Quotes about choosing
page 14

“It was not his to choose from what volume or on which page thereof he would read; accident, as it seemed, decided that; but the chance-opened page lay unblurred before him, and he saw it with a clarity denied to other men of his generation.”

James Branch Cabell book The Cream of the Jest

Source: The Cream of the Jest (1917), Ch. 23 : Economic Considerations of Piety

Men, Chance, Reading

“Because there are no truths that can be taken possession of without a struggle, and because all knowledge must choose a place in the configuration of hegemonic and oppositional forces, the means of establishing knowledge seem to be almost more important than the knowledge itself. … The demand to universalize the rational draws it into the vortex of politics, pedagogy, and propaganda. With this, enlightenment consciously represses the harsh realism of older precepts of wisdom, for which there was no question that the masses are foolish and that reason is to be found only among the few. Modern elitism has to encode itself democratically.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 11

Wisdom, Truth, Question, Knowledge

“We make choices, decisions, as long as we keep to the surface of things; once we reach the depths, we can neither choose nor decide, we can do nothing but regret the surface…”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Decision

“Is a man’s body at stake? Any time a man is asked to work to pay child support, he is using his body, his time, his life -- not for nine months, but for a minimum of 18 to 21 years. So the motto of the feminist with integrity is, “It’s a woman’s and man’s right to choose because it is a woman’s and man’s body at stake.””

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

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 132.

Life, Support, Time

“One must choose between Obscurity with Efficiency, and Fame with its inevitable collateral of Bluff. There is a period, well on toward middle life, when a man can say such things to himself and feel comforted.”

William McFee (1881–1966) American writer

Harbours of Memory (1921), p. 114

Life, Feeling

“As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state — to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying towards its support.”

Herbert Spencer book Social Statics

Pt. III, Ch. 19 : The Right to Ignore the State, § 1 http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/273#lf0331_label_200 Social Statics (1851) Context: As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state — to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying towards its support. It is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others; for his position is a passive one; and whilst passive he cannot become an aggressor. It is equally selfevident that he cannot be compelled to continue one of a political corporation, without a breach of the moral law, seeing that citizenship involves payment of taxes; and the taking away of a man’s property against his will, is an infringement of his rights. Government being simply an agent employed in common by a number of individuals to secure to them certain advantages, the very nature of the connection implies that it is for each to say whether he will employ such an agent or not. If any one of them determines to ignore this mutual-safety confederation, nothing can be said except that he loses all claim to its good offices, and exposes himself to the danger of maltreatment — a thing he is quite at liberty to do if he likes. He cannot be coerced into political combination without a breach of the law of equal freedom; he can withdraw from it without committing any such breach; and he has therefore a right so to withdraw.

Law, Support, Freedom

“God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the place where He wishes us to be employed; and that employment is truly "our Father's business." He chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them, if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough, and sense enough, for what He wants us to do; if we either tire ourselves, or puzzle ourselves, it is our own fault. And we may always be sure, whatever we are doing, that we cannot be pleasing Him, if we are not happy ourselves.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 123.

God, Happiness, Business, Sense

“To escape from a rear arm lock, straighten the arm by choosing the best line of force. The hand turns and goes in an upward direction. Then step in and unbalance the opponent.”

Wong Shun Leung (1935–1997) martial artist

Wong Shun Leung's Way to Escape from a Rear Arm Lock Standing Grappling Situations Source: Comments From Wong Shun Leung and Tsui Shan Ting, by Ray Van Raamsdonk http://www.springtimesong.com/wcqanda.htm

“Seek out — less often sought than found —
A Soldier's Grave, for thee the best;
Then look around and choose thy Ground,
And take thy Rest.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year, st. 10.

“We don't know how God chooses martyrs. We do know that they give us the most precious gift they possess — their very lives.”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

Indestructible Spirit Conference at La Paz, UFW Headquarters in Keene, California (11 January 1991)

God

“In 1968, we won a substantial military victory, as we did in 2003; we then fumbled them away because of our inability to keep a long-term focus on the political aftermath, and we live with the results to this day. This is, so to speak, the advantage tyrants and dictators have over democracies: they can force their people to pay attention to the problems they choose to address, and for as long as they wish”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

or until their people overthrow them, which is not all that common
2010s, Interview with Sara Gabbard (2018)

People, Democracy, Problem, Victory

“When I come along [to the landlord] and say, "Here, gentlemen, you have escaped long enough, it is your turn now, I want you to pay just 5 per cent. on the £10,000 odd," they reply:—"Five per cent? You are a thief; you are worse, you are an attorney; worst of all, you are a Welshman." That always is the crowning epithet. I do not apologize, and I do not mind telling you that if I could, I would not; I am proud of the little land among the hills…Whenever they hurl my nationality at my head, I say to them, "You Unionists, you hypocrites, Pharisees, you are the people who in every peroration…always talk about our being one kith and kin throughout the Empire…and yet if any man dares to aspire to any position, if he does not belong to the particular nationality which they have dignified by choosing their parents from, they have no use for him."”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Well, they have got to stand the Welshman now.
Speech in Newcastle (9 October 1909), quoted in The Times (11 October 1909), p. 6
Chancellor of the Exchequer

People, Parent

“This hath ever been a comfort to me, that I chose Jesus to my Heaven, by His grace, in all this time of Passion and sorrow; and that hath been a learning to me that I should evermore do so: choose only Jesus to my Heaven in weal and woe.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Eighth Revelation, Chapter 19

Learning, Passion, Time

“Ruth, incidentally, was only the third or fourth donor I got to choose.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go (2005), Chapter 1, p. 4

“Choosing only the things you like
isn't irresponsible.
If you can't find anything you like
then why take the responsibility?
I take only the possibilities that I'm ready to accept.”

