Quotes about choosing
page 21

“I learned early on to stay away from gossip magazines and reviews. That stuff just makes you unhappy, and I know actors that read everything that's written about them and they're miserable. You can choose what to let into your life.”

John Travolta (1954) American actor, dancer and singer

Life, Learning, Reading

“The first principle of child-rearing is to choose a good mother.”

Christian Morgenstern (1871–1914) German author

“I am not what has happened to me. I am what I choose to become. Carl Jung”

Ralph Smart

“Choose people who choose you.”

Ralph Smart

People

“We become like the people we surround ourselves with most often. CHOOSE CAREFULLY! Not all energy is good energy.”

Ralph Smart

People

“A policy on immigration helps to determine the unity as well as the size of the population. Should Australia so select its immigrants that the society is relatively unified? Or should it select immigrants who promote diversity? Should Australia continue to be dominated by Anglo-Celtic peoples and the English language and institutions? Or should it become the new Eurasia? In choosing immigrants and the pace at which they arrive, how far should we risk social and racial tensions?”

Geoffrey Blainey book All for Australia

All for Australia (1984)

People, Help

“If we choose the path of destruction, the planet will continue to descend irreversibly into the Anthropocene Epoch, the biologically final age in which the planet exists almost exclusively by, for, and of ourselves.”

Edward O. Wilson (1929) American biologist

Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life (2016)

Age

“I think the main thing I do every show, and I guess most performers do this, is engaging the audience, but I like to engage the audience in a very direct way right off the bat by starting the show with giving them the choice to participate or not because that’s the choice. By choosing to participate or not, you’re participating. Do you know what I mean? And I can figure out what their level of participation’s going to be and where I can go into crowd.”

Dan Deacon (1981) American musician

How Does Dan Deacon Work? http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/working/2017/05/working_in_baltimore_how_does_dan_deacon_work.html (May 9, 2017)

Way, Thinking

“So basically what I think is that in a free society, different people will have lots of different sexual lifestyles. Some people will want to settle down and get married, and that’s fine. Some people will wanna have a fucking baby, and that’s also fine—someone needs to have the fucking babies. But some people won’t want to do that: some people will wanna dip their balls in hot wax and pour wolf’s milk all over a stranger’s face, and that’s fine, too. Some people won’t want to have sex or romantic relationships. Point is, all these things carry emotional risks: you’ve got heartbreak, loneliness, excruciating boredom—this is just the human condition. And no matter what you do, you have to take emotional risks. But as a society, we could make sex less risky for women by ending rape culture and slut-shaming, and instituting all-you-can-eat birth control. Hence, you know, feminism. And there are also things that we can do as individuals to be safer, kinder, and more responsible. If you do choose to have casual sex, things are gonna go a lot better for you and your partners if you try to remain honest, open and communicative about what your intentions are. And for God’s sake, use a condom—do not get pregnant or get anyone else pregnant. That’s a real downer, this… echoing God’s act of creation by bringing new life into the world. It’s disgusting!”

Natalie Wynn ContraPoints

ContraPoints, Feminism Did Not Destroy Atheism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klfH9QaEcqY (2016), Is Casual Sex Bad for Your Soul? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKrbvLkbHu8 (2017)

Life, Women, God, People

“I like to think that I’m strong and beautiful and nubile, and in control of every situation except when I choose not to be. But, it’s much easier to get away from the victim mentality when you’re not a victim. Also, we should recognize that fighting for fair treatment is not the same as having a victim mentality.”

Natalie Wynn ContraPoints

ContraPoints, Feminism Did Not Destroy Atheism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klfH9QaEcqY (2016), What Makes a Trans Chick “Cool”? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spHCEBTqaUE (2016)

Beauty, Thinking, Strong, Fight

“I was completely overwhelmed…The body registers stress, whether good or bad, in the same way. So if it’s super exciting or super traumatising, your body is in equal distress. Though I would choose excitement over trauma every day.”

Lupita Nyong'o (1983) Mexican-Kenyan actress and film director

On her quick rise to stardom in “EXCLUSIVE: Lupita Nyong'o: 'Success Has Brought Me Freedom'” https://graziadaily.co.uk/celebrity/news/exclusive-lupita-nyongo-interview/ in Grazia (2017 Sep 11)

Bad luck, Way

“I place a profound belief—indeed a fervent faith—in the virtues of self reliance and personal independence. On these is founded the whole case for the free society, for the assertion that human progress is best achieved by offering the freest possible scope for the development of individual talents, qualified only by a respect for the qualities and the freedom of others...For many years there has been a subtle erosion of the essential virtues of the free society. Self-reliance has been sneered at as if it were an absurd suburban pretention. Thrift has been denigrated as if it were greed. The desire of parents to choose and to struggle for what they themselves regarded as the best possible education for their children has been scorned.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Central Council (15 March 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102655 Leader of the Opposition

Children, Education, Faith, Parent

“The selfish gene theory is Darwin’s theory, expressed in a way that Darwin did not choose but whose aptness, I should like to think, he would instantly have recognized and delighted in. It is in fact a logical outgrowth of orthodox neo-Darwinism, but expressed as a novel image. Rather than focus on the individual organism, it takes a gene’s eye view of nature. It is a different way of seeing, not a different theory.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Preface to Second Edition (1989)
The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989)

Way, Nature, Thinking, Selfishness

“What is magnificent about humans is when they decide to turn and stand. If they respond with non-violence on principle and hold their ground, they are really magnificent. … Until men learn to celebrate and operate on the feminine aspect of themselves and stop the oppression of women, children, the environment, other species, we don’t have a world to live in. It’s not a world that anyone chooses to live in.”

