Quotes about choice
page 14

““Can you read?”
I nodded.
“Rules are posted over there. You got two choices. Obey them. Or be dead.””

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 28, “To the Barrowland” (p. 576)

“The choice among these alternatives in any given case depends on the degree of difficulty consumers have in making the choice unaided, and on the consequences of errors of judgment. It its the general social consensus, clearly, that the laissez-faire solution for medicine is intolerable. The certification proposal never seems to have been discussed seriously.”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

Kenneth Arrow, "Uncertainty and The Welfare Economics of Medical Care", The American Economic Review(1953)
1950s-1960s

Error, Dependency

“Overconsumption by US citizens, US buy-outs of foreign companies and dollars the Pentagon spends abroad all end up in foreign central banks. These governments face a hard choice: either recycle the dollars back to America by buying US Treasury bonds or let the “free market” force up their currencies relative to the dollar – thereby pricing their exports out of world markets, creating domestic unemployment and business failures. US-style free markets hook them into a system that forces them to accept unlimited dollars. Now they want out. … The US is the world’s largest debtor, yet has avoided the pain of “structural adjustments” imposed on other debtor nations. US interest rate and tax reductions in the face of exploding trade and budget deficits are seen as the height of hypocrisy in view of the austerity programmes that Washington has forced on other countries via the International Monetary Fund and other vehicles.”

Michael Hudson (economist) (1939) American economist

Washington cannot call all the shots http://michael-hudson.com/2009/06/washington-cannot-call-all-the-shots/ (June 14, 2009) Michael-Hudson.com, 1998-

Pain, World, Failure, Business

“The partisan situation in the Italian theater, particularly central Italy, has deteriorated to such an extent that it constitutes a serious danger to troops, supply lines, war industry and economic potential. The fight against the partisans must be carried out with all means at our disposal and with utmost severity. I will protect any commander who exceeds our usual restraint in the choice of methods in executing one's orders is better than failure or neglect to act.”

Albert Kesselring (1885–1960) German Luftwaffe Generalfeldmarschall during World War II

June 17, 1944. Quoted in "Mussolini: The Last 600 Days of Il Duce" - Page 131 - by Ray Moseley - History - 2004.

War, Failure, Fight

“I had no option to turn down the (Vice Premiership) appointment or make other choices as the country needs me at a time when it is facing the most trying challenge it ever has faced.”

Eric Chu (1961) Taiwanese politician

Eric Chu (2009) cited in " Chu said he could not turn down appointment http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2009/09/08/223721/Chu-said.htm" on The China Post, 8 September 2009.

Time, Country

“In the basic case, where the person is concerned with the dispositional properties of his surrounding environment, the choice is between external attribution and internal (self) attribution.”

Fritz Heider (1896–1988) German psychologist

Source: The psychology of interpersonal relations, 1958, p. 194

Personality

“Pascal suggests that people avoid looking inwards and keep running in the vain hope of escaping a face-to-face encounter with their predicament, which is to face up to their utter insignificance whenever they recall the infinity of the universe. And he censures them and castigates them for doing so. It is, he says, that morbid inclination to hassle around rather than stay put which ought to be blamed for all unhappiness. One could, however, object that Pascal, even if only implicitly, does not present us with the choice between a happy and an unhappy life, but between two kinds of unhappiness: whether we choose to run or stay put, we are doomed to be unhappy. The only (putative and misleading!) advantage of being on the move (as long as we keep moving) is that we postpone for a while the moment of that truth. This is, many would agree, a genuine advantage of running out of rather than staying in our rooms—and most certainly it is a temptation difficult to resist. And they will choose to surrender to that temptation, allow themselves to be allured and seduced—if only because as long as they remain seduced they will manage to stave off the danger of discovering the compulsion and addiction that prompts them to run, screened by what is called “freedom of choice” or “self-assertion.””

Zygmunt Bauman (1925–2017) Polish philosopher and sociologist

But, inevitably, they will end up longing for the virtues they once possessed but have now abandoned for the sake of getting rid of the agony which practicing them, and taking responsibility for that practice, might have caused.
Source: The Art of Life (2008), p. 37.

Life, Happiness, People, Truth

“Whether nature gives me a right, or whether God, the people's choice, etc., does so, all of that is the same foreign right, a right that I do not give or take to myself. Thus the Communists say, equal labour entitles man to equal enjoyment. […] No, equal labour does not entitle you to it, but equal enjoyment alone entitles you to equal enjoyment. Enjoy, then you are entitled to enjoyment. But, if you have laboured and let the enjoyment be taken from you, then – ‘it serves you right.’ If you take the enjoyment, it is your right; if, on the contrary, you only pine for it without laying hands on it, it remains as before, a, ‘well-earned right’ of those who are privileged for enjoyment. It is their right, as by laying hands on it would become your right.”

Max Stirner book The Ego and Its Own

Cambridge 1995, p. 170, 171
The Ego and Its Own (1844)

God, People, Nature

“When I was working at Planned Parenthood I was extremely pro-choice, I would say there was a definite conversion in my heart… a spiritual conversion. Every meeting that we had was, "We don't have enough money, we don't have enough money — we've got to keep these abortions coming," It's a very lucrative business and that's why they want to increase numbers.”

Abby Johnson (activist)

Planned Parenthood Director Quits After Watching Abortion on Ultrasound http://www.foxnews.com/us/2009/11/02/planned-parenthood-director-quits-watching-abortion-ultrasound.html (November 2, 2009)

Money, Business, Heart

“When conflicted between two choices, take neither.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 71

“I fight against the ‘choice’ vs. born that way. I studied the science being genetic, or hormonal. Either way, it’s an abberation”

Katrina Pierson (1976) Political spokesperson

Twitter, March 1, 2012 https://twitter.com/KatrinaPierson/status/175067688803119104

Way, Study, Science, Fight

“To desire and strive to be of some service to the world, to aim at doing something which shall really increase the happiness and welfare and virtue of mankind,—this is a choice which is possible for all of us; and surely it is a good haven to sail for. The more we think of it, the more attractive and desirable it becomes. To do some work that is needed, and to do it thoroughly well; to make our toil count for something in adding to the sum total of what is actually profitable for humanity; to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before, or, better still, to make one wholesome idea take root in a mind that was bare and fallow; to make our example count for something on the side of honesty and cheerfulness, and courage, and good faith, and love - this is an aim for life which is very wide, and yet very definite, as clear as light. It is not in the least vague. It is only free; it has the power to embody itself in a thousand forms without changing its character. Those who seek it know what it means, however it may be expressed. It is real and genuine and satisfying. There is nothing beyond it, because there can be no higher practical result of effort. It is the translation, through many languages, of the true, divine purpose of all the work and labor that is done beneath the sun, into one final, universal word. It is the active consciousness of personal harmony with the will of God who worketh hitherto.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

Source: Ships and Havens https://archive.org/stream/shipshavens00vand#page/28/mode/2up/search/more+we+think+of+it (1897), p.27

Love, Life, God, Happiness

“The Administration says then, there are no downsides or upsides to treating terrorists like civilian criminal defendants.But a lot of us would beg to differ. For example, there are questions we would've liked this foreign terrorist to answer before he lawyered up and invoked our US constitutional right to remain silence. Our US constitutional rights. Our rights that you, sir [addressing veteran in audience], fought and were willing to die for to protect in our Constitution. The rights that my son, as an infantryman in the United States Army, is willing to die for. The protections provided — thanks to you, sir! — we're gonna bestow them on a terrorist who hates our Constitution?! And tries to destroy our Constitution and our country. This makes no sense because we have a choice in how we're going to deal with a terrorist — we don't have to go down that road.There are questions that we would have liked answered before he lawyered up, like, "Where exactly were you trained and by whom? You—you're braggin' about all these other terrorists just like you — uh, who are they? When and where will they try to strike next?" The events surrounding the Christmas Day plot reflect the kind of thinking that led to September 11th. That threat — the threat, then, as the U. S. S. Cole was attacked, our embassies were attacked, it was treated like an international crime spree, not like an act of war. We're seeing that mindset again settle into Washington. That scares me, for my children and for your children. Treating this like a mere law enforcement matter places our country at grave risk. Because that's not how radical Islamic extremists are looking at this. They know we're at war. And to win that war, we need a commander-in-chief, not a perfesser of law standing at the lectern!”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

National Tea Party Convention keynote speech, Nashville, Tennessee, , quoted in
regarding President Obama
2014

Hate, War, Children, Law

“I am not saying that a female-dominated or Amazon society based on the oppression of men is any more "just" than is a male-dominated society based on the oppression of women. I am merely pointing out in what ways it is better for women.Perhaps someday a choice between forms of injustice will not be necessary.”

Phyllis Chesler (1940) Psychotherapist, college professor, and author

Women and Madness (2005), p. 338 (emphasis in original), and see Women and Madness (1972), pp. 287–288 (similar text).
Women and Madness (1972, 2005)

Women, Men, Way

“For a large number of problems there will be some animal of choice or a few such animals on which it can be most conveniently studied.”

August Krogh (1874–1949) Danish physiologist

A. Krogh (1929). The progress of physiology, American Journal of Physiology 90:243–251.
See Krogh Principle
Famously quoted by an important microbiologist in: Krebs H. A. (1975). The August Krogh Principle: "For many problems there is an animal on which it can be most conveniently studied." Journal of Experimental Zoology 194:221–226.

Problem, Study, Animals

“For heaven's sake enjoy life. Don't cry over things that were or things that aren't. Enjoy what you have now to the fullest. In all honesty you really only have two choices; you can like what you do OR you can dislike it. I choose to like it and what fun I have had. The other choice is no fun and people do not want to be around a whiner. We can always find people who are worse off and we don't have to look far! Help them and forget self!
I would certainly say, above all, seek God. He will come to you if you look. There is absolutely NO down side.”

Barbara Bush (1925–2018) former First Lady of the United States

Source: Barbara Bush: A Memoir (1994), p. 531

Life, God, People, Help

“True there has been more talk of peace since 1945 than, I should think, at any other time in history. At least we hear more and read more about it because man's words, for good or ill, can now so easily reach the millions.
Very often the words are good and even inspiring, the embodiment of our hopes and our prayers for peace. But while we all pray for peace, we do not always, as free citizens, support the policies that make for peace or reject those which do not. We want our own kind of peace, brought about in our own way.
The choice, however, is as clear now for nations as it was once for the individual: peace or extinction. The life of states cannot, any more than the life of individuals, be conditioned by the force and the will of a unit, however powerful, but by the consensus of a group, which must one day include all states. Today the predatory state, or the predatory group of states, with power of total destruction, is no more to be tolerated than the predatory individual.”

Lester B. Pearson (1897–1972) 14th Prime Minister of Canada

The Four Faces of Peace (1957)

Life, Peace, Hope, Way

“Now that I'm a free agent I mean to make my own choices, and explain them to nobody if that’s what pleases me.”

James Blish book A Case of Conscience

Source: A Case of Conscience (1958), Chapter 17 (p. 206)

“We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, what the French call his donnée; our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it. Naturally I do not mean that we are bound to like it or find it interesting: in case we do not our course is perfectly simple — to let it alone. We may believe that of a certain idea even the most sincere novelist can make nothing at all, and the event may perfectly justify our belief; but the failure will have been a failure to execute, and it is in the execution that the fatal weakness is recorded. If we pretend to respect the artist at all we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions, and some of the most interesting experiments of which it is capable are hidden in the bosom of common things.”

Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic

The Art of Fiction http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/artfiction.html (1884)

Art, Exercises, Idea, Failure

“Every time you make the hard, correct decision you become a bit more courageous and every time you make the easy, wrong decision you become a bit more cowardly. If you are CEO, these choices will lead to a courageous or cowardly company.”

Ben Horowitz (1966) American businessman

Fortune: "Ben Horowitz: There's a fine line between fear and courage" http://fortune.com/2011/08/05/ben-horowitz-theres-a-fine-line-between-fear-and-courage/ (5 August 2011)

Courage, Decision, Time

“Personal responsibility is a big idea about which little is known. It has received far less study than other key conservative tenets, like economic choice. This lack of attention is striking because personal responsibility is a defining assumption in American thought.”

Mark Riebling (1963) American writer

Personal Responsibility: How the Framers coined a phrase as they created a nation (2010)

Idea, Study, Personality

“What struck me at the League was the prestige in which our Government and our Prime Minister are held. What has struck hon. Members who have listened to this Debate is the fact that public opinion in the dictator countries has conceived a profound admiration for our Prime Minister and our country. Our country, therefore, is the country which is in a priceless position for securing the future of peace…It seems to me that we have two choices either to settle our differences with Germany by consultation, or to face the inevitability of a clash between the two systems of democracy and dictatorship. In considering this, I must emphatically give my opinion as one of the younger generation. War settles nothing, and I see no alternative to the policy upon which the Prime Minister has so courageously set himself—the construction of peace, with the aid which I have described. There is no other country which can achieve this, and I ask hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite sincerely to believe that in our efforts to understand, to consult with and, if possible, to get friendship with Germany, we do not abandon by one jot or tittle the democratic beliefs which are the very core of our whole being and system. In conclusion, I must gratify the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield by quoting Shakespeare. The right hon. Gentleman will remember the little poem "Under the Greenwood Tree"—"Here shall he see" "No enemy," "But winter and rough weather."”