Ayumi Hamasaki (1978) Japanese recording artist, lyricist, model, and actress

Surreal
Lyrics, Duty

“On-the-job democracy isn't just a lofty concept but a better, more profitable way to do things. We all demand democracy in every other aspect of our lives and culture. People are considered adults in their private lives, at the bank, at their children's schools, with family and among friends--so why are they suddenly treated like adolescents at work? Why can't workers be involved in choosing their own leaders? Why shouldn't they manage themselves? Why can't they speak up--challenge, question, share information openly?”

Ricardo Semler book The Seven-Day Weekend

The Seven-Day Weekend (2004)

Children, People, School, Family

“How we come to have the world-views we do is an interesting question. No doubt reason plays a part, but human needs for meaning and purpose are usually more important. At times personal taste may be what decides the issue. There is nothing to say that, when all the work of reason is done, only one view of the world will remain. There may be many that fit everything that can be known. In that case you might as well choose the view of the world you find most interesting or beautiful. Adopting a world-view is more like selecting a painting to furnish a room than testing a scientific theory. The test is how it fits with your life.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

Freedom for Über-Marionettes: What Science Won't Tell You (p. 150)
The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom (2015)

Life, World, Beauty, Question

“Never let any Government imagine that it can choose perfectly safe courses… Prudence consists in knowing how to distinguish the character of troubles, and for choice to take the lesser evil.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 21; translated by W. K. Marriot

Imagination, Evil

“If you understand about the natural world, we’re a part of the system and you can’t feed lions grass. But because we have the intelligence to choose… But we haven’t got the gut to allow us to be totally vegetarian for a start. You can tell by the shape of our guts and the shape of our teeth that we evolved to be omnivores. We aren't carnivores like lions but neither are we elephants.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

When asked if realising that animals are intelligent makes him want to be a vegetarian.
Interview in Metro 29 Jan 2013

World, Intelligence, Understanding, Nature

“… I shall not waste any time on such miserable twaddle as to say that I ought to have been elected. … It is the undoubted right of the people to change their servants, and to remove one and displace him with another at any time they choose, for a good reason, for a bad reason, or for no reason at all. If we are to remain a free people, it is the duty of public servants not grumpily and sourly to accept the verdict of the majority, but joyously to accept that verdict....”

Henry Fountain Ashurst (1874–1962) United States Senator from Arizona

"Ashurst Out" http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,801964-2,00.html. Time (September 23, 1940)

People, Change, Time

“The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to place their entire life in the hands of some other person. For this purpose they frequently choose someone who doesn’t even want the beastly thing.”

Quentin Crisp book The Naked Civil Servant

Source: The Naked Civil Servant (1968), Ch. 16

Life, Personality

“It is one of the great ironies of our modern 'civilized' era that in most of the places where you don't feel the need to carry a firearm for self defense you can legally do so if you choose. But in most of places where you do indeed justifiably feel the immediate need to carry a gun, they are banned.”

James Wesley Rawles (1960) Survivalist-fiction author and blogger

http://www.survivalblog.com/2006/10/the_memsahibs_quote_of_the_day_4.html
How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, Plume, New York (2009)

Feeling

“You’re trying to be charming again,” she said softly, “but I do not choose to be charmed, Locke Lamora.”

Scott Lynch book The Republic of Thieves

Interlude “Striking Sparks” section 6 (p. 247)
The Republic of Thieves (2013)

“The Soviet Union died peacefully but that does not have any affect on what will happen in there [Israel]. The Zionist regime will either go two ways. They will peacefully be disbanded and the Holy Land will become a democracy like our good friend Russia. Or the country will forcefully take on itself like Romania. He [Refering to Nicolae Ceauşescu] did not seem to know (or care) what was happening to the Romanians and the people got sick and tired of this to the point they got rid of the fake regime [Ahmadinejad Denounces Communisim] by force. We do not want this option. We want a peacfully let the people choose what they truely want and everything will go right.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Undated interview with Russian news agency.
2007

People, Way, Democracy, Country

“Then, seek a poet who your way does bend,
And choose an author as you choose a friend;
United by this sympathetic bond,
You grow familiar, intimate and fond;
Your thoughts, your words, your styles, your souls agree,
No longer his interpreter, but he.”

Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon (1637–1685) Irish poet

Source: Essay on Translated Verse (1684), Line 95.

Way, Soul

“Gentlemen on this floor and in the Senate, had repeatedly, during this discussion, asserted that slavery was a moral, political, and personal blessing; that the slave was free from care, contented, happy, fat, and sleek. Comparisons have been instituted between slaves and laboring freemen, much to the advantage of the condition of slavery. Instances are cited where the slave, having tried freedom, had voluntarily returned to resume his yoke. Well, if this be so, let us give all a chance to enjoy this blessing. Let the slaves, who choose, go free; and the free, who choose, become slaves. If these gentlemen believe there is a word of truth in what they preach, the slaveholder need be under no apprehension that he will ever lack bondsmen. Their slaves would remain, and many freemen would seek admission into this happy condition. Let them be active in propagating their principles. We will not complain if they establish Societies in the South for that purpose -- abolition societies to abolish freedom. Nor will we rob the mails to search for incendiary publications in favor of slavery, even if they contain seductive pictures, and cuts of those implements of happiness -- handcuffs, iron yokes and cat-o'-nine tails.”

Thaddeus Stevens (1792–1868) American politician

In Selected Papers of Thaddeus Stevens

Happiness, Truth, Search, Cats

“The presidency is seemingly bound by law, but in practice it can do just about anything it pleases. It can order up troops anywhere in the world, just as Clinton bragged in his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention. It can plow up a religious community in Texas and bury its members because they got on somebody’s nerves at the Justice Department. It can tap our phones, read our mail, watch our bank accounts, and tell us what we can and cannot eat, drink, and smoke.
The presidency can break up businesses, shut down airlines, void drilling leases, bribe foreign heads of state or arrest them and try them in kangaroo courts, nationalize land, engage in germ warfare, firebomb crops in Colombia, overthrow any government anywhere, erect tariffs, round up and discredit any public or private assembly it chooses, grab our guns, tax our incomes and our inheritances, steal our land, centrally plan the national and world economy, and impose embargoes on anything anytime. No prince or pope ever had this ability.”

