Quotes About Choice

No one can tell men what they must live for. No one can take that right - because there are things in men, in the best of us, which are above all states, above all collectives!

Thought—he told himself quietly—is a weapon one uses in order to act. No action was possible. Thought is the tool by which one makes a choice. No choice was left to him. Thought sets one's purpose and the way to reach it. In the matter of his life being torn piece by piece out of him, he was to have no voice, no purpose, no way, no defense.

Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. If he abdicates his power, he abdicates the status of man, and the grinding chaos of the irrational is what he achieves as his sphere of existence—by his own choice.

Whatever it was that others sought in life, their right to what they now felt was all the two of them wished to find.

She said 'no' to the words he spoke, and 'yes' to the voice that spoke them.

For the word 'We' must never be spoken, save by one's choice and as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within man's soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils on earth, the root of man's torture by men, and of an unspeakable lie.

We were guilty of the great transgression of preference!

In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival—so that for you, who are a human being, the question 'to be or not to be' is the question 'to think or not to think.' "A

Quédate aquí hasta que tú misma contestes. No tienes sitio adonde ir; no puedes moverte; no puedes empezar a planearte un camino hasta... hasta que sepas lo suficiente como para escoger un final.

if the majority of men cannot know what is good for them, each for himself, how can they know what is good for others by proxy? If they are to be controlled by specialists, how and by what standard can they choose the specialist?

No man can predict the time when others will choose to return to reason.

In the normal conditions of existence, man has to choose his goals, project them in time, pursue them and achieve them by his own effort. He cannot do it if his goals are at the mercy of and must be sacrificed to any misfortune happening to others. He cannot live his life by the guidance of rules applicable only to conditions under which human survival is impossible.

Thought - he told himself quietly - is a weapon one uses in order to act. No action was possible. Thought is the tool by which one makes a choice. No choice was left to him. Thought sets one's purpose and the way to reach it. In the matter of his life being torn piece by piece out of him, he was to have no voice, no purpose, no way, no defense.

all claim to an individual taste is bad taste

Be it a highwayman who confronts a traveler with the ultimatum: 'Your money or your life,' or a politician who confronts a country with the ultimatum: 'Your children's education or your life,' the meaning of that ultimatum is: 'Your mind or your life'—and neither is possible to man without the other. "If there are degrees

I have, let's say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I've chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I'm only condemning myself to sixty years of torture.

No, you do not have to live; it is your basic act of choice; but if you choose to live, you must live as a man—by the work and the judgment of your mind.

That's the sort of thing I want you to understand. To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul—would you understand why that's much harder?

Trato con los hombres como lo requiere mi naturaleza y la de ellos: por medio de la razón. No busco ni deseo nada de ellos, excepto aquellas relaciones que ellos quieren iniciar por su propia y voluntaria elección.

Puesto que el conocimiento, el pensamiento y la acción racional son propiedades del individuo, y puesto que la elección de ejercer o no su facultad racional depende de él, la supervivencia del hombre requiere que quienes piensan no sufran las injerencias de quienes no piensan.

Puesto que los hombres no son ni omniscientes ni infalibles, deben ser libres para estar de acuerdo o en desacuerdo, para cooperar o para seguir su propio camino independiente, cada uno según su propio juicio racional. La libertad es el requisito fundamental de la mente del hombre.

entonces los que se odian a sí mismos y los que odian la vida, sólo conciben una única forma equivalente al amor: la destrucción. Lillian lo había elegido por lo mejor de sus virtudes.

And now, sitting here in our tunnel, we wonder about these words. It is forbidden, not to be happy.

In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort.