“The measure of information to be developed here will also be related to freedom of choice; that is, it will be a function of the probabilities of choice associated with the alternative courses of action… The measure developed here is a function of m, the number of alternative potential courses of action.”

“The formal structure of a decision problem in any area can be put into four parts: ( 1 ) the choice of an objective function denning the relative desirability of different outcomes; (2) specification of the policy alternatives which are available to the agent, or decisionmaker, (3) specification of the model, that is, empirical relations that link the objective function, or the variables that enter into it, with the policy alternatives and possibly other variables; and (4) computational methods for choosing among the policy alternatives that one which performs best as measured by the objective function.”

“All power is the same. Magic. Physical strength. Economic strength. Political strength. It all serves a single purpose-it gives its possessor a broader spectrum of choices. It creates alternative courses of action.”

“I have given you the power of choice, and you only alternate
Between futile speculation and unconsidered action.”

“For every failure, there's an alternative
course of action. You just have to find it.
When you come to a roadblock,
take a detour.”

“A good plan will therefore include alternative actions, the choice between them being left open until the passage of time indicates which is feasible and which is not.”

“While they create a way of seeing and suggest a way of acting, they also tend to create ways of not seeing, and eliminate the possibility of actions associated with alternative views of the world.”

“Those two, in paradise, were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.”

“Nonsatiation (Smith, 1976a). Given a costless choice be ween two alternatives which differ only in that the first yields more of the reward medium (e. g., currency) than the second, the first will always be chosen (preferred) over the second by an autonomous individual, i. e., utility U(M) is a monotone increasing function of the reward medium.”

“The art of measuring, as precisely as possible, probabilities of things, with the goal that we would be able always to choose or follow in our judgments and actions that course, which will have been determined to be better, more satisfactory, safer or more advantageous.”