Lew Rockwell (1944) American libertarian author and editor

6 October 1996 "Down With the Presidency"
1990s

World, Justice, Law, Communication

“Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), The Needs of the Soul (1949), Ch. 3, Liberty

Sense

“We have not a direct intuition of simultaneity, nor of the equality of two durations. If we think we have this intuition, this is an illusion. We replace it by the aid of certain rules which we apply almost always without taking count of them.
…We …choose these rules, not because they are true, but because they are the most convenient, and we may recapitulate them as follows: "The simultaneity of two events, or the order of their succession, the equality of two durations, are to be so defined that the enunciation of the natural laws may be as simple as possible. In other words, all these rules, all these definitions, are only the fruit of an unconscious opportunism."”

Henri Poincaré book The Value of Science

Source: The Value of Science (1905), Ch. 2: The Measure of Time

Law, Nature, Thinking, Success

“Every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased. I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding. How could you? A person's path through the world seldom changes and even more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning.”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men (2005)

Life, World, Change, Personality

“And thus daily, and month by month, and year by year, he will work at his mind, training it in these consecutive habits of thought, and he will learn to choose that of which he thinks; he will no longer allow thoughts to come and go; he will no longer permit a thought to grip him and hold him; he will no longer let a thought come into the mind and fix itself there and decline to be evicted; he will be master within his own house… he will say: “No; no such anxiety shall remain within my mind; no such thought shall have shelter within my mind; within this mind nothing stays that is not there by my choice and my invitation, and that which comes uninvited shall be turned outside the limits of my mind.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: https://theosophy.world/sites/default/files/ebooks/Annie%20Besant-In-The-Outer-Court.pdf In the Outer Court, 1895, p. 60

Thinking, Learning, Housing, Training

“There comes a time when one has to choose whether to kneel and be blessed, or to stand up and be counted. I choose the latter.”

Chandra Shekhar (1927–2007) Indian politician

When he resigned as PM after support was withdrawn by the Congress Party. Source: Past Prime Ministers: Those who came before http://news.in.msn.com/elections-2014/past-prime-ministers-those-who-came-before?page=9, MSN.com, 26 May 2014

Time

“Why, the question is often asked of me
Do you choose as subjects for painting
So often death, perishing and the grave?
In order to one day live eternally
One must often submit oneself to death.”

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) Swedish painter

in original language - German: Warum, die Frag' ist oft zu mir ergangen / Wählst du zum Gegenstand der Malerei / So oft den Tod, Vergänglichkeit und Grab? / Um ewig einst zu leben / Muss man sich oft dem Tod ergeben.
Quote c. 1812; from Caspar David Friedrich, William Vaughn; London: Tate Gallery, 1972, p. 16–17
1794 - 1840

Death, Question, Painting

“Our papers don't purtend to print on'y wut Guv'ment choose,
An' thet insures us all to git the very best o' noose.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

No. 3.
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series II (1866)

“You are very kind in planning presents for me to make, and my mother has shown me exactly the same attention; but as I do not choose to have generosity dictated to me, I shall not resolve on giving my cabinet to Anna till the first thought of it has been my own.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter to Cassandra (1801-01-08) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“"Any graduate of the ___ Business School should be able to beat an index fund over the course of a market cycle."
Statements such as these are made with alarming frequency by investment professionals. In some cases, subtle and sophisticated reasoning may be involved. More often (alas), the conclusions can only be justified by assuming that the laws of arithmetic have been suspended for the convenience of those who choose to pursue careers as active managers.”

William F. Sharpe (1934) American economist

William F Sharpe, "The arithmetic of active management." Financial Analysts Journal 47.1 (1991): 7-9.

School, Law, Business

“From the lowest and broadest stratum of Society, where the births are by the million, there was born, almost in our own memory, a Robert Burns; son of one who "had not capital for his poor moor-farm of Twenty Pounds a year." Robert Burns never had the smallest chance to got into Parliament, much as Robert Burns deserved, for all our sakes, to have been found there. For the man—it was not known to men purblind, sunk in their poor dim vulgar element, but might have been known to men of insight who had any loyalty or any royalty of their own—was a born king of men: full of valor, of intelligence and heroic nobleness; fit for far other work than to break his heart among poor mean mortals, gauging beer! Him no Tenpound Constituency chose, nor did any Reforming Premier: in the deep-sunk British Nation, overwhelmed in foggy stupor, with the loadstars all gone out for it, there was no whisper of a notion that it could be desirable to choose him,—except to come and dine with you, and in the interim to gauge.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Downing Street (April 1, 1850)

Men, Intelligence, Birth, Beer

“Freedom means free speech, not politically correct safe spaces. Freedom means religious freedom, whether you are Christian, Jew, Muslim, or atheist. Whether you are gay, or straight, the Bill of Rights protects the rights of all of us to live according to our conscience. Freedom means the right to keep and bear arms, and to protect your family. Freedom means that every human life is precious and must be protected. Freedom means Supreme Court Justices who don't dictate policy, but instead follow the Constitution. And, freedom means recognizing that our Constitution allows states to choose policies that reflect local values. Colorado might decide something different than Texas. New York different than Iowa. That's the way it's supposed to be, diversity. If not, what's the point of having states to begin with?”

Ted Cruz (1970) American politician

2010s, Speech at the Republican National Convention (July 20, 2016)

Life, Family, Justice, Way

“When we have a choice it is always best to choose kindness. Veganism is simply the kinder choice.”