Rab Butler (1902–1982) British politician

We have the winter before us, and we have a great deal of political rough weather, but in that rough weather, do not let us forget the joint idea of peace which animates us all. Speech on the Munich Agreement http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1938/oct/05/policy-of-his-majestys-government (5 October 1938).

Friendship, War, Peace, Quotes

“A version of the old fable about the king's nakedness may be helpful here. Public choice is like the small boy who said that the king really has no clothes. Once he said this, everyone recognized that the king's nakedness had been recognized, but that no-one had really called attention to this fact.”

James M. Buchanan (1919–2013) American economist

Public Choice: The Origins and Development of a Research Program (2003)

Boy, Help, Clothes

“It's a public library. If you don't like the book, magazine, CD-ROM or film, put it down and pick up something else. Libraries provide choice. Our responsibility is to have in our collection a broad range of ideas and information.”

Judith Krug (1940–2009) librarian and freedom of speech proponent

" Oak Lawn Library Vows to Keep Playboy on Shelf http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2005-06-23/news/0506230234_1_library-board-president-library-officials-magazine" by Jo Napolitano, Chicago Tribune (June 23, 2005)

Books, Idea

“I was always bothered by the idea of hitting a beautiful, living, innocent animal over the head, cutting him up into pieces, then shoving the pieces into my mouth. I finally made my decision to stop eating animals when I came upon a ritual slaughter scene during a visit to Israel. My experiences in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Nazi Holocaust had a profound impact on my subsequent life choices. I felt some guilt that I lived when so many others didn't, and a sense of duty to redeem my survival by assuming their share of responsibility for making this planet a better place to live for all its inhabitants.”

Alex Hershaft (1934) American activist

"Alex Hershaft", in People Promoting and People Opposing Animal Rights: In Their Own Words, ed. John M. Kistler (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), p. 145 https://books.google.it/books?id=kIgAi6k69IQC&pg=PA145.

Life, Beauty, Idea, Decision

“So, once again, these are not political deals but an informed choice. At the same time, we need to take note of everything that happens around Russia. If some of our projects with Europe, America or others are put on ice (I'm not talking about the reasons behind this), we logically move these projects to other destinations.”

Dmitry Medvedev (1965) Russian Prime Minister and former president

cnbc.com http://www.cnbc.com/id/102088768

Time

“Please take my name off the candidate list. I’ve decided to stay in politics for good. Between the two choices of being the next king and being a politician, I will surely choose to involve myself in politics to lead Funcinpec ahead. I have decided to take to politics more than the throne. Prince Sihamoni has always supported my candidacy for the throne. I thank him for his support. But I have decided I am not a candidate. I like to be in politics.”

Norodom Ranariddh (1944) Cambodian politician

[LOR CHANDARA, https://www.cambodiadaily.com/archives/prince-opts-for-politics-not-throne-27260/, Prince Opts For Politics, Not Throne, The Cambodia Daily, 14 November 2001, 15 February 2015]</ref>

Support

“Humankind is made for uncertainty, struggle, choice and change.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Amys
(15 September 1992)

Change

“I believe that the nature of man is a contradiction rooted in the conditions of human existence that requires a search for solutions, which in their turn create new contradictions and now the need for answers.
I believe that every answer to these contradictions can really satisfy the condition of helping man to overcome the sense of separation and to achieve a sense of agreement, of unity, and of belonging.
I believe that in every answer to these contradictions, man has the possibility of choosing only between going forward or going back; these choices, which are translated into specific actions, are means toward the regressing or toward the progressing of the humanity that is in us.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Credo (1965)

Search, Nature, Sense, Help

“While we call role models 'leaders', most 'leaders' are really followers. Most 'leaders' follow their bribes. And we are the people who offer the bribes. We in essence give men two bribes to risk their lives: pay and praise… A man who self-selects for a death profession expects his body to be used in exchange for pay. The unspoken motto of the death professions is 'My body, not my choice.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 40.

Death, Men, People

“He wants only the simple things: a chair,
someone to pull off his shoes, someone to watch him
while he talks, with admiration and fear, gratitude if
possible, someone in whom to plunge himself for rest
and renewal. These things can best be had by marrying
a woman who has been condemned to death by other
men for wishing to be beautiful. There is a wide
choice.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Selected Poems 1976-1986 (1987), Marrying the Hangman

Death, Men, Fear, Beauty

“Nobody really wants to spend life with someone who has no other choice, and children who have been raised by a mother who gave up her life for them almost always spend years on an analyst's couch learning to spit in her eye.”

Merle Shain (1935–1989) Canadian writer

Some Men are More Perfect Than Others (1973)

Life, Children, Learning

“Given the nature and reach of our enemies, we will win this conflict by the patient accumulation of successes, by meeting a series of challenges with determination and will and purpose. Today we focus on Afghanistan, but the battle is broader. Every nation has a choice to make. In this conflict, there is no neutral ground. If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocence, they have become outlaws and murderers themselves. And they will take that lonely path at their own peril.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, Invasion of Afghanistan (October 2001)

Nature, Success

“Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter — but beautiful — struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (1967)

Life, Men, God, World

“One day you think you never even made a choice and then you have to make one, even a wrong one, just so you're sure you're still able. And once that's over, you can go back and be happy again with what you were before you started worrying.”

Richard Ford (1944) American novelist and short story writer

Source: A Piece of My Heart (1976), p. 276

Happiness, Thinking

“The U. S. have no choice, other than to gamble. Which could mean they'll be hit by another counter or two. Bradley. Chipped forward, and look at this! It's Julian Green! Would you believe it? The youngster, gives the U. S. hope! Extraordinary! Two, one! The teenager comes up trumps!”