James Cromwell (1940) American actor and producer

"Tribeca Film Festival Interview: John and James Cromwell of A .45 at 50th" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cynthia-ellis/tribeca-film-festival-int_b_561477.html by Cynthia Ellis, in HuffingtonPost.com (4 July 2010)

Women, Men, Children, World

“The warmth of zeal is not perhaps the most dangerous rock that we have to avoid; but rather that languour which ease produces and a distrust of our own courage. Therefore continually wind up the sacred spring of republican government, instead of letting it run down. I need not say that I am not here justifying any excess. Principles the most sacred may be abused: the wisdom of government should guide its operations according to circumstances, it should time its measures, choose its means; for the manner of bringing about great things is an essential part of the talent of producing them, just as wisdom is an essential attribute of virtue....”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Principles to Form the Basis of the Administration of the Republic (February 1794)

Wisdom, Spring, Courage, Time

“When we, Constantine and Licinius, emperors, had an interview at Milan, and conferred together with respect to the good and security of the commonweal, it seemed to us that, amongst those things that are profitable to mankind in general, the reverence paid to the Divinity merited our first and chief attention, and that it was proper that the Christians and all others should have liberty to follow that mode of religion which to each of them appeared best; so that that God, who is seated in heaven, might be benign and propitious to us, and to every one under our government. And therefore we judged it a salutary measure, and one highly consonant to right reason, that no man should be denied leave of attaching himself to the rites of the Christians, or to whatever other religion his mind directed him, that thus the supreme Divinity, to whose worship we freely devote ourselves, might continue to vouchsafe His favour and beneficence to us. And accordingly we give you to know that, without regard to any provisos in our former orders to you concerning the Christians, all who choose that religion are to be permitted, freely and absolutely, to remain in it, and not to be disturbed any ways, or molested. And we thought fit to be thus special in the things committed to your charge, that you might understand that the indulgence which we have granted in matters of religion to the Christians is ample and unconditional; and perceive at the same time that the open and free exercise of their respective religions is granted to all others, as well as to the Christians. For it befits the well-ordered state and the tranquillity of our times that each individual be allowed, according to his own choice, to worship the Divinity; and we mean not to derogate aught from the honour due to any religion or its votaries.”

Constantine the Great (274–337) Roman emperor

As translated in The Ante-Nicene Fathers (1886) edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Vol. 7, p. 320 http://books.google.com/books?id=ko0sAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA320 Variant translation: When I, Constantine Augustus, as well as I Licinius Augustus fortunately met near Mediolanum [Milan], and were considering everything that pertained to the public welfare and security, we thought —, among other things which we saw would be for the good of many, those regulations pertaining to the reverence of the Divinity ought certainly to be made first, so that we might grant to the Christians and others full authority to observe that religion which each preferred; whence any Divinity whatsoever in the seat of the heavens may be propitious and kindly disposed to us and all who are placed under our rule. And thus by this wholesome counsel and most upright provision we thought to arrange that no one whatsoever should be denied the opportunity to give his heart to the observance of the Christian religion, or of that religion which he should think best for himself, so that the Supreme Deity, to whose worship we freely yield our hearts, may show in all things His usual favor and benevolence. Therefore, your Worship should know that it has pleased us to remove all conditions whatsoever, which were in the rescripts formerly given to you officially, concerning the Christians and now any one of these who wishes to observe Christian religion may do so freely and openly, without molestation. We thought it fit to commend these things most fully to your care that you may know that we have given to those Christians free and unrestricted opportunity of religious worship. When you see that this has been granted to them by us, your Worship will know that we have also conceded to other religions the right of open and free observance of their worship for the sake of the peace of our times, that each one may have the free opportunity to worship as he pleases; this regulation is made we that we may not seem to detract from any dignity or any religion. As translated in The Early Christian Persecutions (1897) by Dana Carleton Munro http://books.google.com/books?id=eoQTAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA29 Edict of Milan (313)

God, Religion, Way, Exercises

“How I began to write is different than how I became a writer. They are two different things. Many people write but they do not become writers. To become a writer is a job. It involves planning and it affects all parts of your life. Even what you eat—being a writer means not eating food with too much rich sauce to avoid taking a long afternoon nap! It’s like being a professional athlete. And a writer must choose between being a sprinter who writes a book, and being a writer who creates an oeuvre. If you want to create an oeuvre, you have to be careful not to put all your energy into the first book. You have to have a vision for the long term...”

Dany Laferrière (1953) Haitian Canadian novelist and journalist

On how he became a writer in “An Interview with Dany Laferrière” https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/an-interview-with-dany-laferriere-jessie-chaffee (WWB Daily, 2016)

Life, People, Books, Food

“We also have a fundamental right to not carry a pain that we did not choose. Whether you’re born black or gay or a woman or Jewish, you didn’t choose it. You have to be the person in charge of it saying your story, again and again. When it is something you are forced to recount, there’s something violent about it…”

Édouard Louis (1992) French writer

On being able to control your own story in “AUTHOR ÉDOUARD LOUIS SAYS THE UNSAYABLE” https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/edouard-louis-bam-st-annes-warehouse-the-end-of-eddy-a-history-of-violence in Interview Magazine (2019 Nov 13)

Pain, Personality

“Their strategy was simple. Moral domination. Nehru was a thinker. But Rajiv, Sonia, and Rahul are no intellectuals. They took a different route. They redefined morality. Secularism included. Anti-Congress was new immoral. Pro-Hindu became anti-Muslim. India was morally polarized. Morality is subjective. No one can say with guarantee what is pure morality. Masses were forced to choose between moral standards (Secularism, unity in diversity, inclusive etc.) and quality of life (development). People who wanted quality of life were made to feel guilty. Hindus who wanted to celebrate their religious freedom were made to feel guilty. Muslims who wanted to be part of mainstream India were made to feel guilty. They filled India’s psyche with fear, hate and guilt. They hated all indigenous, grassroots thinkers. They hated Sardar Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Chandrashekhar, P.V. Narsimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and now Modi. They are the land grabbers of Sainik Farms and Adarsh Societies of India. They run NGOs. They run media. They coin useless and irrelevant jargon to confuse the masses. They have designations but no real jobs. They are irrelevant NRIs who want us to see a reality which doesn’t exist. They want a plebiscite in Kashmir. They defend stone-pelters. They want Maoists to participate in mainstream politics. They want Tejpal to be freed. Yaqub to be pardoned. But they want Modi to be hanged. They are the hijackers of national morality. Secularism included. They are the robbers of Indian treasury. They are the brokers of power. They are the pimps of secularism. They are the Intellectual Mafia.”

