“Living is a constant process of deciding what we are going to do.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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José Ortega Y Gasset photo
José Ortega Y Gasset 85
Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist 1883–1955

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Context: Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

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“And therefore when we go to investigate we shouldn’t pre-decide what it is we are trying to do except to find out more about it”

Source: No Ordinary Genius (1994), p. 251-252, from interview in "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" (1981): video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEwUwWh5Xs4&t=45m21s
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“This enterprise was doomed, but we do what we can and do what we must. So a young farmer with wife and children decides to go home. Good! He shows a sense that you and I will never understand.”

Source: Drenai series, Legend, Pt 1: Against the Horde, Ch. 23
Context: This enterprise was doomed, but we do what we can and do what we must. So a young farmer with wife and children decides to go home. Good! He shows a sense that you and I will never understand. They will sing songs about us, but he will ensure that there are people to sing them. He plants. We destroy.

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“You can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.”

Free Will
Variant: You can do what you decide to do—but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.

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