Ian Darke (1950) British association football and boxing commentator

Belgium v. United States http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=ZYFWEdYReHk#Every_USA_World_Cup_Goal (1 July 2014). 2010s, 2014, 2014 FIFA World Cup

Hope

“Numerous are the academic chairs, but rare are wise and noble teachers. Numerous and large are the lecture halls, but far from numerous the young men who genuinely thirst for truth and justice. Numerous are the wares that nature produces by the dozen, but her choice products are few.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Zahlreich sind die Lehrkanzeln, aber selten die weisen und edlen Lehrer. Zahlreich und groß sind die Hörsäle, doch wenig zahlreich die jungen Menschen, die ehrlich nach Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit dürsten. Zahlreich spendet die Natur ihre Dutzendware, aber das Feinere erzeugt sie selten.
1930s, Mein Weltbild (My World-view) (1931)

Men, Truth, Justice, Nature

“Elliott: "Do you want to hear a happy or a sad song?"Crowd: "Happy!"Elliott: "Old or new?"Crowd: "Old!"Elliott: "Happy and old, that's a strange choice."”

Elliott Smith (1969–2003) American singer-songwriter

Lyrics, New Moon (posthumous, 2007)

Happiness, Sadness

“I'm a frustrated patriot. I'm not a politician. I'm not savvy with radio and TV. But I believe I can make a change, and that's what I'm here for. I'm here to give people a third choice.”

Scott Ashjian (1963) American businessman

[Jourdan, Kristi, Tea Party hopeful - gives voters third choice, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1B, March 8, 2010]

People, Change

“You have a choice: pursue your dreams or be hired by someone else to help them fulfill their dreams.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Source: Disrupt You! (2015), p. 7

Dreams, Help

“My gift to you will be to take away your freedom of choice for a while. Freedom can be very unhealthy and unproductive. Instead, you’ll have freedom from choice.”

Amanda Filipacchi book Vapor

Vapor (1999)

Freedom

“It was now, I thought, high time to think earnestly of getting into good practice as a physician. I followed, in order to effect this, my own method; I cared not for criticism; good luck attended me; I was successful in many cases given up by others as hopeless. My father watched me now closely, but let me have free sway; he felt great pleasure at my success, and would now and then say, "Well done, my boy;" but nevertheless entreated of me not to offend a certain great personage; which, however, I frankly confessed I had already done, not caring much about it, as it was my intention not to stay in Celle. I wanted a greater sphere of action. My father's weakness and infirmity increased daily, which prevented him from visiting his patients, and determined him to give up altogether his practice, and to retire from a profession in which, during many years, he had so nobly done his duty; he informed his patients of it, telling them that they were perfectly free and at liberty to take the advice of his son, or any other physician, thereby insinuating, that in their choice they must not suffer themselves to be influenced by their feelings of friendship and regard towards him. Almost all his patients honoured me with their confidence.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Friendship, Pleasure, Feeling, Confidence

“Why am I compelling to write? Because te writing saves me from this complacency I fear. Because I have no choice. Because I must keep the spirit of my revolt and myself alive. Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. I write because life does not appaese my appetites and hunger.”

Gloria E. Anzaldúa (1942–2004) Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory

Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers, from This Bridge Called My Back

Life, Hunger, World, Fear

“We almost always have choices, and the better the choice, the more we will be in control of our lives.”

William Glasser (1925–2013) American psychiatrist

Choice Theory (1997)

“The urn model is to be the expression of three postulates: (1) the constancy of a probability distribution, ensured by the solidity of the vessel, (2) the randomcharacter of the choice, ensured by the narrowness of the mouth, which is to prevent visibility of the contents and any consciously selective choice, (3) the independence of successive choices, whenever the drawn balls are put back into the urn. Of course in abstract probability and statistics the word " choice " can be avoided and all can be done without any reference to such a model. But as soon as the abstract theory is to be applied, random choice plays an essential role.”

Hans Freudenthal (1905–1990) Dutch mathematician

Source: The Concept and the Role of the Model in Mathematics and Natural and Social Sciences (1961), p. 80; Cited in: Lev D. Beklemishev (2000) Provability, Computability and Reflection. p. 9

Success

“You marvel at the economy and this choice of words. How many ways can you describe the sky and the moon? After Sylvia Plath, what can you say?”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

On British mystery writer Ruth Rendell, The New York Times (6 October 2005)

Way

“My choice of colors does not rest on any scientific theory; it is based on observation, on feeling, on the very nature of each experience. I.... merely try to find a color that will fit my sensation. There is an impelling proportion of tones that can induce me to change the shape of a figure or to transform my composition. Until I have achieved this proportion in all the parts of the composition I strive towards it and keep on working. Then a moment comes when every part has found its definite relationship, and from then on it would be impossible for me to add a stroke to my picture without having to paint it all over again.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

Source: 1905 - 1910, Notes d'un Peintre' (Notes of a Painter) (1908), p. 412

Color, Feeling, Nature, Change

“Secularism per se is a doctrine which arose in the modem West as a revolt against the closed creed of Christianity. Its battle-cry was that the State should be freed from the stranglehold of the Church, and the citizen should be left to his own individual choice in matters of belief. And it met with great success in every Western democracy. Had India borrowed this doctrine from the modem West, it would have meant a rejection of the closed creeds of Islam and Christianity, and a promotion of the Sanatana Dharma family of faiths which have been naturally secularist in the modern Western sense. But what happened actually was that Secularism in India became the greatest protector of closed creeds which had come here in the company of foreign invaders, and kept tormenting the national society for several centuries.
We should not, therefore, confuse India's Secularism with its namesake in the modern West. The Secularism which Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru propounded and which has prospered in post-independence India, is a new concoction and should be recognized as such. We need not bother about its various definitions as put forward by its pandits. We shall do better if we have a close look at its concrete achievements.
Going by those achievements, one can conclude quite safely that Nehruvian Secularism is a magic formula for transmitting base metals into twenty-four carat gold. How else do we explain the fact of Islam becoming a religion, and that too a religion of tolerance, social equality, and human brotherhood; or the fact of Muslim rule in medieval India becoming an indigenous dispensation; or the fact of Muhammad bin Qasim becoming a liberator of the toiling masses in Sindh; or the fact of Mahmud Ghaznavi becoming the defreezer of productive wealth hoarded in Hindu temples; or the fact of Muhammad Ghuri becoming the harbinger of an urban revolution; or the fact of Muinuddin Chishti becoming the great Indian saint; or the fact of Amir Khusru becoming the pioneer of communal amity; or the fact of Alauddin Khilji becoming the first socialist in the annals of this country; or the fact of Akbar becoming the father of Indian nationalism; or the fact of Aurangzeb becoming the benefactor of Hindu temples; or the fact of Sirajuddaula, Mir Qasim, Hyder Ali, Tipu Sultan, and Bahadur Shah Zafar becoming the heroes of India's freedom struggle against British imperialism or the fact of the Faraizis, the Wahabis, and the Moplahs becoming peasant revolutionaries and foremost freedom fighters?
One has only to go to the original sources in order to understand the true character of Islam and its above-mentioned luminaries. And one can see immediately that their true character has nothing to do with that with which they have been invested in our school and college text-books. No deeper probe is needed for unraveling the mysteries of Nehruvian Secularism.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Tipu Sultan - Villain or Hero (1993)

Books, School, Family, Faith

“Professional partisans are still playing politics by industrial-age rules. They haven’t woken up to the information-age reality. Younger generations have grown up with a multiplicity of choice on every front, which can be tailored to suit their individual beliefs. Politics is the last place where we are supposed to be satisfied with a choice between Brand A and Brand B.”