Sharon Gannon (1951) American yoga teacher

“An Interview With World-Renowned Yogini Sharon Gannon” by Alicia Silverstone, in TheKindLife.com (17 September 2014) http://thekindlife.com/blog/2014/09/an-interview-with-world-renowned-yogini-sharon-gannon/.

“Surely this new age is not a repudiation of, but a fulfillment of, the American dream. What were the machines for, unless to give man a new freedom to choose how he would live?”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter XII : The Greening Of America, p. 356

Age, Dreams, Freedom

“I not only "don't choose to run" but I don't even want to leave a loophole in case I am drafted, so I won't "choose". I will say "won't run" no matter how bad the country will need a comedian by that time.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Daily Telegram #1538, The First Good News of the 1928 Campaign! Mr. Rogers Says He Will Not Run For Anything (28 June 1931)
Daily telegrams

Time, Country

“There is not a single desirable attribute which, lacking in a plant, may not be bred into it. Choose what improvement you wish in a flower, a fruit, or a tree, and by crossing, selection, cultivation, and persistence you can fix this desirable trait irrevocably.”

Luther Burbank (1849–1926) American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science

p, 125
The Training of the Human Plant (1907)

Flowers, Tree

“I will choose only the least harmful way for the country. And that is the greatest benefit I am conferring on the country by embracing Buddhism; for Buddhism is a part and parcel of Bhâratîya culture. I have taken care that my conversion will not harm the tradition of the culture and history of this land.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

Quoted in Dhananjay Keer: Ambedkar, p.498. (Dr. Ambedkar, Life and Mission. Popular Prakashan, Bombay 1987 (1962).)

Way, History, Parting, Country

“Bread and beauty grow best together. Their harmonious integration can make farming not only a business but an art; the land not only a food-factory but an instrument for self-expression, on which each can play music to his own choosing.”

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

"The Conservation Ethic" [1933]; Published in The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold, Susan L. Flader and J. Baird Callicott (eds.) 1991, p. 191.
1930s

Food, Beauty, Art, Music

“Only when they must choose between competing theories do scientists behave like philosophers.”

Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) American historian, physicist and philosopher

Thomas Kuhn (1970) in Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?, edited by [Imre Lakatos, Alan Musgrave, Criticism and the growth of knowledge, Cambridge University Press, 1970, 0521096235, 7]

“Centralization of society's vital services in giant computer centers, reservoirs, nuclear power plants, air- traffic control centers, 100-story skyscrapers, and government compounds increases its vulnerability. … choosing his targets, today's saboteur could pollute a city's water supply, dynamite power transmission towers, cripple an airport control center, destroy a corporate or government computer center.”

Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American mathematical psychologist

Anatol Rapoport, as quoted in: Gerald McKnight (1973) Computer crime, p. 203
1970s and later

Water

“The people. They know how to know, but not how to choose.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

People

“You may keep your ten thousand talents; I am not in want of money, I have taken enough. Why only the half of your kingdom to the Euphrates? You offer me the part in exchange for the whole. Your daughter whom you speak of, I shall marry if I choose, whether given by you or not. Your family is safe; no ransom is required of you; come here yourself and make your suit to me, you shall have them free. If you desire our friendship, you have only to ask.”

Mary Renault book The Persian Boy

Alexander's answer to the peace treaty offered by Darius III, p. 38
The Persian Boy (1972)

Money, Friendship, Family, Parting

“While I am a Hindu, Mir Mushtaq who is presiding over this meeting is a Muslim. Mr. Frank Anthony who has addressed you is a Christian. There are also Sikhs and Parsis here. The unique thing about our country is that we have Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis and people of all other religions. We have temples and mosques, gurdwaras and churches. But we do not bring all this into politics. This is the difference between India and Pakistan. Whereas Pakistan proclaims herself to be an Islamic State and uses religion as a political factor, we Indians have the freedom to follow whatever religion we may choose, and worship in any way we please. So far as politics is concerned, each of us is as much an Indian as the other.”

Lal Bahadur Shastri (1904–1966) The second Prime Minister of the Republic of India and a leader of the Indian National Congress party

Quoted in India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy, by Ramachandra Guha ISBN 978-0-330-39611-0

People, Religion, Way, Freedom

“You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator. You flee from the embarrassing question posed to you: How is it possible for Allah the Almighty to create His creation, grant them power over all the creatures and land, grant them all the amenities of life, and then deny them that which they are most in need of: knowledge of the laws which govern their lives?”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

2000s, 2002, Letter to the American people (2002)

Life, Religion, Law, Question

“Every evening after dinner, a new life began. There was no hurry. Some walked in the garden. Others smoked. About nine o’clock we made our way alone or in twos and threes to the Study House. Outdoor shoes came off and soft shoes or moccasins were put on. We sat quietly, each on his or her own cushion, round the floor in the centre. Men sat on the right, women on the left; never together.

Some went straight on to the stage and began to practice the rhythmic exercises. On our first arrival, each of us had the right to choose his own teacher for the movements. I had chosen Vasili Ferapontoff, a young Russian, tall, with a sad studious face. He wore pince-nez, and looked the picture of the perpetual student, Trofimov, in The Cherry Orchard. He was a conscientious instructor, though not a brilliant performer. I came to value his friendship, which continued until his premature death ten years later. He told me in one of our first conversations that he expected to die young.

The exercises were much the same as those I had seen in Constantinople three years before. The new pupils, such as myself, began with the series called Six Obligatory Exercises. I found them immensely exciting, and worked hard to master them quickly so that I could join in the work of the general class.”

John G. Bennett (1897–1974) British mathematician and author

Source: Witness: the Story of a Search (1962), p. 90–91 cited in: "Gurdjieff’s Temple Dances by John G. Bennett", Gurdjieff International Review, on gurdjieff.org; About Fontainebleau 1923

Life, Death, Women, Men

“If you are thinking of ending your life because you are depressed, or cannot cope with the pressures of this difficult world, do not use this book. … Please respect the true intentions of Final Exit: the right of a terminally ill person with unbearable suffering to know how to choose to die.”

