Quotes about choosing
page 2

“Was there no sword, nothing with which to batter down these walls, this protection, this begetting of children and living behind curtains, and becoming daily more involved and committed, with books and pictures? Better burn one’s life out like Louis, desiring perfection; or like Rhoda leave us, flying past us to the desert; or choose one out of millions and one only like Neville; better be like Susan and love and hate the heat of the sun or the frost-bitten grass; or be like Jinny, honest, an animal. All had their rapture; their common feeling with death; something that stood them in stead. Thus I visited each of my friends in turn, trying, with fumbling fingers, to prise open their locked caskets. I went from one to the other holding my sorrow — no, not my sorrow but the incomprehensible nature of this our life — for their inspection. Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends, I to my own heart, I to seek among phrases and fragments something unbroken — I to whom there is not beauty enough in moon or tree; to whom the touch of one person with another is all, yet who cannot grasp even that, who am so imperfect, so weak, so unspeakably lonely. There I sat.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Bernard, section IX
The Waves (1931)

Love, Life, Death, Hate

“I don't have an iota of interest in the historical Muhammad Tughlaq. I have no interest as to whether he was good or evil, whether he was pro or anti-Hindu. I wished to write an entertaining play, and in the endeavor, wanted to choose a fairly complex character.”

Girish Raghunath Karnad (1938–2019) Indian playwright

Karnad in a reply to S.L. Bhyrappa quoted in Sandeep Balakrishna, Tipu Sultan - The Tyrant of Mysore, p.12

Evil

“You're always the hero when you can pick and choose your memories. You're always the villian when you remember everything.”

Jim Russell

When you remember everything you not only remember what you did right, you also remember your mistakes great and small. Also others seldom like to be made aware of their own mistakes that you may remember as well. They tend to get upset when reminded of them.

Memory

“Having defeated your enemy you have to choose (unless you want another war within a generation) between exterminating him and treating him generously.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: "As I Please," Tribune, (24 December 1943)

War

“My heart is open to all who choose to enroll for exclusive membership. However, never betray, lie, act selfishly or speak ill of me when I am not present; for it shall be locked and you may never enter again.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1979

Lie, Heart

“Sorry I didn't save the world, my friend
I was too busy buildin' mine again
I choose me, I'm sorry”

Kendrick Lamar (1987) American rapper, songwriter and record producer from California

Mirror
Song lyrics, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers (2022)

World, Business

“I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

This has sometimes been misquoted as: If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the decency to betray my country.
What I Believe (1938)
Source: What I Believe and Other Essays

Hate, Hope, Idea, Country

“I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

“The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

The Choice http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1602/, st. 1 The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)

Life, Rage, Perfection

“The only way love can last a lifetime is if it's unconditional. The truth is this: love is not determined by the one being loved but rather by the one choosing to love.”

Stephen Kendrick book The Love Dare

Source: The Love Dare

Love, Truth, Way

“If chess has any relationship to film-making, it would be in the way it helps you develop patience and discipline in choosing between alternatives at a time when an impulsive decision seems very attractive.”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

Way, Decision, Time, Help

“The thing is, the only real sign of life is growth. And growth requires pain. So to choose life is to accept pain.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: The Walk

Life, Pain

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1962, Rice University speech

“I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly that will put me in trust: to love him that is honest; to converse with him that is wise, and says little; to fear judgment; to fight when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish.”

William Shakespeare King Lear

Source: King Lear

Love, Fear, Fish, Fight

“When you choose the path, you choose the destination.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2008-11-11
Threshold Editions
141659485X
244
2000s
Source: The Christmas Sweater

“[Whose_property]Whose property is my body? Probably mine. I so regard it. If I experiment with it, who must be answerable? I, not the State. If I choose injudiciously, does the State die? Oh no.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Osteopathy” (1901), in Mark Twain's Speeches, p. 253 http://books.google.com/books?id=jmhaAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA253&dq=%22Whose+property+is+my+body%22 Source: Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings

“Do what you do for the sheer joy of it,
Do what you choose, not what someone else chooses for you.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Joy

“We all have bad things inside us, and we all choose either to give in to those bad things or to fight them.”

Kristin Cast book Untamed

Source: Untamed

Fight

“Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.”