John Avlon (1973) American journalist

Six Questions for John Avlon, May 16th, 2010, The Economist http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/05/john_avlon_interview,

Age, Reality

“Merciful God, thou dost not answer me!
I made my choice on earth, and now my heart
Has no asylum. Ye decide for me,
And such a destiny is best.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Last Song of Corinne
Translations, From the French

God, Heart

“Although the loose will be more loose (yet) possibly being at more liberty they may be put upon consideration and choice of ways of life and peace, yet, however, it is infinitely better that the profane and loose be unmasked than to be muffled up under the veil and hood of traditional hypocrisy, which turns and dulls the very edge of all conscience either toward God or man.”

Roger Williams (theologian) (1603–1684) English Protestant theologian and founder of the colony of Providence Plantation

The Hireling Ministry, None of Christ's (1652)

Life, God, Peace, Way

“Is it possible that he has already abandoned all hope of getting re-elected? Or does he plan to cancel the Election altogether by declaring a national military emergency with terrorists closing in from all sides, leaving him with no choice but to launch a huge bomb immediately?... Desperate men do desperate things, and stupid men do stupid things. We are in for a desperately stupid summer.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

"Bush's Disturbing Sleeping Disorder" (18 February 2004)
2000s

Men, Stupidity, Hope, Summer

“We believe that, in order to understand contemporary economic decision making, we need to supplement the study of market factors with an examination of the internal operation of the firm – to study the effects of organizational structure and conventional practice on the developments of goals, the formation of expectations, and the execution of choices.”

Richard Cyert (1921–1998) American economist

Source: A behavioral theory of the firm, 1959, p. 1

Understanding, Decision, Study

“Our military and our nation are entering another period of consequences – a time of rapid change and momentous choices.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

1990s, A Period of Consequences (September 1999)

Change, Time

“And we feel that the hero has lived all the details of this night like annunciations, promises, or even that he lived only those that were promises, blind and deaf to all that did not herald adventure. We forget that the future was not yet there; the man was walking in the night without forethought, a night which offered him a choice of dull rich prizes, and he did not make his choice.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Diary entry of Saturday noon (10 February?)
Nausea (1938)

Feeling, Future, Night, Forgetting

“Any time a woman's sexuality is used to her own advantage, it can be incredibly divisive. It depends on HOW exactly they found it to be sexist. Towards women? I totally disagree. Navaar was very much in control of her choices and her sisters; she wasn't being exploited by anyone. If a woman chooses to wield her sexuality as a tool, that choice is hers alone. Sexism is the discrimination against a person based upon gender. If anybody was sexist, it was Navaar, who assumed the men were weaker and vulnerable because of their nature as men.”

Cyia Batten (1972) American actress

Enterprise's Orion Slave Girls https://www.startrek.com/article/enterprises-orion-slave-girls-part-2 (March 17, 2017)

Women, Men, Nature, Sister

“The Darwinians have coined the terms pseudoteleology and teleonomy to designate the finality which they at the same time deny. Appearances are deceptive, they say; the materials of life are always the work of chance. What some take for finality is only the result of the ordering of random materials bynatural selection. Even were this to be true, as it is not, the demon of finility would still not have been exorcized. For natural selection is, in essence and function, the supreme finilizing agent. Actually, the terms pseudoteleology and teleonomy are the homage paid to finality, as hypocrisy pays homage to virtue. Giard (1905), himself a shrewd scholar but blinded by a foolish anticlericalism, went so far as to abjure Lamarckism and write, "To account for the wondrous adaptations such as those we observe between orchids and the insects that fertilize them, we have hardly any choice but the bare alternative hypotheses: the intervention of a sovereignly intelligent being, and selection." He cannot have seriously subjected his supposed dilemma to critical scrutiny or he would have seen that he was substituting for the dethroned divinity just such another, a sorting and finalizing, in sum transcendental, agent, natural selection. Paul Wintrebert, a convinced and even intractable atheist, did not fall into the same trap but realized perfectly that Giard's alternative involves, whatever opinion be held, recognizing the intervention of a purposive guiding agent. Giard's concept, which is that held by many atheists and "freethinkers", gives a singular and belittling idea of God. The Almighty, obliged to remodel and retouch His own handiwork.”

Pierre-Paul Grassé (1895–1985) French zoologist

Grassé, Pierre Paul (1977); Evolution of living organisms: evidence for a new theory of transformation. Academic Press, p. 165
Evolution of living organisms: evidence for a new theory of transformation (1977)

Life, God, Intelligence, Idea

“I'm here to say there is a choice. If you want to stick to the status quo, pick the Republicans or Democrats, but don't complain. Nobody can do a better job than I can.”

Scott Ashjian (1963) American businessman

[Jourdan, Kristi, Tea Party hopeful - gives voters third choice, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1B, March 8, 2010]

“Michelle was so mature beyond her years, so thoughtful and perceptive. She really prodded me about what the job would be like because she had lots of choices. I offered it to her on the spot, which was totally inappropriate because I should have talked to the mayor first. But I just knew she was really special.
Barack never grills. That's part of what is so effective about him: He puts you completely at ease, and the next thing you know he's asking more and more probing questions and gets you to open up and reflect a little bit. That night we talked about his childhood compared to my childhood and realized we both had rather…unusual childhoods.
Married in 1983, separated in 1987, and divorced in 1988. Enough said. He was a physician. He passed away. I want to say in about 1991.
We grew up together. We were friends since childhood. In a sense, he was the boy next door. I married without really appreciating how hard divorce would be.
I have to tell you: My daughter is in seventh heaven about me being in Vogue. Nothing else I have done has fazed her at all. But this! She's like, 'Oh, Mom. You don't understand. This is really big.'
I have never heard him yell, Ever. Not once in seventeen years. He's not a yeller.
Because my dad worked at the university, he could swing by and take Laura to school and pick her up from her first day of nursery school until the day she graduated from high school. They would often have breakfast and have these wonderful conversations.”