Derek Humphry book Final Exit

Cautionary words
Final Exit

Life, Books, World, Thinking

“In England, where judges were named and removable at the will of an hereditary executive, from which branch most misrule was feared, and has flowed, it was a great point gained, by fixing them for life, to make them independent of that executive. But in a government founded on the public will, this principle operates in an opposite direction, and against that will. There, too, they were still removable on a concurrence of the executive and legislative branches. But we have made them independent of the nation itself. They are irremovable, but by their own body, for any depravities of conduct, and even by their own body for the imbecilities of dotage. The justices of the inferior courts are self- chosen, are for life, and perpetuate their own body in succession forever, so that a faction once possessing themselves of the bench of a county, can never be broken up, but hold their county in chains, forever indissoluble. Yet these justices are the real executive as well as judiciary, in all our minor and most ordinary concerns. They tax us at will; fill the office of sheriff, the most important of all the executive officers of the county; name nearly all our military leaders, which leaders, once named, are removable but by themselves. The juries, our judges of all fact, and of law when they choose it, are not selected by the people, nor amenable to them. They are chosen by an officer named by the court and executive. Chosen, did I say? Picked up by the sheriff from the loungings of the court yard, after everything respectable has retired from it. Where then is our republicanism to be found? Not in our constitution certainly, but merely in the spirit of our people. That would oblige even a despot to govern us republicanly. Owing to this spirit, and to nothing in the form of our constitution, all things have gone well. But this fact, so triumphantly misquoted by the enemies of reformation, is not the fruit of our constitution, but has prevailed in spite of it. Our functionaries have done well, because generally honest men. If any were not so, they feared to show it.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1810s, Letter to H. Tompkinson (AKA Samuel Kercheval) (1816)

Life, Men, People, Fear

“Once some engineers from the veneer trust laboratory came to me for consultation with a quite skilful presentation of their problems. Diﬀerent productivity is obtained for veneer-cutting machines for diﬀerent types of materials; linked to this the output of production of this group of machines depended, it would seem, on the chance factor of which group of raw materials to which machine was assigned. How could this fact be used rationally?
This question interested me, but nevertheless appeared to be quite particular and elementary, so I did not begin to study it by giving up everything else. I put this question for discussion at a meeting of the mathematics department, where there were such great specialists as Gyunter, Smirnov himself, Kuz’min, and Tartakovskii. Everyone listened but no one proposed a solution; they had already turned to someone earlier in individual order, apparently to Kuz’min. However, this question nevertheless kept me in suspense. This was the year of my marriage, so I was also distracted by this. In the summer or after the vacation concrete, to some extent similar, economic, engineering, and managerial situations started to come into my head, that also required the solving of a maximization problem in the presence of a series of linear constraints.
In the simplest case of one or two variables such problems are easily solved—by going through all the possible extreme points and choosing the best. But, let us say in the veneer trust problem for ﬁve machines and eight types of materials such a search would already have required solving about a billion systems of linear equations and it was evident that this was not a realistic method. I constructed particular devices and was probably the ﬁrst to report on this problem in 1938 at the October scientiﬁc session of the Herzen Institute, where in the main a number of problems were posed with some ideas for their solution.
The universality of this class of problems, in conjunction with their difficulty, made me study them seriously and bring in my mathematical knowledge, in particular, some ideas from functional analysis.
What became clear was both the solubility of these problems and the fact that they were widespread, so representatives of industry were invited to a discussion of my report at the university.”

Leonid Kantorovich (1912–1986) Russian mathematician

L.V. Kantorovich (1996) Descriptive Theory of Sets and Functions. p. 39; As cited in: K. Aardal, ‎George L. Nemhauser, ‎R. Weismantel (2005) Handbooks in Operations Research and Management Science, p. 15-26

Marriage, Search, Mathematics, Idea

“I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I do not need.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Attributed to Rodin in: Naum Ya. Vilenkin (1958). Stories about Sets, p. 125
1950s-1990s

“An individual who has survived physical death can if he wishes recreate any portion of his own past as it was. He can recreate any portion of his own past in any way he wishes, changing his own actions within it if he so chooses, combining and reforming the entire composition. Such a procedure is usually a dead-end enterprise. The others involved are vivid hallucinations, and he may not realize this.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 396, Page 197
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 8

Death, Way, Change, Past

“Single women often fear that the men they are going out with wouldn't be comfortable with less career and more child. Perhaps. If a woman selects a man with a lot of career ambition, she'll get what she selected. The solution? Choose among men who would love to be married to a career woman who valued his being home full-time with the children for a few years. Can't find these men? State your interest on your Match. com profile--the Internet's the best net to catch the right fish. You'll be surprised.”

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

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 83-84.

Love, Women, Men, Children

“Political thought as we understand it began in Athens because the Athenians were a trading people who looked at their contemporaries and saw how differently they organized themselves. If they had not lived where they did and organized their economic lives as they did, they could not have seen the contrast. Given the opportunity, they might not have paid attention to it. The Israelites of the Old Testament narrative were very conscious of their neighbors, Egyptian, Babylonian, and other, not least because they were often reduced to slavery or near-slavery by them. That narrative makes nothing of the fact that Egypt was a bureaucratic theocracy; it emphasizes that the Egyptians did not worship Yahweh. The history of Old Testament politics is the history of a people who did their best to have no politics. They saw themselves as under the direct government of God, with little room to decide their own fate except by obeying or disobeying God’s commandments. Only when God took them at their word and allowed them to choose a king did they become a political society, with familiar problems of competition for office and issues of succession. For the Jews, politics was a fall from grace. For the Greeks, it was an achievement. Many besides Plato thought it a flawed achievement; when historians and philosophers began to articulate its flaws, the history of political thought began among the argumentative Athenians.”

