1962, Address at Independence Hall
Context: The necessity for comity between the National Government and the several States is an indelible lesson of our long history. Because our system is designed to encourage both differences and dissent, because its checks and balances are designed to preserve the rights of the individual and the locality against preeminent central authority, you and I, Governors, recognize how dependent we both are, one upon the other, for the successful operation of our unique and happy form of government. Our system and our freedom permit the legislative to be pitted against the executive, the State against the Federal Government, the city against the countryside, party against party, interest against interest, all in competition or in contention one with another. Our task — your task in the State House and my task in the White House — is to weave from all these tangled threads a fabric of law and progress. We are not permitted the luxury of irresolution. Others may confine themselves to debate, discussion, and that ultimate luxury — free advice. Our responsibility is one of decision — for to govern is to choose.
Source: The Courage to Create (1975), Ch. 5 : The Delphic Oracle as Therapist, p. 100
2013, Cape Town University Address (June 2013)
Context: We always have the opportunity to choose our better history. We can always understand that most important decision -- the decision we make when we find our common humanity in one another. That’s always available to us, that choice. [... ] it can be heard in the confident voices of young people like you. It is that spirit, that innate longing for justice and equality, for freedom and solidarity -- that’s the spirit that can light the way forward. It's in you.
“What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice.”
“The Day Before the Revolution” p. 272 (originally published in Galaxy, August 1974)
Short fiction, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (1975)
Speech to Conservative Party Conference (10 October 1970), quoted in John Campbell, Edward Heath (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993), p. 310.
Prime Minister
“To govern is to choose. To appear to be unable to choose is to appear to be unable to govern.”
Quoted in the Daily Mail (London, 26 March 1991), as cited in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0231071949, ed. Robert Andrews, Columbia University Press (1993), p. 381
1993 Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings. As quoted in: Olivia Waxman (August 2, 2018): Ruth Bader Ginsburg Wishes This Case Had Legalized Abortion Instead of Roe v. Wade. In: Time Magazine. Archived https://web.archive.org/web/20220527151841/https://time.com/5354490/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade/ from [hhttps://time.com/5354490/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade/ the original] on May 27, 2022. As quoted in: Louise Melling (Deputy Legal Director and Director of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Center for Liberty, ACLU) (September 23, 2020): For Justice Ginsburg, Abortion Was About Equality. In: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Archived https://web.archive.org/web/20220527144342/https://www.aclu.org/news/reproductive-freedom/for-justice-ginsburg-abortion-was-about-equality from the original https://www.aclu.org/news/reproductive-freedom/for-justice-ginsburg-abortion-was-about-equality on May 27, 2022.
1990s
Quoted in Ronald Tiersky, "François Mitterrand: A Very French President" (2003) Page 85 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LiHLZQ6XtzEC&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=to+govern+is+to+choose+pierre+mendes+france&source=bl&ots=SctLjoa1a2&sig=4UCVpBCY1yTXjQ6ZI2syDlt5Flw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vq56UJuQJLOq0AWQ-oGIBw&sqi=2&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=to%20govern%20is%20to%20choose%20pierre%20mendes%20france&f=false
Possibility http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/possibility-3/
From the poems written in English
p. 68 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89009314162&view=1up&seq=72
Determinism or Free-will? (1912)