Vivek Agnihotri (1973) director

Urban Naxals (2018)

Life, Hate, People, Fear

“What country in the world today engages in the most extreme anti-Semitic persecution? The Soviet Union. It’s not an accident, because if you have a society with concentrated power, if you have a collectivist society, it’s going to be in a position to exercise the preferences and prejudices of its rulers. Moreover, it’s going to have an incentive to do so, because it’s going to need a scapegoat and it will choose some group like the Jews or the blacks to be the scapegoat.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“Interview with Milton Friedman”, Playboy magazine (Feb. 1973)

World, Exercises, Country

“Those of us who believe in freedom must believe also in the freedom of individuals to make their own mistakes. If a man knowingly prefers to live for today, to use his resources for current enjoyment, deliberately choosing a penurious old age, by what right do we prevent him from doing so? We may argue with him, seek to persuade him that he is wrong, but are we entitled to use coercion to prevent him from doing what he chooses to do? Is there not always the possibility that he is right and that we are wrong? Humility is the distinguishing virtue of the believer in freedom; arrogance, of the paternalist.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 11, Social Welfare Measures, p. 187

Age, Making love, Freedom

“Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet choose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to exalt it by its influence on reason alone; that the impious presumption of legislature and ruler, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time: That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; … that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; and therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust or emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religions opinion, is depriving him injudiciously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow-citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emolumerits, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminals who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, … and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”

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

A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, Chapter 82 (1779). Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 1 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-01_Bk.pdf, pp. 438–441. Comparison of Jefferson's proposed draft and the bill enacted http://web.archive.org/web/19990128135214/http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7842/bill-act.htm 1770s

Men, Money, God, Truth

“Human beings are not children of the sun. They are children of the jungle. We have in our natures many things that we would be a great deal better off without instincts and ways of acting which we would never have included in ourselves in the world if we had had the privilege of choosing just what was to go into our natures. These instincts and ways of acting are vestigial. They were useful to our ancestors, but owing to changes in surroundings they are not useful to us.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

"Vestigial Instincts in Man", pp. 127–128
Savage Survivals (1916), Savage Survivals in Higher Peoples (Continued)

Children, World, Way, Nature

“Representative democracy demands a clear division of function between the electors and the elected. The former choose their representatives and retain the essential right of sacking them, if they are not satisfied with their work, at the end of a fixed period. But in the meantime the elected representatives, whether they are members of Parliament or city councillors, should be given full freedom to do their jobs. Any form of referendum is an infringement of this freedom, and the more complex and detailed the issue upon which it is held the more absurd an infringement it becomes.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Letter to The Times with Henry Usborne (22 January 1954), p. 7
1950s

Democracy, Freedom

“At the end of the day, nothing matters more than protecting our way of life - one that features being the captain of your own life, being free to choose your own faith, being free to express yourself, and being free from coercion.”

Hsu Szu-chien Taiwanese politician

Hsu Szu-chien (2019) cited in " Dr. Szu-chien Hsu Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Republic of China (Taiwan) Remarks https://www.csis.org/analysis/dr-szu-chien-hsu-deputy-minister-foreign-affairs-republic-china-taiwan-remarks" on Center for Strategies & International Studies, 10 June 2019.

Life, Faith, Way

“I am told that there are still left over 18,000 Hindus and Sikhs in Rawalpindi and 30,000 in the Wah Camp. I will repeat my advice that they should all be prepared to die rather than leave their homes. The art of dying bravely and with honour does not need any special training, save a living faith in God. Then there will be no abductions and no forcible conversions. I know that you are anxious I should go to the Punjab at the earliest moment. I want to do so. But if I failed in Delhi, it is impossible for me to succeed in Pakistan. For I want to go to all the parts and provinces of Pakistan under the protection of no escort save God. I will go as a friend of the Muslims as of others. My life will be at their disposal. I hope that I may cheerfully die at the hands of anyone who chooses to take my life. Then I will have done as I have advised all to do.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

SELECTED WRITINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI https://web.archive.org/web/20180216130212/https://www.mkgandhi.org/swmgandhi/chap07.htm, Extracts from the Delhi Diary, 23 September 1947. 1940s

Life, God, Faith, Hope

“The hour is rapidly arriving when every man and woman of our class will have to make a great decision. We shall have to choose whether capitalism with all its attendant miseries and horrors is to remain enthroned here in Britain, or whether we intend to be free indeed. We shall have to choose whether we really believe in the application of the right of self-determination for all nations, or whether, for generations yet to come, we prefer to remain the tools of Imperialism, and the slaves of profit.”

Arthur MacManus (1889–1927) British trade unionist

Fourteen Points https://www.marxists.org/archive/mcmanus/articles/points.htm, Halifax Division of the Socialist Labour Party, (1918)

Making love, Decision, Self-confidence

“In hearing of these different possibilities, people sometimes exclaim rashly that there could of course be no thought in a Master’s mind of choosing any but that course which most helps humanity - a remark which greater knowledge would have prevented them from making. We should never forget that there are other evolutions in the solar system besides our own, and no doubt it is necessary for the carrying out of the vast plan of the Logos that there should be adepts working on all the seven lines to which we have referred. Surely the choice of the Master would be to go wherever his work was most needed - to place his services with absolute selflessness at the disposal of the Powers in charge of this part of the great scheme of evolution.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: Invisible Helpers (1915), Ch. 17

People, Making love, Knowledge, Help

“When the man was disgraced and told to go away, he was allowed to ask all the animals whether any of them would come with him and share his fortunes and his life. There were only two who agreed to come entirely of their own accord, and they were the dog and the cat. And ever since then, those two have been jealous of each other, and each is for ever trying to make man choose which one he likes best. Every man prefers one or the other.”

Richard Adams book The Plague Dogs

The Plague Dogs (1977)

Life, Making love, Dogs, Cats

“The Whigs of this day have before them, in this Appeal, their constitutional ancestors: They have the doctors of the modern school. They will choose for themselves. The author of the Reflections has chosen for himself. If a new order is coming on, and all the political opinions must pass away as dreams, which our ancestors have worshipped as revelations, I say for him, that he would rather be the last (as certainly he is the least) of that race of men, than the first and greatest of those who have coined to themselves Whig principles from a French die, unknown to the impress of our fathers in the constitution.”