William Faulkner book If I Forget Thee

Source: The Wild Palms

Pain, Wise

“Going into our fear and confronting our greed, our weaknesses, our neediness is the way out. And the way out is through the mind, by choosing our thoughts.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki book Rich Dad Poor Dad

Source: Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Fear, Way

“We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.”

John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal

Letter to Mrs William Froude, 27 June 1848.

“Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.”

Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics

Book VIII, 1155a.5
Nicomachean Ethics
Source: The Nicomachean Ethics

Friendship, For Friend, For Bestfriend

“Choose battles that you can win without losing your heart and your soul.”

Kristin Cast (1986) American writer

Soul, Heart

“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.”

Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997) Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor

Freedom

“What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change.”

Madeleine K. Albright (1937–2022) Former U.S. Secretary of State

People, Change, For Team

“I have one life and one chance to make it count for something… I'm free to choose what that something is, and the something I've chosen is my faith. Now, my faith goes beyond theology and religion and requires considerable work and effort. My faith demands -- this is not optional -- my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Life, Faith, Religion, Effort

“Nothing shapes your life more than the commitments you choose to make.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Life

“Something amazing happens when we surrender and just love. We melt into another world, a realm of power already within us. The world changes when we change. the world softens when we soften. The world loves us when we choose to love the world.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Love, World, Change

“Only Evil and Greater Evil exist and beyond them, in the shadows, lurks True Evil. True Evil, Geralt, is something you can barely imagine, even if you believe nothing can still surprise you. And sometimes True Evil seizes you by the throat and demands that you choose between it and another, slightly lesser, Evil.”

Andrzej Sapkowski book The Last Wish

Source: The Last Wish

Imagination, Evil

“Love Jo all your days, if you choose, but don't let it spoil you, for it's wicked to throw away so many good gifts because you can't have the one you want.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Love

“No” is a word that must never be negotiated, because the person who chooses not to hear it is trying to control you.”

Gavin de Becker (1954) American engineer

Source: The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Personality

“Young people everywhere have been allowed to choose between love and a garbage disposal unit. Everywhere they have chosen the garbage disposal unit.”

Guy Debord (1931–1994) French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker and founding member of the Situationist International (SI)

Love, People

“Life has no meaning a priori … It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Source: Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946), p. 58

Life

“I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Beauty

“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more, nor less.”

Lewis Carroll book Through the Looking-Glass

Source: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

“As with all my children, you must find your own path, and through that discovery, you will decide what each earth child must ultimately decide-whether she chooses chaos or love.”

P. C. Cast book Untamed

Source: Untamed

Love, Children

“When there are many worlds
you can choose the one
you walk into each day.”

Jacqueline Woodson book Brown Girl Dreaming

Source: Brown Girl Dreaming

World

“I mean, it's impossible to fake anything if you've already seen the other person in a way they'd never choose for you to. You can't go back from that.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

Source: What Happened to Goodbye

Way, Personality

“Choosing not to read is like closing an open door to paradise”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Reading

“A people free to choose will always choose peace.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Variant: A people free to choose will always choose peace

People, Peace, Peaceful

“Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you're going to live your life.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Life, Motivational, Attitude

“Sometimes you can’t choose what you love.”

Scott Westerfeld book The Last Days

Source: The Last Days

Love

“When in doubt, choose to live.”

Terry Pratchett book Thief of Time

Source: Thief of Time

“If I must choose between righteousness and peace I choose righteousness.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

America and the World War (1915)
1910s

Peace

“To THINK BIG and to use our talents doesn't mean we won't have difficulties along the way. We will—we all do. How we view those problems determines how we end up. If we choose to see the obstacles in our path as barriers, we stop trying. “We can't win,” we moan. “They won't let us win.”However, if we choose to see the obstacles as hurdles, we can leap over them. Successful people don't have fewer problems. They have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward.Whatever direction we choose, if we can realize that every hurdle we jump strengthens and prepares us for the next one, we're already on the way to success.”

Ben Carson book Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

Source: Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
Source: Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (1990), p. 232

People, Way, Problem, Thinking

“I've heard the word 'fear'. I simply choose to believe it doesn't apply to me.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Fear

“This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, then I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do.”