Valerie Jarrett (1956) Chicago lawyer, businesswoman, civic leader; senior advisor to U.S. Senator Barack Obama

September 2008 interview with Vogue https://web.archive.org/web/20080930190831/http://www.style.com/vogue/feature/2008_Oct_Valerie_Jarrett//

School, Boy, Moms, Understanding

“After society has decided on a social choice rule-a recipe for choosing the optimal social alternative (or alternatives) on the basis of individuals' preferences over the set of all social alternatives-the social planner still faces the problem of how to implement that rule. In particular, the planner may not know individuals' preferences. He might attempt to elicit them, but this may not be an easy task, even abstracting from communication costs. If individuals know the rule by which the planner selects alternatives on the basis of reported preferences, they may have an incentive to report falsely.”

Eric Maskin (1950) American Nobel laureate in economics

Eric Maskin, " Nash equilibrium and welfare optimality http://emlab.whu.edu.cn/syzx/upfiles/20071108083852736.pdf." The Review of Economic Studies 66.1 (1999): 23-38.

Communication, Optimism, Problem, Falseness

“The determination of strategy also requires consideration of what alternative is preferred by the chief executive and perhaps by his immediate associates as well, quite apart from economic considerations. Personal values, aspirations, and ideals do, and in our judgement quite properly should, influence the final choice of purposes. Thus, what the executives of the company want to do must be brought into the strategic decision.”

Kenneth R. Andrews (1916–2005) Business scholar

Source: Quote, The Concept of Strategy, 1971, p. 30

Decision, Personality

“One needn't be a Christian to be pro-life. Many pro-life people aren't. But a fundamental tenet of Christian faith is the profound, inherent & equal dignity and right to life of every member of the human family. That, in the end, simply cannot be squared with the pro-choice view.”

Robert P. George (1955) American legal scholar

Twitter post https://twitter.com/McCormickProf/status/941035451904856064 (13 December 2017) 2017

Life, People, Family, Faith

“It was painful for me several years ago when several friends were arrested. I said nothing. I didn’t want to lose my job or my freedom. I worried about my family.
I have made a different choice now. I have left my home, my family and my job, and I am raising my voice. To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison. I can speak when so many cannot. I want you to know that Saudi Arabia has not always been as it is now. We Saudis deserve better.”

Jamal Khashoggi (1958–2018) Saudi Arabian journalist

"Saudi Arabia wasn’t always this repressive. Now it’s unbearable." in The Washington Post (18 September 2017)

Pain, Family, Home, Freedom

“In a fundamental sense, Alchian's theory of economic organizations is different from those of Coase or Simon. He disavows an explicit model of individual choice… and… offers a system-level explanation of organizational emergence, structure, and survival that is largely independent of decision making at the micro level… Yet it is precisely this independence of a distinct model of choice that ultimately renders it compatible with the individualistic theories of both Coase and Simon….
Whether individuals optimize under uncertainty or satisfice under the more limiting conditions of bounded rationality…, Alchian's logic of natural selection, when grafted onto either approach, provides a powerful means of deriving and integrating expectations about individuals, organizations and systems. The result in either case is an approach that gains in scope and coherence, and that does so by remaining true to its underlying model of individual choice.”

Terry M. Moe (1949) American political scientist

Source: "The new economics of organization." 1984, p. 746-747; as cited in Eggertsson (1990; 56)

Optimism, Nature, Decision, Sense

“Carnism is the belief system in which eating certain animals is considered ethical and appropriate. Carnists—people who eat meat—are not the same as carnivores. Carnivores are animals that are dependent on meat to survive. … Carnists eat meat not because they need to, but because they choose to, and choices always stem from beliefs. Carnism's invisibility accounts for why choices appear not to be choices at all.”

Melanie Joy book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows

Source: Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (2010), p. 30

People, Appearance, Animals, Dependency

“The reality of a democracy is that the political party with a majority in Parliament has the mandate to run the country for a selected number of years because of popular choice - that is the nature of good democracy. "The other political parties are left as opposition parties as alternative Government.”

Manasa Tugia Fijian politician

Parliamentary speech, 5 August 2003

Democracy, Nature, Reality, Country

“Kashmir's conversion to Islam on a large scale also dates from the beginning of the fifteenth century…. However, it was during the reign of Sikandar Butshikan (1394-1417), that the wind of Muslim proselytization blew the strongest. He invited from Persia, Arabia and Mesopotamia learned men of his own faith; his bigotry prompted him to destroy all the most famous temples in Kashmir - Martand, Vishya, Isna, Chakrabhrit, Tripeshwar, etc. Sikandar offered the Kashmiris the choice between Islam and death. Some Kashmiri Brahmans committed suicide, many left the land, many others embraced Islam, and a few began to live under Taqiya, that is, they professed Islam only outwardly. It is said that the fierce intolerance of Sikandar had left in Kashmir no more than eleven families of Brahmans. …By the time of Akbar’s annexation of Kashmir (C. E. 1586) the valley had turned mainly Mohammadan. When Father Xavier and Brother Benedict went to Kashmir with Akbar this is what they learnt: “In antiquity this land was inhabited by the Moors, possibly a reference to Timur (contemporary of Sikandar the Iconoclast), and since then the majority of the people accept Islam.””

Sikandar Butshikan

When Kashmir was under Muslim rule for 500 years (1319-1819) Hindus were constantly tortured and forcibly converted.
K. S. Lal (1993). Indian Muslims: Who are they. New Delhi: Voice of India.

Death, Men, People, Family

“Animal behavior has evolved to battle parasites. In fact, we have parasites to thank for the existence of sex. Sex is a costly and time-consuming method of reproduction. Experiments have shown that, in the absence of parasites, species evolve toward parthenogenesis—or cloning—as the reproductive method of choice. In parthenogenesis each individual is able to self-replicate. But this produces almost no genetic variation. In the presence of parasites, cloning, while more energy-efficient, is not a viable reproductive strategy. It presents a stationary genetic target to parasites, who, once introduced into such a system, will quickly dominate it. …”

Daniel Suarez Daemon

Source: Daemon (2006), Chapter 31: Red Queen Hypothesis, Character: Sobol

Sex, Behavior, Time, Animals

“If one had to single out the most revolutionary novelty furnished by Qumran, its contribution to our understanding of the genesis of Jewish literary compositions could justifiably be our primary choice.”