Edmund Burke book An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs

Source: An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791), p. 476

Men, School, Dreams

“Whether they are allowed to be Whigg principles, or not, is a very small part of my concern. I think them exactly as such as the sober, honourable, and intelligent part in that party, have always professed. I think, I have shewn, beyond a possibility of debate, that they are exactly the same. But if any person…choose to think otherwise, and conceive that they are contrary to the Doctrines of their Whigg party,—be it so. I am certain, that they are principles of which no reasonable man or good citizen need be ashamed of. If they are Tory principles, I shall always wish to be thought a Tory, If the contrary of these principles be Whigg principles, I beg, that you, my Dear Friend will never consider me as belonging to that description.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to Dr Richard Brocklesby (c. 1790s), quoted in R. B. McDowell (ed.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume IX: May 1796–July 1797 (Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 446
Undated

Intelligence, Thinking, Parting, Personality

“No generation can choose the age or circumstance in which it is born, but through leadership it can choose to make the age in which it is born an age of enlightenment, an age of jobs, and peace, and justice. Only leadership -- that intangible combination of gifts, the discipline, information, circumstance, courage, timing, will and divine inspiration -- can lead us out of the crisis in which we find ourselves. Leadership can mitigate the misery of our nation. Leadership can part the waters and lead our nation in the direction of the Promised Land. Leadership can lift the boats stuck at the bottom.”

Jesse Jackson (1941) African-American civil rights activist and politician

Address to the Democratic National Convention, 1984

Age, Making love, Peace, Justice

“This is not a perfect party. We are not a perfect people. Yet, we are called to a perfect mission. Our mission: to feed the hungry; to clothe the naked; to house the homeless; to teach the illiterate; to provide jobs for the jobless; and to choose the human race over the nuclear race.”

Jesse Jackson (1941) African-American civil rights activist and politician

Address to the Democratic National Convention, 1984

People, Housing, Perfection, Clothes

“What profit is there in crossing the sea and in going from one city to another? If you would escape your troubles, you need not another place but another personality. Perhaps you have reached Athens, or perhaps Rhodes; choose any state you fancy, how does it matter what its character may be? You will be bringing to it your own.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

Personality, Sea

“I also know you cannot pick and choose. Change is a medicine bundle. You must refuse it altogether, or take the whole thing.”

Poul Anderson book The Boat of a Million Years

Source: The Boat of a Million Years (1989), Chapter 12 “The Last Medicine” (p. 215)

Change

“Why then dost thou choose to act in the same way? and why dost thou not leave these agitations which are foreign to nature, to those who cause them and those who are moved by them? And why art thou not altogether intent upon the right way of making use of things which happen to thee?”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

for then thou wilt use them well, and they will be material for thee. Only attend to thyself, and resolve to be a good man in every act which thou doest; and remember...
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII, 58

Making love, Art, Way, Nature

“A future prime minister could always choose to alter the relationship between Britain and the European Union. But the Chequers approach is the right one for now because we have got to make sure that we respect that vote and take advantage of the opportunities of being outside the European Union.”

Michael Gove (1967) British politician

Brexit: Future PM 'could change EU relationship' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45541240 BBC News (16 September 2018) 2018

Making love, Future

“The day after we vote to leave we hold all the cards and we can choose the path we want.”

Michael Gove (1967) British politician

Speech at the Vote Leave offices in London http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/michael-gove/michael-gove-vote-leave_b_9728548.html (19 April 2016) 2016

“Having destroyed the social power of the nobility and the guildmasters, the bourgeois also destroyed their political power. Having raised itself to the actual position of first class in society, it proclaims itself to be also the dominant political class. This it does through the introduction of the representative system which rests on bourgeois equality before the law and the recognition of free competition, and in European countries takes the form of constitutional monarchy. In these constitutional monarchies, only those who possess a certain capital are voters – that is to say, only members of the bourgeoisie. These bourgeois voters choose the deputies, and these bourgeois deputies, by using their right to refuse to vote taxes, choose a bourgeois government.”

Friedrich Engels book Principles of Communism

Principles of Communism (1847)

Law, Country

“Now it can become clear to man that freedom and peace of the nations can only come when as Jesus and his followers, and in our time above all Tolstoi advised, they choose to fully abstain from any violence.”

Gustav Landauer (1870–1919) German anarchist

Letter from Landauer to Martin Buber 1914, quoted in Martin Buber's Life and Work, vol. I by M. Friedman 1981, pp. 251-252

Peace, Freedom, Time

“First, what do we mean by anguish? The existentialist frankly states that man is in anguish. His meaning is as follows-When a man commits himself to anything, fully realizing that he is not only choosing what he will be, but is thereby at the same time a legislator deciding for the whole of mankind-in such a moment a man cannot escape from the sense of complete and profound responsibility.”

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

Source: Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946), p. 30

Sense, Time

“We leave the question whether a man shall be a brain or hand worker entirely to him to settle. At the end of the term of three years as a common laborer, which every man must serve, it is for him to choose, in accordance to his natural tastes, whether he will fit himself for an art or profession, or be a farmer or mechanic. If he feels that he can do better work with his brains than his muscles, he finds every facility provided for testing the reality of his supposed bent, of cultivating it, and if fit of pursuing it as his avocation. The schools of technology, of medicine, of art, of music, of histrionics, and of higher liberal learning are always open to aspirants without condition.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 7.

School, Art, Music, Feeling

“A longtime member of the Congress Party, he was its president for a time. He had a doctorate in law from Cambridge. He was elected, with support from Congress and leftist groups, as ninth president of India, that role is largely ceremonial, though its powers include discretion in choosing a prime minister if no party has a parliamentary majority.”

Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918–1999) Indian politician

Shankar Dayal Sharma, 81, Former President of India

Law, Support, Time

“This is why Kapoor and Balmond have emerged as embattled heroes of public art. Their Orbit tower is not consensual, or easy to make sense of. It is wild and unexpected. It is, I believe, the most exciting British public artwork since House. Those who commissioned and created it deserve acclaim for choosing electricity over dull consensus.”