Terry Pratchett book Wintersmith

Source: Wintersmith

Death

“I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese

No. LXIII
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Love, Life, Death, God

“My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn't, couldn't end there.
At least that's what I would choose to believe.”

Barack Obama book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Source: Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

“I cannot choose one hundred best books because I have only written five”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Books

“Sometimes,” Robert said, “you choose whom you want to be with when you’re too young, and you change, and they don’t change with you.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Change

“Men choose Hamlet because every man sees himself as a disinherited monarch. Women choose Alice [in Wonderland] because every woman sees herself as the only reasonable creature among crazy people who think they are disinherited monarchs.”

Adam Gopnik (1956) American journalist

Women, Men, People, Thinking

“I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death…. is the true measure of the Divine within us.”

Alan Brennert (1954) American writer

Source: Moloka'i

Death, Pain

“We are free to choose our paths, but we can't choose the consequences that come with them.”

Sean Covey (1964) author; business executive

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens: The Ultimate Teenage Success Guide

“Once you choose hope, anything's possible.”

Christopher Reeve (1952–2004) actor, director, producer, screenwriter

Hope, Motivational, Wise, Depressing

“… you canʹt
always choose how you love a person. Love isnʹt logical or
fair. It just happens.”

Elizabeth Chandler (1954) writer

Source: Evercrossed

Love, Personality

“Some like to believe it's the book that chooses the person.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón (1964) Spanish writer

Books, Personality

“A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses.”

James Allen book As a Man Thinketh

Source: As a Man Thinketh

Personality

“You cannot choose a Guru. Deepen your longing and the Guru will choose you”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Source: Mystic's Musings

“The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God…or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Life, God, World

“You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Family

“Power isn't doing something terrible to someone who's weaker than you, … It's having the strength to do something terrible, and choosing not to.”

Jodi Picoult book The Storyteller

The Story Teller ISBN: 978-1-4767-2783-7 (2013)
Source: The Storyteller

“Who shall I shoot? You choose. Now, listen very carefully: where's your coffee? You've got coffee, haven't you? C'mon, everyone's got coffee! Spill the beans!”

Terry Pratchett book Monstrous Regiment

Source: Monstrous Regiment

Coffee

“Nothing is permanently perfect. But there are perfect moments and the will to choose what will bring about more perfect moments.”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: Simply Perfect

Perfection

“A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.”

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

Source: The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

“People come to Los Angeles and sell their soul every day. It’s sad. Here, the mentality is that everyone has a price. But I say no – no money can buy my soul. I’ve had so many offers that I didn’t think were proper and I’d say sorry, I don’t need it. I didn’t want to work my butt off and not be happy. I’ll always choose happiness and life over all the money in the world. Across my entire career, I had respect in the industry, because I was the one who never sold out.”

Fabio Lanzoni (1961) Italian model, actor and author

Fabio: confessions of the original male supermodel https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/jul/15/fabio-confessions-original-male-supermodel (July 15, 2015)

Life, Money, Happiness, People

“We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness..”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)

God, Happiness, History, Idea

“May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend.”

W.B. Yeats book Michael Robartes and the Dancer

St. 3 Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), A Prayer For My Daughter http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1421/

Beauty, Nature, Heart

“My theory is that for those of us who are too weak to remain single, God gives us a spouse. For those of us who are too hung up to handle marriage, God gives us celibacy. So, pick your weakness. Pick your poison, I guess. But anyway, for those of you who do choose to be in love and stuff, go for it.”

Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician

Anderson, Indiana http://www.kidbrothers.net/words/concert-transcripts/anderson-indiana-nov1695.html (November 16, 1995) In Concert

Love, God, Marriage

“[…] despite how hard sometimes the world seems to be, and all you see on television is war and conflict and poverty and violence, the truth is that if you had to choose when to be born, not knowing where or who you would be, in all of human history, now would be the time. Because the world is less violent, it is healthier, it is wealthier, it is more tolerant and it offers more opportunity than any time in human history for more people than any time in human history. Now, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still terrible things happening around the world or in this region. We still have things like human trafficking. And we still have terrible abuse of children. And there are conflicts. And so these are things that we’re going to have to tackle and deal with. But you should know that with each successive generation things have improved just a little bit. And over time, that little bit adds to a lot. And it’s now up to you, the next generation, to make sure that 20 years from now, or 30 years from now, people look back and say, wow, things are a lot better now than they were back then. And there will still be problems 20 or 30 years from now also. But they will be different problems, because you will have solved many of the problems that exist today.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall (April 2014)