Alan Ryan (1940) British philosopher

On Politics: A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present (2012), Ch. 1 : Why Herodotus?

God, Fate, People, History

“Everything is overshadowed by the impending trial of will-power which is developing in Europe. I think we shall have to choose in the next few weeks between war and shame, and I have very little doubt what the decision will be.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to David Lloyd George (13 August 1938), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 962
The 1930s

War, Thinking, Decision

“We hold that the one and only one true basis of society is the frank recognition of these rights of self-ownership; that is to say, of the rights of control and direction by the individual, as he himself chooses, over his own mind, his own body, and his own property, always provided, that he respects the same universal rights in others.”

Auberon Herbert (1838–1906) British politician

The Principles of Voluntaryism and Free Life

Universe

“I know I only love those to my taste, but Buddha loves even people he does not like, guiding them to be full of wisdom and compassion.
That’s why I choose to follow Buddha’s teachings！”

Richard Gombrich (1937) British Indologist

"When I say I'm a Buddhist"[citation needed]

Love, Wisdom, People

“Though it is folly to suppose that happiness is a matter of volition, and that we can make ourselves content and cheerful whenever we choose — a theory that many poor hypochondriacs are taunted with till they are nigh driven mad — yet, on the other hand, no sane mind is ever left without the power of self-discipline and self-control in a measure, which measure increases in proportion as it is exercised.”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10

Happiness, Exercises, Madness

“In classroom settings I have often listened to groups of students tell me that, a black female, or a black male, which identity would they choose. Each time I do this exercise, most individuals, irrespective of gender or race invariably choose whiteness, and most often male whiteness. Black females are the least chosen. When I ask students to explain their choice they proceed to do a sophisticated analysis of privilege based on race (with perspectives that take gender and class into consideration).”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope (2003)

Exercises, Time

“He chooses the most feared, most hated man in order to worship him as a god, feeling sure that he is alone in perceiving the god’s secret virtues.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

165
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

God, Hate, Secret, Fear

“We send one species to the butcher and give our love and kindness to another apparently for no reason other than because it's the way things are. When our attitudes and behaviors toward animals are so inconsistent, and this inconsistency is so unexamined, we can safely say we have been fed absurdities. It is absurd that we eat pigs and love dogs and don't even know why. Many of us spend long minutes in the aisle of the drugstore mulling over what toothpaste to buy. Yet most of us don't spend any time at all thinking about what species of animal we eat and why. Our choices as consumers drive an industry that kills ten billion animals per year in the United States alone. If we choose to support this industry and the best reason we can come up with is because it's the way things are, clearly something is amiss. What could cause an entire society of people to check their thinking caps at the door—and to not even realize they're doing so? Though this question is quite complex, the answer is quite simple:.”

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

Source: Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (2010), pp. 27-28

Love, People, Dogs, Way

“Krage eyed us from a face of stone. “I help you with something, Inquisitor?”
“Probably not. You’d lie to me if the truth would save your soul, you bloodsucker.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere. What do you want, you parasite?”
Tough boy, this Krage. Struck from the same mold as Bullock, but he had drifted into a socially less honored profession. Not much to choose between them I thought. Priest and moneylender.”

Glen Cook book Shadows Linger

Source: Shadows Linger (1984), Chapter 14, “Juniper: Duretile” (p. 283)

Truth, Lie, Soul, Boy

“The suffering in the world is due to our living on a planet polluted by sin - not God's hatred or neglect. Humans choose to murder when God gave us the intellect to cure disease. Humans choose to pollute when God gave us a pure planet rich in every resource we need.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

God, World, Disease, Suffering

“Imagine you are God. You’re all-powerful, nothing is beyond you. You’re all-loving. So it is really, really important to you that humans are left in no doubt about your existence and your loving nature, and exactly what they need to do in order to get to heaven and avoid eternity in the fires of hell. It’s really important to you to get that across. So what do you do? Well, if you’re Jehovah, apparently this is what you do. You talk in riddles. You tell stories which on the surface have a different message from the one you apparently want us to understand. You expect us to hear X, and instinctively understand that it needs to be interpreted in the light of Y, which you happen to have said in the course of a completely different story 500-1,000 years earlier. Instead of speaking directly into our heads - which God has presumed the capability of doing so - simply, clearly and straightforwardly in terms which the particular individual being addressed will immediately understand and respond to positively - you steep your messages in symbols, in metaphors. In fact, you choose to convey the most important message in the history of creation in code, as if you aspired to be Umberto Eco or Dan Brown. Anyone would think your top priority was to keep generation after generation after generation of theologians in meaningless employment, rather than communicate an urgent life-or-death message to the creatures you love more than any other.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

FFRF 2012 National Convention, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJTQiChzTNI?t=43m19s

Love, Life, Death, God

“When we represent technology to ourselves through its own common sense we think of ourselves as picking and choosing in a supermarket, rather than within the analogy of the package deal. We have bought a package deal of far more fundamental novelness than simply a set of instruments under our control. It is a destiny which enfolds us in its own conceptions of instrumentality, neutrality and purposiveness.”

George Grant (1918–1988) Canadian philosopher

Technology and Justice (Notre Dame: 1986), p. 32

Thinking, Sense

“In the south west of India lies the long narrow coastal state of Kerala. Most of its thirty-two million inhabitants live off the land and the ocean, a rich tropical ecosystem watered by two monsoons a year. It's also one of India's most crowded states - but the population is stable because nearly everybody has small families… At the root of it all is education. Thanks to a long tradition of compulsory schooling for boys and girls Kerala has one of the highest literacy rates in the World. Where women are well educated they tend to choose to have smaller families… What Kerala shows is that you don't need aggressive policies or government incentives for birthrates to fall. Everywhere in the world where women have access to education and have the freedom to run their own lives, on the whole they and their partners have been choosing to have smaller families than their parents. But reducing birthrates is very difficult to achieve without a simple piece of medical technology, contraception. m35s09-m38s21”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009)

Women, World, Education, School

“Guess if you can, choose if you dare.”