Anish Kapoor (1954) British contemporary artist of Indian birth

Anish Kapoor's Olympic Park sculpture sends public art into Orbit

Making love, Art, Sense, Housing

“Manikda was always different from the others. He did everything — from writing the script to choosing the location, finalizing the cast to designing sets and costumes, supervising make-up to framing the shots to editing. He was involved with each and every part of his film and was always very clear about what he wanted. His films were Indian but the production process was western. He also proved that silence can say a million words if used properly and was very economical with dialogues. He used barking of dogs, birdcalls, mechanical clatter or other natural sounds to brilliant effect. It was because of this detailing that every scene of his films became powerful and meaningful. And though he played so many roles behind the scenes, he accepted remuneration from the producer only for direction.”

Satyajit Ray (1921–1992) Indian author, poet, composer, lyricist, filmmaker

After working with Satyajit Ray, working in Bombay was confusing: Sharmila Tagore

Making love, Dogs, Nature, Silence

“Ray was a terrific director! He was versatile in choosing the subjects of his film. And his films were very sophisticated, very clean. I got some idea about India from his films.”

Satyajit Ray (1921–1992) Indian author, poet, composer, lyricist, filmmaker

Idea

“A highly competent Bitch often deprecates herself by refusing to recognize her own superiority…. Bitches are among the most unsung of the unsung heroes of this society. They are the pioneers, the vanguard, the spearhead. Whether they want to be or not this is the role they serve just by their very being. Many would not choose to be the groundbreakers for the mass of women for whom they have no sisterly feelings but they cannot avoid it. Those who violate the limits, extend them; or cause the system to break…. Their major psychological oppression is not a belief that they are inferior but a belief that they are not…. Like most women they were taught to hate themselves as well as all women. In different ways and for different reasons perhaps, but the effect was similar. Internalization of a derogatory self-concept always results in a good deal of bitterness and resentment. This anger is usually either turned in on the self —making one an unpleasant person or on other women — reinforcing the social cliches about them. Only with political consciousness is it directed at the source — the social system…. We must be strong, we must be militant, we must be dangerous. We must realize that Bitch is Beautiful and that we have nothing to lose. Nothing whatsoever.”

Jo Freeman (1945) writer, lawyer

The BITCH Manifesto (Fall, 1968, © 1969) http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/bitch.htm, as accessed Aug. 22, 2010 (also published as Joreen, The Bitch Manifesto, in Notes From the Second Year (N.Y.: Shulamith Firestone & Anne Koedt, 1970))

Women, Hate, Making love, Beauty

“As we devote ourselves to the higher calling of serving our country as president and vice-president, this is the reason we will choose to remain independent, or without party. We believe that whoever runs and serves as president or vice-president should not be member of a single party (LP, NPC, NUP, NP, UNA or others). Our party should be the Filipino people. And we should be loyal not only to liberals, nationalists, or other party members, but to every Filipino.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2015, Speech: Declaration as Vice Presidential Candidate

People, Country

“Will considered what to do. When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don’t take are snuffed out like candles, as if they’d never existed. At the moment all Will’s choices existed at once. But to keep them all in existence meant doing nothing. He had to choose, after all.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Ch. 2 : Balthamos and Baruch

Way

“Films of the mating behavior of most other species — a staple of public television of America — demonstrate that the female chooses.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Males pursue, show off, brawl, scuffle, and make general fools of themselves for love. A major failing of most feminist ideology is its dumb, ungenerous stereotyping of men as tyrants and abusers, when in fact — as I know full well from my own mortifying lesbian experience — men are tormented by women’s flirtatiousness and hemming and hawing, their manipulations and changeableness, their humiliating rejections. Cock teasing is a universal reality. It is part of women’s merciless testing and cold-eyed comparison shopping for potential mates. Men will do anything to win the favor of women.
Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 35

Behavior

“But before that, and perhaps much earlier, for example a few centimeters from the mouth of the sink, at the height of the apartment on the second floor, or in the first underground pipe, we may happen to find the hair. It is enough to think of the joy that this would cause us, in the astonished calculation of the efforts saved by pure good luck, to choose, to demand practically a similar task, that every conscious teacher should advise to its students from the earliest childhood, instead of drying their souls with the rule of cross-multiplication or the sorrows of Cancha Rayada.”

Julio Cortázar book Historias de cronopios y de famas

Historias de Cronopios y de Famas (1962)

Bad luck, Soul, Thinking, Effort

“Amount of rapes are increasing. Because therefore more and more women will be raped, my earnest wish is that right women will be raped by predators choosing their victims randomly. Green-left-winger reformers and their voters. Rather them than others. Nothing else will work for them, but multiculture that hits their own ankle.”

Jussi Halla-aho (1971) Finnish Slavic linguist, blogger and a politician

Jussi Halla-aho (2006), published in the blog Scripta [original finnish text] in http://www.halla-aho.com/scripta/monikulttuurisuus_ja_nainen.html, December 20, 2006
2005-09

Women

“When choosing people to work and associate with, do not be mesmerized by their reputation or taken in by the surface image they try to project. Instead, train yourself to look deep within them and see their character. People’s character is formed in their earliest years and by their daily habits. It is what compels them to repeat certain actions in their lives and fall into negative patterns. Look closely at such patterns and remember that people never do something just once. They will inevitably repeat their behavior. Gauge the relative strength of their character by how well they handle adversity, their ability to adapt and work with other people, their patience and ability to learn. Always gravitate toward those who display signs of strength, and avoid the many toxic types out there. Know thoroughly your own character so you can break your compulsive patterns and take control of your destiny.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 4 : Determine the Strength of People’s Character
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

People, Behavior, Gauge, Learning

“Chosen responsibility is where the human race needs to be headed. And to do this, we choose what we want to become responsible for because it would make us feel good to do it, not because it would make us feel like a good person to do what we don't want to do.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Making love, Feeling, Personality

“Many medical and legal professionals believe that in many ways marijuana is actually less harmful than my drug of choice, alcohol. So if adults choose to use marijuana instead of alcohol, the governments, as a matter of freedom and liberty, should not be able to prohibit them from doing so.”