War, Children, People, Truth

“What follows, then? That one had better put on gloves before reading the New Testament. The presence of so much filth makes it very advisable. One would as little choose early Christians for companions as Polish Jews: not that one need seek out an objection to them — neither has a pleasant smell.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Antichrist

Sec. 46
The Antichrist (1888)

Reading

“Even the asexual has a deviation - his asexuality. It is far more abnormal to have a lack of sexual desire (unless illness or old-age, or another valid reason has caused the wane) than it is to be sexually promiscuous. However, if a Satanist chooses sexual sublimination above overt sexual expression, that is entirely his own affair. In many cases of sexual sublimination (or asexuality), any attempt to emancipate himself sexually would prove devastating to the asexual. Asexuals are invariably sexually sublimated by their jobs or hobbies. All the energy and driving interest which would normally be devoted to sexual activity is channeled into other pastimes or into their chosen occupations. If a person favors other interests over sexual activity, it is his right, and no one is justified in condemning him for it. However, the person should at least recognize the fact that this is a sexual sublimation.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Age, Personality

“I can't say that anything has been "exciting". Rather, I would choose the word "interesting". Not too long ago, the Chinese University of Hong Kong conducted a survey to determine which consumer products were using Fuzzy Logic. The result was a thick report, some 150-200 pages long-washing machines, camcorders, microwave ovens, etc. What interested me wasn't the particular applications so much as the breadth of applications-so many products were incorporating Fuzzy Logic.”

Lotfi A. Zadeh (1921–2017) Electrical engineer and computer scientist

About "What kinds of applications have you been excited to see develop?"
1990s, Interview with Lotfi Zadeh, Creator of Fuzzy Logic (1994)

Universe

“You do not need to seek freedom in some distant land, for it exists within your own body, heart, mind, and soul. Illuminated emancipation, freedom, unalloyed and untainted bliss await you, but you must choose to embark on the Inward Journey to discover it.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, p.22

Soul, Freedom, Distant, Heart

“The public relations counsel, therefore, is a creator of news for whatever medium he chooses to transmit ideas. It is his duty to create news no matter what the medium which broadcasts this news.”

Edward Bernays (1891–1995) American public relations consultant, marketing pioneer

Source: Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), p. 171

Idea

“There is then no analogy whatever between the operations of the Chess-Player, and those of the calculating machine of Mr. Babbage, and if we choose to call the former a pure machine we must be prepared to admit that it is, beyond all comparison, the most wonderful of the inventions of mankind.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

Poe stating his arguments that Maelzel's Chess-Player was a hoax. Maelzel's Chess-Player http://www.eapoe.org/works/essays/maelzel.htm, Southern Literary Journal (April 1836).

“To choose one sock from each of infinitely many pairs of socks requires the Axiom of Choice, but for shoes the Axiom is not needed.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

As quoted in Williams' Weighing the Odds: A Course in Probability and Statistics (2001), p. 498
Attributed from posthumous publications

Shoe

“No one is more truly helpless, more completely a victim, than he who can neither choose nor change nor escape his protectors.”

John Holt book Escape from Childhood

Escape from Childhood (1974).

Change

“Whose side are you on?" "I don't know."
"This is a war, you've got to choose." "I don't know."
"Does your village still exist?" "I don't know."
"Are those your children?”

Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) Polish writer

"Yes."
"Vietnam"
Poems New and Collected (1998), No End of Fun (1967)

War, Children

“A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.”

Ludwig von Mises book Human Action

1963 edition, p. 680
Human Action (1949)

Life, Death, Men, Drink

“We must now take precautions to prevent you from being embarrassed by something in which the ignorant majority is at fault for lack of proper consideration, and so from supposing with them, that man has not been created truly good simply because he is able to do evil. … If you reconsider this matter carefully and force your mind to apply a more acute understanding to it, it will be revealed to you that man's status is better and higher for the very reason for which it is thought to be inferior: it is on this choice between two ways, on this freedom to choose either alternative, that the glory of the rational mind is based, it is in this that the whole honor of our nature consists, it is from this that its dignity is derived.”