Pierre Corneille Héraclius

Devine, si tu peux, et choisis, si tu l'oses.
Léontine, Héraclius, act IV, scene IV.

“The young women of today, free to study, to speak, to write, to choose their occupation, should remember that every inch of this freedom was bought for them at a great price. It is for them to show their gratitude by helping onward the reforms of their own times, by spreading the light of freedom and of truth still wider. The debt that each generation owes to the past it must pay to the future.”

Abigail Scott Duniway (1834–1915) American suffragist, writer, journalist, pioneer

Abigail Scott Duniway, quoted in Westward the Women https://books.google.com/books?id=Xy50CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT127&lpg=PT127&dq=%22+young+women+of+today,+free+to+study,+to+speak,+to+write%22&source=bl&ots=9gDARyV3TU&sig=qp7E9Zg0u1yJCbJVQ-pqBeu49JE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_zKKCp5zZAhUEyGMKHTdVCcQQ6AEINTAC#v=onepage&q=%22%20young%20women%20of%20today%2C%20free%20to%20study%2C%20to%20speak%2C%20to%20write%22&f=false and by the Hatfield School of Govennment's Center for Women's Leadership https://www.pdx.edu/womens-leadership/abigail-scott-duniway-speaker-series

Women, Truth, Study, Freedom

“One cannot help but be struck by the diversity that characterizes efforts to study the management process. If it is true that psychologists like to study personality traits in terms of a person's reactions to objects and events, they could not choose a better stimulus than management science. Some feel it is a technique, some feel it is a branch of mathematics, or of mathematical economics, or of the "behavioral sciences," or of consultation services, or just so much nonsense. Some feel it is for management (vs. labor), some feel it ought to be for the good of mankind — or for the good of underpaid professors.
But this diversity of attitude, which is really characteristic of all fields of endeavor, is matched by another and more serious kind of diversity. In the management sciences, we have become used to talking about game theory, inventory theory, waiting line theory. What we mean by "theory" in this context is that if certain assumptions are valid, then such-and-such conclusions follow. Thus inventory theory is not a set of statements that predict how inventories will behave, or even how they should behave in actual situations, but is rather a deductive system which becomes useful if the assumptions happen to hold. The diversity of attitude on this point is reflected in two opposing points of view: that the important problems of management science are theoretical, and that the important problems are factual.”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

quote in: Fremont A. Shull (ed.), Selected readings in management https://archive.org/stream/selectedreadings00shul#page/n13/mode/2up, , 1957. p. 7-8 1940s - 1950s, "Management Science — Fact or Theory?" 1956

Behavior, Feeling, Game, Mathematics

“Each time we eat we are choosing to support a system. In our choice of agricultural production methods, we can support one which either helps our future, or one which undermines it. The same is true of our actual dietary choices we make. The healthiest diet is one rich in fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains and legumes, low in animal products. This is better for the environment, our health and of course animals. I'm a vegan because I care for animals and for the future of our planet. Additionally, a vegan diet helps to prevent and reverse a range of non-communicable diseases including heart disease, high blood pressure, cholesterol, type II diabetes. Each time we eat, we are either feeding disease, or fighting it.”

Elizabeth Kucinich (1977) British activist

"Food, Regenerative Agriculture & Climate", in ElizabethKucinich.com (2016) https://www.elizabethkucinich.com/issues.

Health, Disease, Support, Time

“My will is easy to decide,
For there is nothing to divide.
My kin don't need to fuss and moan —
"Moss does not cling to a rolling stone."

My body? — Oh! — If I could choose,
I would to ashes it reduce,
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow.

Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again.
This is my last and final will.
Good luck to all of you. [Joe Hill]”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

My Last Will http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/My_Last_Will (1915-11-18)

Life, Flowers

“When all choices seem wrong, choose restraint.”

Matthew Stover book Shatterpoint

Mace Windu, p. 176
Shatterpoint (2004)

“It was impossible to keep up the great movement of inner and outer freedom initiated by Jesus. The proclamation “You are free through the Holy Spirit,” and Paul’s statement, “Everything is lawful,” were fine for a small, elite group in which everyone knew everyone else. But when it was a matter of thousands of new converts whose depth of faith could not be known, how could they be told that they were completely free to choose their way of life and decide their own conduct? They had to be incorporated and put under the authority of a head of each group, and the more numerous they became, the more sacred and complex this authority had to be. … The glorious freedom that is in Christ could not be tolerated. It was replaced by clear and strict commandments.”

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist

Source: The Subversion of Christianity (1984), pp. 36-37

Life, Faith, Law, Way

“I love the reach of TV as during a serial you reside in so many people's hearts and all the same time. But, in films and theatre your character has a definite graph and it is defined very well. When you choose to do a film or enact a play, from beginning to end you know your part. And as an actor it gives me comfort to know this graph. In television and particularly in some of the serials often this is not defined. Your role can change, which is very unsettling for me. It's one major reason why I am comfy doing theatre and films.”

Mukta Barve (1979) Indian actress

I enjoyed TV, but prefer doing films & theatre: Mukta Barve http://m.timesofindia.com/entertainment/marathi/movies/news/I-enjoyed-TV-but-prefer-doing-films-theatre-Mukta-Barve/articleshow/18969020.cms

Love, People, Change, Time

“A tactical retreat is not a bad response to a surprise assault, you know. First you survive. Then you choose your own ground. Then you counterattack.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

“The inner lover of God, who possesses God in enjoyable rest, and himself in devoted, working love, and his entire life in virtues with justice, this inner person then comes, by means of these three points and the hidden revelation of God, into a God contemplating life, at least the lover who is pious and just, whom God in His freedom wishes to choose and to elevate to a superessential contemplation in divine light and according to the way of God.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Spiritual Espousals (c. 1340)

Love, Life, God, Justice

“The wife is a piece of property, acquired by contract; she is part of your furniture, for possession is nine-tenths of the law; in fact, the woman is not, to speak correctly, anything but an adjunct to the man; therefore abridge, cut, file this article as you choose; she is in every sense yours.”