James P. Gray (1945) American judge

“Regulate marijuana like wine,” April 10, 2011, 2012, Gray’s campaign website, http://www.judgejimgray.com/grayarticles2.php

Alcohol, Way, Freedom, Marijuana

“Listen, I’m not somebody who really cares about polarization, political correctness or even what context can be fit into proper 40-character formatting. People can hold any opinion that they want on any subject that they choose. Just don’t proactively lie to people. It’s a simple request really, and one that we don’t hear nearly enough. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cpac-2012-rap-video_b_1273779”

Steven Crowder (1987) American actor

People, Lie

“Many of the novels read in isolation can seem like lumber-rooms of ideas, cluttered and over-complex, as if attempting too much at once. Perhaps the fault lies in market circumstances and the terse Ace format for which Dick wrote. One could also argue that Dick's novels were a quarter the length they ought to have been to contain such complexity and richness. Even so, the marvellous, multi— levelled web of themes and concerns which emerges from this process of condensation gives Dick's work its specific feel, the very thing that makes it unique. Unrevised, eccentric and extravagant — even so, it's not too much to claim that Dick is perhaps the first real genius to have worked in the science-fictional mode since the days of Stapledon, a hybrid of Dickens and Dostoevsky, possessed of the comic delights and tragic depths of both, yet choosing work where his eccentricities were cherished. In any case, like so many SF writers, he learned to love the genre through the magazines long before his literary tastes were formed. He never quite recovered from that first infatuation with the forbidden van Vogtian delights.”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

Брайан Олдисс, «Кутёж на триллион лет»

Love, Making love, Feeling, Idea

“The word vegan should not just be used when referring to people who choose not to eat animal products because being vegan includes doing our best to abstain from participating in the other ways animals are exploited, including animal testing, wearing them, etc. Clearly there is a lot of buzz about the word vegan these days, which is great, but I think it is imperative that we keep the dialogue about this word focused on what it truly means. Veganism is simply about one's ethics and not contributing to the suffering of others.”

Lauren Ornelas American activist

"EVEN Interview with lauren Ornelas" https://www.all-creatures.org/articles/even-lauren-ornelas.pdf, All-Creatures.org (March 2016).

People, Way, Thinking, Suffering

“Perhaps you think the Creator sent you here to dispose of us as you see fit. If I thought you were sent by the Creator, I might be induced to think you had a right to dispose of me. Do not misunderstand me, but understand fully with reference to my affection for the land. I never said the land was mine to do with as I choose. The one who has a right to dispose of it is the one who has created it. I claim a right to live on my land and accord you the privilege to return to yours.”

Chief Joseph (1840–1904) Nez Percé Chieftain

Speech rejecting the demands that he lead his people onto a reservation. (1876)

Understanding, Thinking

“Define God in a sufficiently nebulous way as beauty, love, mysterious complexity, or the ethereal taste of strawberry shortcake, and most atheists become theists. Still, although one can pose as Humpty Dumpty and aver, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less,” others needn’t play along.”

John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician

Preface (p. xv; the quote is from Alice in Wonderland)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

Love, God, Making love, Beauty

“You wretches detestable on land and sea: you who seek equality with lords are unworthy to live. Give this message to your colleagues: rustics you were, and rustics you are still; you will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher. For as long as we live we will strive to suppress you, and your misery will be an example in the eyes of posterity. However, we will spare your lives if you remain faithful and loyal. Choose now which course you want to follow.”

Richard II of England (1367–1400) King of England

Speech to the peasants at Waltham, Essex (22 June 1381) according to Thomas Walsingham, quoted in Nigel Saul, Richard II (Yale University Press, 1999), p. 74

Faith, Sea

“In no country in Europe does the bulk of the population aspire to live in a bazaar of world cultures. Yet all European countries are coming to the wrenching realization that they have somehow, without anyone's actively choosing it, turned into such bazaars.”

Christopher Caldwell (1962) American political writer

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (2009)

World, Country

“Capital punishment [could] serve as a deterrent. I do not think we have enough deterrents in this country for criminals – let’s not forget that murders, rapists and criminals of that nature choose to commit the crimes that they commit.”

Priti Patel (1972) British politician

Said during a Question Time debate. Quoted by the Independent. Priti Patel MP: Who is the new Treasury minister who supports death penalty and rejects plain packaging for cigarettes? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/priti-patel-mp-who-is-the-new-treasury-minister-who-supports-death-penalty-and-rejects-plain-9608096.html (15 July 2014) 2014

Nature, Thinking, Country, Forgetting

“Language is not a handmaiden to perception; it is perception; it gives shape to what would otherwise be inert and dead. The shaping power of language cannot be avoided. We cannot choose to distance ourselves from it. We can only choose to employ it in one way rather than another.”

Stanley Fish (1938) American academic

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 4, What Is A Good Sentence?, p. 42

Way, Dead

“I could bring almost nothing—I scarcely knew what to choose.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

“Think of the vast amounts of money we shall save on shipping charges, then.”

Chapter 14 (p. 256)
Vorkosigan Saga, Falling Free (1988)

“Many women are asking: why do some women choose to cover their heads? We have to understand this and other questions. This is one of the biggest challenges for feminism today. What is worrying is that when women are divided into categories it is the status quo – the patriarchy – that benefits.…”

Elif Shafak (1971) Turkish writer

On having a female character wear a veil out of protest in “Elif Shafak: ‘When women are divided it is the male status quo that benefits’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/05/elif-shafak-turkey-three-daughters-of-eve-interview in The Guardian (2017 Feb 5)

Women, Understanding, Question

“Perhaps the Church of Rome was but consistent in choosing as her titular founder the apostle who thrice denied his master at the moment of danger; and the only one, moreover, except Judas, who provoked Christ in such a way as to be addressed as the "Enemy." "Get thee behind me, Satan!"”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book Isis Unveiled

exclaims Jesus, rebuking the taunting apostle.(Gospel according to Mark, viii. 33.) There is a tradition in the Greek Church which has never found favor at the Vatican. The former traces its origin to one of the Gnostic leaders — Basilides, perhaps, who lived under Trajan and Adrian, at the end of the first and the beginning of the second century. With regard to this particular tradition, if the Gnostic is Basilides, then he must be accepted as a sufficient authority, having claimed to have been a disciple of the Apostle Matthew, and to have had for master Glaucias, a disciple of St. Peter himself...