Pelagius (360–420) British monk

Letter to Demetrias

Way, Understanding, Nature, Freedom

““So you are still our Master,” said Sabrina. She was frowning. She had come to be afraid again.
“Not so!” Lucifer turned, almost in rage. “You are your own masters. Your destiny is yours. Your lives are your own. Do you not see that this means an end to the miraculous? You are at the beginning of a new age for Man, an age of investigation and analysis.”
“The Age of Lucifer,” I said, echoing some of His own irony.
He saw the joke in it. He smiled.
“Man, whether he be Christian or pagan, must lean to rule himself, to understand himself, to take responsibility for himself. There can be no Armageddon now. If Man is destroyed, he shall have destroyed himself.”
“So we are to live without aid,” said Sabrina. Her face was clearing.
“And without hindrance,” said Lucifer. “It will be your fellows, your children and their children who will find the Cure for the World’s Pain.”
“Or perish in the attempt,” said I.
“It is a fair risk,” said Lucifer. “And you must remember, von Bek, that it is in my interest that you succeed. I have wisdom and knowledge at your disposal. I always had that gift for Man. And now that I may give it freely I choose not to do so. Each fragment of wisdom shall be earned. And it shall be hard-earned, captain.””

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 18 (p. 166)

Wisdom, Pain, Children, Age

“Russia will in due time become a power almost as great as the old Roman Empire. She can become mistress of all Asia, except British India, whenever she chooses to take it; and when enlightened arrangements shall have made her revenue proportioned to her territory, and railways shall have abridged distances her command of men will become enormous, her pecuniary means gigantic, and her power of transporting armies over great distances most formidable. Germany ought to be strong in order to resist Russian aggression, and a strong Prussia is essential to German strength.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Letter to Lord John Russell (13 September 1865), quoted in E. Ashley (ed.), The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston 1846-1865 (London, 1876), pp. 270-1
1860s

Men, Strong, Time

“I choose to live in what I think is the greatest country in the world, which is committing horrendous terrorist acts and should stop.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Debate with Bill Bennett on CNN, May 30, 2002 http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=program-info&program_id=11118 Quotes 2000s, 2002

World, Thinking, Country

“We do not choose the day of our birth nor may we choose the day of our death, yet choice is the sovereign faculty of the mind.”

Thornton Wilder book The Eighth Day

The Eighth Day (1967)

Death, Birth

“I choose the likely man in preference to the rich man; I want a man without money rather than money without a man.”

Themistocles (-524–-459 BC) Athenian statesman

As quoted in The Quotable Intellectual (2010) edited by P. Archer, p. 152 http://books.google.com/books?id=QnDvIsNKNIwC

Money

“The perfect way is only difficult for those who pick and choose. Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference and heaven and earth are set apart; if you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between "for" and "against" is the mind's worst disease.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

In "The Tao of Jeet Kune Do" by Bruce Lee (1975, compiled and published posthumously) and also in Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living (2000) edited by John Little, this is attributed to Lee, perhaps because it was found in his notes, but it is also quoted in precisely this form, from what appear to be translations of Taoist writings in The Religions of Man (1958) by Huston Smith. It is actually from Xinxin Ming, by the Third Chinese Chan [Zen] Patriarch Sengcan.
Misattributed

Truth, Disease, Way, Perfection

“I went through a lot of mental pains and anguish about choosing between jazz and classical. I realized that where I functioned was where I should be, and where I functioned was in jazz, so that was it.”

Bill Evans (1929–1980) American jazz pianist

http://www.billevanswebpages.com/billquotes.html.

Pain

“I’m not very cautious or careful. It’s always been more about having a variety of experiences than any planned trajectory… I think that in a way, projects choose you.”

Cate Blanchett (1969) Australian actress

Cate Blanchett takes on Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Monsters and Critics, 6 February 2013 http://www.monstersandcritics.com/cate-blanchett-takes-on-blanche-dubois-in-a-streetcar-named-desire/,

Way, Thinking