Honoré de Balzac book Physiology of Marriage

La femme est une propriété que l'on acquiert par contrat, elle est mobilière, car la possession vaut titre; enfin, la femme n'est, à proprement parler, qu'une annexe de l'homme; or, tranchez, coupez, rognez, elle vous appartient à tous les titres.
Part II, Meditation Number XII: The Hygiene of Marriage.
Physiology of Marriage (1829)

Law, Sense, Parting

“Choose the duty that you can most effectively execute: that is, finally, all we can do in life.”

Sherwood Smith book A Stranger to Command

A Stranger to Command (Crown & Court 0.5, 2008)

Life

“When I have to think about it, I know the picture is wrong. And sizing is a form of thinking and coloring is too. My instinct about painting says, 'If you don’t think about it, it's right'. As soon as you have to decide and choose, it's wrong. And the more you decide about, the more wrong it gets. Some people, they paint abstract, so they sit there thinking about it because their thinking makes them feel they're doing something. But my thinking never makes me feel I'm doing anything.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), p. 149

People, Color, Feeling, Thinking

“The division of opinion turns on the definition of property and the scope of contract. Physical things of themselves are powerless. Even liberty to choose between opportunities is passive and ineffective. But power to withhold opportunities is economic power, and associated power is government. When therefore liberty of contract is merged with property, it adds the liberty of persons to the exclusive holding of things. And this liberty operates in the several directions of liberty to combine their property into an industrial government and to act as a unit, not only in proportioning their resources economically but also in choosing opportunities, in commanding obedience, in persuading or coercing, and in planning for the expectations of an indefinite future.”

John R. Commons (1862–1945) United States institutional economist and labor historian

Source: Legal foundations of capitalism. 1924, p. 320

Future, Personality

“If I had to choose one which best characterized the condition of being a political leader in Athens, the word would be "tension."”

Moses I. Finley (1912–1986) American historian

Source: Democracy Ancient And Modern (Second Edition) (1985), Chapter 2, Athenian Demagogues, p. 60

“Do not choose for your wife any woman you would not choose for a friend if she were a man.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

“Thy way, not mine, O Lord,
However dark it be!
Lead me by Thine own hand;
Choose out the path for me.”

Horatius Bonar (1808–1889) British minister and poet

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 511.

Way

“Every American should take note of those candidates who stand with the economic interests of America’s citizens, and who stand with the Rule of Law, by rejecting Amnesty in all its forms. It is wrong when Democrats seek to demean the intrinsic value of American citizenship by importing the Third World to replace the millions of voters their redistributionist policies and racial grievance politics have driven away. It is also wrong when Republican leadership conveniently chooses to waive the application of the law to guarantee a supply of unskilled and low-cost workers for their corporate benefactors.”

Steve King (1949) US Representative for Iowa

Rep. Steve King: ‘DACA’ – ‘Delivering Amnesty to Central Americans’ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/26/exclusive-rep-steve-king-daca-delivering-amnesty-central-americans/ (September 26, 2017)

World, Law

“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

“[choosing his scenes by:].. night vigils at the back window.”

John Sloan (1871–1951) American painter

The Gist of Art Joan Sloan, New York: Artist Group, 1939, p. 220
The Gist of Art (1939)

Night

“When we can lay down our fear and anger and choose responses other than aggression, we create the conditions for bringing out the best in us humans.”

Margaret J. Wheatley (1941) American writer

Finding Our Way: Leadership For an Uncertain Time (2005)

Fear, Anger

“Your will cannot always choose the path; very often the route is determined by chance or by the will of others.”

Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet

Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni

Chance

“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

“If I choose to impose individual blame for all past social ills, there will be no one left to like in some of the most fascinating periods of our history. For example […] if I place every Victorian anti-Semite beyond the pale of my attention, my compass of available music and literature will be pitifully small. Though I hold no shred of sympathy for active persecution, I cannot excoriate individuals who acquiesced passively in a standard societal judgment. Rail instead against the judgment, and try to understand what motivates men of decent will.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Eight Little Piggies

"The Moral State of Tahiti—and of Darwin", p. 269
Eight Little Piggies (1993)

Men, Music, History, Literature

“The absolute rights of man, considered as a free agent, endowed with discernment to know good from evil, and with power of choosing those measures which appear to him to be most desirable, are usually summed up in one general appellation, and denominated the natural liberty of mankind. This natural liberty consists properly in a power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, unless by the law of nature: being a right inherent in us by birth, and one of the gifts of God to man at his creation, when he endowed him with the faculty of freewill. But every man, when he enters into society, gives up a part of his natural liberty, as the price of so valuable a purchase; and, in consideration of receiving the advantages of mutual commerce, obliges himself to conform to those laws, which the community has thought proper to establish.”

William Blackstone book Commentaries on the Laws of England

Book I, ch. 1 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk1ch1.asp: Of the Absolute Rights of Individuals. Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769)

God, Law, Communication, Birth

“To avoid large and unsustainable budget deficits, the nation will ultimately have to choose among higher taxes, modifications to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, less spending on everything else from education to defense, or some combination of the above.”

Ben Bernanke (1953) American economist

Speech given on Apr. 7, 2010 to the Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce, "Economic Challenges: Past, Present and Future" http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20100407a.pdf. (See pages 13-14 of the speech transcript).

Education