Chapter III
Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume II

Way, Christ

“Had they thought of the relations between Imperialism and social reform? Could we continue this process of territorial expansion with our increasing Budgets? What we wanted was resolute and sustained attention to strengthening our industrial position. What was the use of conquering new markets when it was as much as we could do to hold the markets which we had already? (Cheers.) As to the Liberal policy...the day when the Liberal party forsook its old principles of peace, economy, and reform the Liberal party would have to disband and to disappear. (Cheers.) The Socialists would take its place. ... [I]f he were to choose between the Socialist and the Militarist, with all his random aims, his profusion of national resources, his disregard for the rights and feelings of other people, he himself declared he considered the Socialist's standards were higher and their means were no less wise.”

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor

Cheers.

Speech to the Palmerston Club, Oxford (9 June 1900), quoted in The Times (11 June 1900), p. 3
1900s

People, Peace, Feeling, Relation ships

“I choose my physician and my clergyman, thus indicating my sense of the quality of their work.” By all means, also, choose your bricklayer; that is the proper reward of the good workman, to be “chosen.”

John Ruskin book Unto This Last

The natural and right system respecting all labour is, that it should be paid at a fixed rate, but the good workman employed, and the bad workman unemployed. The false, unnatural, and destructive system is when the bad workman is allowed to offer his work at half-price, and either take the place of the good, or force him by his competition to work for an inadequate sum.

Essay I: "The Roots of Honour," section 29
Unto This Last (1860)

Sense

“Whether or not we choose to watch, evolution is shaping us all.”

Jonathan Weiner (1953) American nonfiction writer

Source: The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time (1994), Chapter 1, Daphne Major (p. 16)

“The only true form of freedom, the only ethical form of freedom, is through self-limitation. It is not the privilege of choosing everything you want in your life, but choosing what you will give up in your life.”

Mark Manson book Everything Is Fucked

Life, Freedom, Self-confidence

“Diversions come and go. Pleasure never lasts. Variety loses its meaning. But you will always be able to choose what you are willing to sacrifice, what you are willing to give up.”

Mark Manson book Everything Is Fucked

Pleasure

“Fact is, nothing can justify our existence. Existence of any flavor is not only unjustified, it is useless, malignantly so, and has nothing to recommend it over nonexistence. A person’s addiction to existence is understandable as a telltale of the fear of nonexistence, but one’s psychology as a being that already exists does not justify existence as a condition to be perpetuated but only explains why someone would want to perpetuate it. For the same reason, even eternal bliss in a holy hereafter is unjustified, since it is just another form of existence, another instance in which the unjustifiable is perpetuated. That anyone should have a bias for heaven over nonexistence should by rights be condemned as hedonistic by the same people who scoff at Schopenhauer for complaining about the disparity between “the effort and the reward” in human life. People may believe they can choose any number of things. But they cannot choose to undo their existence, leaving them to live and die as puppets who have had an existence forced upon them whose edicts they must follow. If you are already among the existent, anything you do will be unjustified and MALIGNANTLY USELESS.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010)

Life, People, Fear, Understanding

“Human extinction is still a sparse, loose idea advocated by sometimes opposing groups. Most obviously, there is the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT), the Church of Euthanasia and efilism. VHEMT is somewhat divided between those who wish the human race to cease population in order to eradicate human overpopulation and its exhaustion and destruction of the earth, and those who also choose not to breed but see an apocalyptic horizon and operate under an 'every man for himself' attitude of imminent hedonism 'for tomorrow we die."”

Patricia MacCormack Australian Scholar

Ahumanism subscribes to no singular human extinction group, but clearly the message of the former sector of the group is more in keeping with the affirmative benefits of human death.
Embracing Death, p. 143
The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene (2020)

Idea

“Love is a fire that burns unseen,
A wound that aches yet isn't felt,
An always discontent contentment,
A pain that rages without hurting,A longing for nothing but to long,
A loneliness in the midst of people,
A never feeling pleased when pleased,
A passion that gains when lost in thought.It's being enslaved of your own free will;
It's counting your defeat a victory;
It's staying loyal to your killer.But if it's so self-contradictory,
How can Love, when Love chooses,
Bring human hearts into sympathy?”

Luís de Camões book Rhythmas de Lvis de Camoes

Rimas, Sonnet 81 (as translated by Richard Zenith) Listen to the poem in Portuguese https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ToldDy8izc&feature=youtu.be&t=33s Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Amor é fogo que arde sem se ver Original: (pt) Amor é um fogo qu'arde sem se ver, É ferida que dói, e não se sente, É um contentamento descontente, É dor que desatina sem doer.É um não querer mais que bem querer, É um andar solitário entre a gente, É nunca contentar-se de contente, É um cuidar que ganha em se perder.É querer estar preso por vontade, É servir a quem vence o vencedor É ter com quem nos mata lealdade.Mas como causar pode seu favor Nos corações humanos amizade, Se tão contrário a si é o mesmo Amor?

Love, Pain, People, Making love

“We should, out of decency, choose for ourselves the moment to disappear.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

The New Gods (1969)

“A slave has no morality, because he cannot choose between good and evil. He has only a derivative morality—that of his masters.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Source: Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938), p. 78

Evil

“When a man has sufficiently distinguished himself by service, and by acquiring and accepting the theoretical views that were glanced at in 'Seeking the Master' then he finds his Master — or rather his Master finds him. During all the time of his struggle those gracious eyes have been upon him watching him progress; in many lives in the past he has come under the same influence which now is to become the dominant influence in his life. He has reached a point where the Master can reveal Himself, can place him definitely on probation, can help to prepare him for Initiation. That is the first stage: a particular Master chooses a particular aspirant and takes charge of him, in order to prepare him for Initiation; for you must remember that Initiation is a quite definite thing, that only Those who have already attained can enable others to enter on the Path which They Themselves have trodden.”

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

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man, 1923, p. 61

Life, Time, Past, Help

“There is no distinction here between the kinds of service, provided they are unselfish, strenuous, moved by the ideal to help and serve... I cannot give you one by one the numerous divisions of the Way of Service. Anything that is of value to human life is included on that way. Choose then what way you will, because of your capacities and your opportunities; it matters not as regards the treading of the first steps.”

