happy, then have at it. Live your truth. For everyone else I say this: be wary of jeopardizing your peace of mind in the pursuit of status, money, or power. Needlepoint that!

The path you choose must be your own. And once that path has been embarked on, you must never falter, never deviate. I faltered... and deviated! And now I must get back on track... if I still can.

He revels in all the empowering conveniences that the iPod offers, like being able to 'correct' albums by removing their weak tracks (even on Beatles LPs, where he removes all the Ringo songs)

We get what fate deals out to us, lad. And we have no choice about how we handle it.' Cato smiled. 'What's this? Philosophy?' 'Experience, lad. Much better.

To will oneself moral and to will oneself free are one and the same decision.

I think that where you go wrong is that you imagine that your reasons for living ought to fall on you, ready-made from heaven, whereas we have to find them for ourselves.

Ethics is the triumph of freedom over facticity.

God! when you think of all the things you could do and yet somehow never do! All the opportunities you let slip by! The idea, the inspiration just doesn't come fast enough. Instead of being open, you're closed up tight. Thats's the worst sin of all - the sin of omission.

When you stubbornly give one man a chance, you arbitrarily deny it to another one.

Every individual concerned to justify his existence feels that his existence involves an undefined need to transcend himself, to engage in freely chosen projects. pg. xxxiii

Y con la amistad pasa como con el amor físico: para que sea auténtica tiene que ser ante todo libre.

There were no scruples, no feelings of respect or loyal affection that would stop us from making up our minds by the pure light of reason - and of our own desires.

One has no right to make up one's mind about the future in advance.

depopulates it. Nothing exists outside of his stubborn project; therefore nothing can induce him to modify his choices. And having involved his whole life with an external object which can continually escape him, he tragically feels his dependence. Even if it does not definitely disappear, the object never gives itself. The passionate man makes himself a lack of being not that there might be being, but in order to be. And he remains at a distance; he is never fulfilled.

Ik koos het bestaan niet, maar ik besta. Een ongerijmdheid die verantwoordelijk voor zichzelf is, dat ben ik.

Et c'était simple de lui dire de s'asseoir ; quand on pense à tout ce qu'on pourrait faire et qu'on ne fait pas ! toutes les occasions qu'on laisse échapper ! on a pas l'idée, pas l'élan ; au lieu d'être ouvert on est fermé ; c'est ça le grand péché : le péché par omission.