Quotes About Choice

It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect.

He demonstrated that there was no such thing as free will, since men's creative impulses were determined, as all else, by the economic structure of the epoch in which they lived.

To think is an act of choice. The key to what you so recklessly call 'human nature,' the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct.

Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice. He has no automatic knowledge of what is good for him or evil, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires...Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform.

What subjectivism is in the realm of ethics, collectivism is in the realm of politics. Just as the notion that anything I do is right because I chose to do it, is not a moral principle, but a negation of morality--so the notion that anything society does is right because society chose to do it, is not a moral principle, but a negation of moral principles an the banishment of morality from social issues.

There is no necessity for pain-why, then, is the worst pain reserved for those who will not accept its necessity?

But if I were given a choice - of all centuries - I'd select last the curse of being born in this one. And perhaps, if I weren't curious, I'd choose never to be born at all.

Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.

Man has the power to act as his own destroyer--and that is the way he has acted through most of history." --Atlast Shrugged

Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice.

The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!

a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves. No matter what corruption they're taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which they cannot perform for any motive but their own enjoyment

No action could be lower or more futile than for one person to throw upon another the burden of his abdication of choice.

The world is ours, whenever we choose to claim it, by virtue and grace of the fact that ours is the Morality of Life.

If everybody were compelled to have the proper kind of education, we'd have a better world. If we force people to do good, they will be free to be happy.

A process of reason is a process of constant choice in answer to the question: True or False? - Right or Wrong?

That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.

They think that your body creates a desire and makes a choice for you just about in some such way as if iron ore transformed itself into railroad rails of its own volition. Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life.

Dare not choose in your minds the work you would like to do when you leave the Home of the Students. You shall do what the Council of Vocations shall prescribe for you.

Man has the power to act as his own destroyer and that is he has acted through most of history.

Hutton and Franklin spent all of January 3 together, in the course of which Franklin evidently informed his old friend, "You have only left us the option of perishing by you or with you: we have chosen the latter alternative.

To have a villainous ruler imposed on you was a misfortune. To elect him yourself was a disgrace.

It's up to you. But remember that she is a mirror that reflects a part of your mind. If she is beautiful, it's because your memories are. You provide the formula. You can only finish where you started, don't forget that

He who must be what he is, may curse his fate, but cannot change it; on the other hand, he who can transform himelf has no one in the world but himself to hold responsible for his dissatisfaction.