Géza Vermès (1924–2013) British scholar

Introduction, p. 23
The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English

Understanding

“The Rhineland liberated from Prussia or eternal war. The choice is ours.”

Jacques Bainville (1879–1936) French historian and journalist

Action Française (4 September 1919), quoted in William R. Keylor, Jacques Bainville and the Renaissance of Royalist History in Twentieth-Century France (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), p. 129.

War

“I told you so. Seems like I'm out here a lot saying that to you people, right? I know it seems like a lot, but the truth is i said that i would beat Jeff, and i did. I told you so. I said that i would get rid of Jeff Hardy FOREVER, and i did. I told you so. And then i said i would make The Undertaker tap out to the Anaconda Vice, and you laughed! But then i did just that. And contrary to what you people believe, i didn't come out here to brag about becoming the first and ONLY man in history to make the Phenom, The Undertaker, tap out. I came out here to confront The Undertaker. I came out here to confront The Undertaker in MY ring, or my yard, if you will. I came out here to stick MY World Heavyweight Championship in his face, and look him in the eye, and say to him, I TOLD YOU SO! But, of course, he's conveniently not here right now, so instead, i think i'll address all of you people. It's come to my attention that you people think I have been preaching to you. Alright, we'll call a space a spade. The truth is, YES i have. Because you people need a good preaching to. You people need somebody you can look up to, you need a leader who isn't morally corrupt, and you need someone that's righteous, not self-righteous. And i know what your all gonna do next, your gonna do exactly what your hero, the Undertaker, did, your gonna give up! Hell, by the looks at half of you, you already have. I mean, what kind of life is it that you live? What kind of existence do you have where you wake up in the morning and you have to pop a pill to help crawl out of bed? And then, then you ravage your body with pitchers of beer, and that's supposed to somehow heal your broken self-worth. And then you just make excuses about inhaling poison into your lungs just to calm your nerves. And then, at the end of your sad, pathetic, lonely day, your in need of another pill to make you forget everything. You need a pill to help you sleep. (The crowd boos as Punk mouths "you make me sick") You are all just a legion of inebriated zombies, waiting in line at the pharmacy with your hand out, begging and pleading for that newest anti-depressant that you think is going to put an artificial smile on your face. You scratch and you claw for scapegoats for all of your inadequacies, and believe me, you have a LOT of inadequacies. And don't tell me that you self medicate yourself to forget about it all, don't tell me you don't self medicate to hide from all your inadequacies, don't tell me you don't do it. Because if you do, well then your a liar too. Your lying to yourself, your lying to yourselves right now. Your lying to the person next to you, you go home and you lie to your family, and it's insulting because right now your lying to ME. And i can see right through all of you people and your lies, because i am not a liar. I am a man who means what he says and says what he means. What i am is a prophet, i am the choice of a new generation, i am a champion that everybody can finally be proud of, i am the first and only straight-edge World Heavyweight Champion in history. And if your not straight-edge like me, well, that just means i'm better than you!”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

September 18, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Life, People, Truth, Lie

“Publicity is usually explained and justified as a competitive medium which ultimately benefits the public (the consumer) and the most efficient manufacturers - and thus the national economy. It is closely related to certain ideas about freedom: freedom of choice for the purchaser: freedom of enterprise for the manufacturer. The great hoardings and the publicity neons of the cities of capitalism are the immediate visible sign of "The Free World." For many in Eastern Europe such images in the West sum up what they in the East lack. Publicity, it is thought, offers a free choice.”

John Berger book Ways of Seeing

Source: Ways of Seeing (1972), p. 130

World, Idea, Freedom

“That is the nature of free will. We have the full ability to make a selection; we can press any button we please. However, when we press a button we have to take responsibility for what happens. The reaction is predestined, but is activated by our choice.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 4: Fire and Brimstone, Horns and Tail, p. 65

Nature

“Perhaps the greatest delicacy on the table of many primitive men consisted of certain choice morsels from the roasted body of a slain enemy.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 26

Men

“It is obvious that the problem of human behavior with which we are dealing can not be understood in terms of psychology or any one of the social sciences alone. Is it not possible, therefore, that in attempting to follow the problem wherever it leads us, and employing whatever concepts and research techniques are relevant, we shall be able to define the problem in such a way and develop concepts and a theoretical framework of such a nature that a major contribution will be made to the foundation for an integrated social and psychological science? Whether or not this result appears possible or attractive to present scholars in these fields, we who are studying industrial relations are forced to work in this direction. It is not a case of choice alone, but of necessity, for we can not get results satisfactory to ourselves and applicable to the solution of practical problems by employing the concepts, theories, and methods of any one science.”

E. Wight Bakke (1903–1971) American sociologist and economist (1903-1971)

E. Wight Bakke "Industrial Relations Research," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 92, no. 5, p. 379, November, 1948. As cited in: Tannenbaum, Weschler, and Massarik (1961; 8)

Way, Behavior, Nature, Problem

“In an essay 10 years ago, I pointed out that it is utterly logical for polygamy rights to follow gay rights. After all, if traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) opposite gender, and if, as advocates of gay marriage insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one's autonomous choices in love, then the first requirement — the number restriction (two and only two) — is a similarly arbitrary, discriminatory and indefensible denial of individual choice.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

2000s, 2006, Pandora and Polygamy (2006)

Love, Marriage, People

“The bourgeoisie … lets him have the appearance of acting from a free choice, of making a contract with free, unconstrained consent, as a responsible agent who has attained his majority. Fine freedom, where the proletarian has no other choice than that of either accepting the conditions which the bourgeoisie offers him, or of starving, of freezing to death, of sleeping naked among the beasts of the forests!”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

Source: The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (1845), p. 112

Death, Sleep, Freedom, Appearance

““It’s not right. A human being is a human being. A human being is not a toy.”
“We cannot help but use the people below us as a resource, my love,” said her two MOHmies, as one. “That is what it means to be in power. Your choice is to relinquish power forever, or to accept that and use people for good.”…
“If we are powerful,” sang her MOHmies, “we can make things better, but we are made unclean by the fact that we have power. If we are powerless we remain clean, but we cannot make things better.””