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

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man, 1923, p. 20

Life, Way, Help

“There is a Path which leads to that which is known as Initiation, and through Initiation to the Perfecting of Man; a Path which is recognized in all the great religions, and the chief features of which are described in similar terms in every one of the great faiths of the world. You may read of it in the Roman Catholic teachings as divided into three parts: (1) The Path of Purification or Purgation; (2) the Path of Illumination; and (3) the Path of Union with Divinity. You find it among the Mussulmans in the Sufi — the mystic — teachings of Islam, where it is known under the names of the Way, the Truth and the Life. You find it further eastward still in the great faith of Buddhism, divided into subdivisions, though these can be classified under the broader outline. It is similarly divided in Hinduism; for in both those great religions, in which the study of psychology, of the human mind and the human constitution, has played so great a part, you find a more definite subdivision. But really it matters not to which faith you turn; it matters not which particular set of names you choose as best attracting or expressing your own ideas; the Path is but one; its divisions are always the same; from time immemorial that Path has stretched from the life of the world to the life of the Divine.”

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

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)

Life, Truth, World, Faith

“I was a working actor. I believed that was my job and you did your job. In those days, I was not picking and choosing. I never really did, unless it was offensive or something I didn't want to do.”

Audrey Dalton (1934) actress

An Interview with Audrey Dalton on Olivia & Joan, Bob Hope, and William Castle https://heraldcourier.com/news/local/tinseltown-talks-audrey-dalton-survived-a-sinking-a-serpent-and-a-stallion/article_b29b83e8-df6c-11e3-963a-001a4bcf6878.html (May 22, 2014)

“Should i learn Letters first? Or choose the path of Numbers? A queston every baby must ask it self.”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/1329464017417474048] Tweets by year, 2020

Learning, Baby, Self-confidence

“I choose the music because the rest sucks.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Scelgo la musica perché il resto fa schifo.
Source: prevale.net

Music

“You don't choose the time. The time chooses you. Either you seize what may turn out to be the only chance you have, or you decide you're willing to live with the knowledge that the chance had passed you by”

Ted Kennedy (1932–2009) United States Senator

Source: Kniha Promised Land

“All dictatorships take away our freedom to choose. We both know that. Or reveal our own weaknesses.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

Source: Movie The Two Popes, Pope Benedict as Anthony Hopkins

Freedom

“No amount of money can make one stay bought. Who does not freely choose to.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (2012), Chapter 24 (p. 540)

Money, Making love

“I am finished with running. Now I will stop and choose my way.
Sooner or later a man has to stop and choose his way, not out of the ways he would like there to be, or the ways there ought to be, but out of the ways there are.”

Leigh Brackett book The Long Tomorrow

Source: The Long Tomorrow (1955), Chapter 29

Way

“Those who need leaders are not qualified to choose them.”

Michael Malice (1976) American writer

Tweeted on March 2, 2020 https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/status/1234604154741497857, repeated subsequently.

“I can't choose any particular roles. I enjoyed all of them. I think it's very important for an actor to be able to enjoy playing many different kinds of characters.”

Akira Kubo (1936) Japanese actor

KAIJU CONVERSATIONS: An Interview with Akira Kubo https://web.archive.org/web/20060220090732/http://www.historyvortex.org/InterviewAkiraKubo.html (December 1995)

Thinking

“Everything changes when we give ourselves permission to be more selective in what we choose to do.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Twitter

Change

“We are all winners if we choose to be.”

Kevin Hart (1979) American comedian, actor and producer

“I choose the music because the rest sucks.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

From the Aphorisms http://www.prevale.net/aphorisms.html page of the official website of Prevale

Music

“You can't choose your children.”

Bernard MacLaverty (1942) Irish writer

Short story, "Some surrender", p.119
Short Stories, The Great Profundo and Other Stories (1987)

Children

“There is definitely a fuck-you quality to the characters I choose.”

Keira Knightley (1985) British actress

Interview in Allure magazine (October 2007)

“The thing is, all of us think that fear is just a thing you choose to overcome but its not, all of us face it in some way you dont have to be on a stage whether is parenting, running a business, speaking out on something you believe in, it can scare us all.”

Torrie Wilson (1975) American professional wrestler

WWE Hall of Fame induction (2019)

Fear, Way, Business, Thinking

“‘Mandatory’ means forced—at gunpoint, if necessary. When we force people to do things, for their own good or the good of others, we violate their right of self-determination. Libertarians respect the rights of others to choose their own path—that’s what liberty is all about. If community service is such a good deal, we should have no trouble persuading people to do it voluntarily. If we can’t convince others that our way is best, maybe we should humbly consider the possibility that it isn’t.”

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Short Answers to the Tough Questions: How to Answer the Questions Libertarians Are Often Asked, (2012), p. 199

People, Way, Communication, Self-confidence

“We defer to authority figures because they are supposed to know more than we do. If a mistake is made, it's easy to lay the blame at their feet. Ultimately, however, we are responsible for choosing the authority figure we defer to. Choosing to defer to one who urges aggression against others still puts the responsibility on us.””

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Healing Our World: In An Age of Aggression, (2003), p. 10

“It’s the word of God. It’s in the Bible. You can choose, and God’s given us the ability to choose to reject that or not. But it is truth.”

Greg Steube (1978) U.S. Representative from Florida

Rep. Greg Steube Rejects Democrat Colleagues’ Dismissal of Scripture:’ It’s Pertinent to the Discussion’ https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/03/02/rep-greg-steube-rejects-democrat-colleagues-dismissal-of-scripture-its-pertinent-to-the-discussion/ (2 March 2021)

God, Truth

“People do not consciously and rationally choose the form of their society. Societies develop through processes of social evolution that are not under rational human control.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Some Principles of History", paragraph 106
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

People

“I can understand that people get overwhelmed very quickly when you start to talk about an enormous issue like climate change. But I suggest they just choose one change and implement that in their lives, such as deciding not to eat bluefin tuna or shrimp anymore because it’s unsustainable. Then when that becomes simply part of your life, chose something else to implement. Make informed choices and make them part of your everyday life and don’t assume others are doing it for you.”

Céline Cousteau (1972) French-American explorer, filmmaker, and diver

300 Seconds with Céline S. Cousteau NOW talks to the filmmaker and explorer https://www.itmustbenow.com/feature/movers-mavericks/5-minutes-celine-s-cousteau/ (December 2018)

Life, People, Making love, Understanding

Quotes about choosing page 21

Quotes about choosing
page 21