Adam Roberts book Jack Glass: The Story of a Murderer

Part 2, Chapter 13, “Of Multitudes” (p. 240).
Jack Glass (2012)

Love, People, Help

“At first I thought the exhaustive, nonstop coverage of the O. J. Simpson trial was just an unfortunate excess — an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. Now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time: the Michael Jackson trial and the Robert Blake trial, the Laci Peterson tragedy and the Chandra Levy tragedy, Britney and KFed, Lindsay and Paris and Nicole.
While American television watchers were collectively devoting 100 million hours of their lives each week to these and other similar stories, our nation was in the process of more quietly making what future historians will certainly describe as a series of catastrophically mistaken decisions on issues of war and peace, the global climate and human survival, freedom and barbarity, justice and fairness. For example, hardly anyone now disagrees that the choice to invade Iraq was a grievous mistake. Yet, incredibly, all of the evidence and arguments necessary to have made the right decision were available at the time and in hindsight are glaringly obvious.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, The Assault on Reason (2007)

War, Peace, Justice, Departure

“What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

“The Day Before the Revolution” p. 272 (originally published in Galaxy, August 1974)
Short fiction, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (1975)

“Good morning everyone. This past week we've seen the best and the worst of humanity. The heinous terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut, in Iraq and Nigeria. They showed us once again the depths of the terrorist's depravity. And at the same time we saw the world come together in solidarity. Parisians opening their doors to anyone trapped in the street, taxi drivers turning off their meters to get people home safety, people lining up to donate blood. These simple human acts are a powerful reminder that we cannot be broken and in the face of terror we stand as one. In the wake of these terrible events, I understand the anxiety that many Americans feel. I really do. I don't dismiss the fear of a terrorist bomb going off. There's nothing President Obama and I take more seriously though, than keeping the American people safe. In the past few weeks though, we've heard an awful lot of people suggest that the best way to keep America safe is to prevent any Syrian refugee from gaining asylum in the United States. So let's set the record straight how it works for a refugee to get asylum. Refugees face the most rigorous screening of anyone who comes to the United States. First they are finger printed, then they undergo a thorough background check, then they are interviewed by the Department of Homeland Security. And after that the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center, the Department of Defense and the Department of State, they all have to sign off on access. And to address the specific terrorism concerns we are talking about now, we've instituted another layer of checks just for Syrian refugees. There is no possibility of being overwhelmed by a flood of refugees landing on our doorstep tomorrow. Right now, refugees wait 18 to 24 months while the screening process is completed. And unlike in Europe, refugees don't set foot in the United States until they are thoroughly vetted. Let's also remember who the vast majority of these refugees are: women, children, orphans, survivors of torture, people desperately in need medical help. To turn them away and say there is no way you can ever get here would play right into the terrorists' hands. We know what ISIL - we know what they hope to accomplish. They flat-out told us. Earlier this year, the top ISIL leader al-Baghdadi revealed the true goal of their attacks. Here's what he said: "Compel the crusaders to actively destroy the gray zone themselves. Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one and two choices. Either apostatize or emigrate to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution." So it's clear. It's clear what ISIL wants. They want to manufacture a clash between civilizations. They want frightened people to think in terms of "us versus them."They want us to turn our backs on Muslims victimized by terrorism. But this gang of thugs peddling a warped ideology, they will never prevail. The world is united in our resolve to end their evil. And the only thing ISIL can do is spread terror in hopes that we will in turn, turn on ourselves. We will betray our ideals and take actions, actions motivated by fear that will drive more recruits into the arms of ISIL. That's how they win. We win by prioritizing our security as we've been doing. Refusing to compromise our fundamental American values: freedom, openness, tolerance. That's who we are. That's how we win. May God continue to bless the United States of America and God bless our troops.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Weekly presidential address http://www.c-span.org/video/?401096-1/weekly-presidential-address (21 November 2015). 2010s

Women, God, Children, People

“Everyone knows that we need to make better choices with what we eat. Football players are no different – and they’ve seen me, coming in at year fourteen, which I completely attribute to the dramatic change in my diet. Eating a more plant-based diet has allowed me to bounce back quicker, it’s helped me to stay around the NFL and still play at the high-level I play at – at a physically demanding position. I attribute everything to my diet.”

Tony Gonzalez (1976) American football and basketball player

"Q & A with Tony Gonzalez: All-Pro Football Player on Plant-Based Diet, Slow Food + More!" https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-1304/Q-A-with-Tony-Gonzalez-AllPro-Football-Player-on-PlantBased-Diet-Slow-Food-More.html, MindBodyGreen.com (August 24, 2010).

Change, Help, Football

“If the subjectivist view hold true, thinking cannot be of any help in determining the desirability of any goal in itself. The acceptability of ideals, the criteria for our actions and beliefs, the leading principles of ethics and politics, all our ultimate decisions are made to depend upon factors other than reason. They are supposed to be matters of choice and predilection, and it has become meaningless to speak of truth in making practical, moral or esthetic decisions.”

Max Horkheimer book Eclipse of Reason

Source: Eclipse of Reason (1947), pp. 7-8.

Truth, Thinking, Decision, Help

“It's not a difficult choice, I know what I want. The future is already written. I have made my choice.”

Zlatan Ibrahimović (1981) Swedish association football player

When asked about playing in the United States http://www.espn.in/football/soccer-transfers/story/2880702/zlatan-ibrahimovic-has-made-choice-amid-manchester-united-talk Attributed

Future

“We see that experience plays an indispensable role in the genesis of geometry; but it would be an error thence to conclude that geometry is, even in part, an experimental science. If it were experimental it would be only approximative and provisional. And what rough approximation!
…The object of geometry is the study of a particular 'group'; but the general group concept pre-exists… in our minds. It is imposed on us, not as form of our sense, but as form of our understanding. Only, from among all the possible groups, that must be chosen… will be… the standard to which we shall refer natural phenomena.
Experience guides us in this choice without forcing it upon us; it tells us not which is the truest geometry, but which is the most convenient.
Notice that I have been able to describe the fantastic worlds… imagined without ceasing to employ the language of ordinary geometry.”

Henri Poincaré book Science and Hypothesis

Source: Science and Hypothesis (1901), Ch. IV: Space and Geometry, Conclusions (1905) Tr. https://books.google.com/books?id=5nQSAAAAYAAJ George Bruce Halstead

World, Error, Imagination, Understanding

“I don't think it would have been possible … You always have choices, yes, but I don't think there was any way of stuffing the genie back into the bottle.”

Julia Gillard (1961) Australian politician and lawyer, 27th Prime Minister of Australia

Responding to the claim that she would have been able to call off her leadership challenge against Rudd, following their final meeting on the night of 23 June 2010.
The Killing Season, Episode two: Great Moral Challenge (2009–10)

Way, Thinking