We choose what attitudes we have right now. And it’s a continuing choice.
—John C. Maxwell (b.1947) American Christian Professional Speaker, Author, Clergyman
If you could do tomorrow over again, would you?
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
You’re either attaching to your thoughts or inquiring. There’s no other choice.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
A habit is only a habit until you can observe it. And then it’s a choice.
—Unknown
There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.
—Denis Waitley (b.1933) American Motivational Speaker, Author
It is your own convictions which compels you; that is, choice compels choice.
—Epictetus (55–135) Ancient Greek Philosopher
You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.
—John C. Maxwell (b.1947) American Christian Professional Speaker, Author, Clergyman
On this narrow planet, we have only the choice between two unknown worlds. One of them tempts us—ah! what a dream, to live in that!—the other stifles us at the first breath.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
Everything is something you decide to do, and there is nothing you have to do.
—Denis Waitley (b.1933) American Motivational Speaker, Author
Every choice you make has an end result.
—Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American Author
All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it.
—Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) American Head of State
I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: Therefore choose life.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
It is better to be a coward for a minute than dead for the rest of your life.
—Irish Proverb
The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs. Self-conceit often regards it as a sign of weakness to admit that a belief to which we have once committed ourselves is wrong. We get so identified with an idea that it is literally a “pet” notion and we rise to its defense and stop our eyes and ears to anything different.
—John Dewey (1859–1952) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Educator
Inhabit ourselves that we may indeed do what we want to do.
—M. C. Richards (1916–99) American Poet, Potter, Writer
You see, it’s never the environment; it’s never the events of our lives, but the meaning we attach to the events—how we interpret them—that shapes who we are today and who we’ll become tomorrow.
—Tony Robbins (b.1960) American Self-Help Author, Entrepreneur
If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.
—Chinese Proverb
You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at least he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do.
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b.1929) American Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer
Look at the word responsibility—“response-ability”—the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
The first thing I do in the morning is to make my bed and while I am making up my bed I am making up my mind as to what kind of a day I am going to have.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
When you can’t have what you choose, you just choose what you have.
—Owen Wister (1860–1938) American Novelist
I like to be a free spirit. Some don’t like that, but that’s the way I am.
—Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–97) English Royal, Humanitarian, Peace Activist
Suppose someone asserts of his lustful appetite that, when the desired object and the opportunity are present, it is quite irresistible. Ask him if a gallows were erected before the house where he finds this opportunity, in order that he should be hanged thereon immediately after the gratification of his lust, whether he could not then control his passion; we need not be long in doubt what he would reply. Ask him, however, if his sovereign ordered him, on the pain of the same immediate execution, to bear false witness against an honourable man, whom the prince might wish to destroy under a plausible pretext, would he consider it possible in that case to overcome his love of life, however great it may be. He would perhaps not venture to affirm whether he would do so or not, but he would unhesitatingly admit that it is possible to do so. He judges, therefore, that he can do a certain thing because he is conscious that he ought, and he recognizes that he is free—a fact which but for the moral law he would never have known.
—Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) Prussian German Philosopher, Logician
Even as a tortoise draws in its limbs, the wise can draw in their senses at will.
—The Bhagavad Gita Hindu Scripture
Heaven on Earth is a choice you must make, not a place you must find.
—Wayne Dyer (b.1940) American Motivational Writer, Author, Motivational Speaker
In the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there’s no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) Canadian-Born American Economist
For what is the best choice, for each individual is the highest it is possible for him to achieve.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost’s familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road—the one less traveled by—offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.
—Rachel Carson (1907–64) American Naturalist, Science Writer
Just saying yes because you can’t bear the short-term pain of saying no is not going to help you do the work.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
As a child my family’s menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.
—Buddy Hackett (1924–2003) American Comedian, Actor
Who gets to decide what you want?
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
It is always your next move.
—Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American Author, Journalist, Attorney, Lecturer
If I were going to convert to any religion I would probably choose Catholicism because it at least has female saints and the Virgin Mary.
—Margaret Atwood (b.1939) Canadian Writer, Poet, Critic
That which you call your soul or spirit is your conciousness, and that which you call ‘free will’ is your mind’s freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
Nobody ever did, or ever will, escape the consequences of his choices.
—Alfred A. Montapert (1906–97) American Engineer, Philosopher
Be more splendid, more extraordinary. Use every moment to fill yourself up.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
Happiness or unhappiness is often a matter of choice.
—Anonymous
He that cannot decidedly say, “No,” when tempted to evil, is on the highway to ruin. He loses the respect even of those who would tempt him, and becomes but the pliant tool and victim of their evil designs.
—Joel Hawes
If you come to a fork in the road, take it.
—Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American Sportsperson
The forces of good and evil are working within and around me, I must choose, and in a free will universe I do have a choice.
—Unknown
It’s much easier for me to make major life, multi-million dollar decisions, than it is to decide on a carpet for my front porch. That’s the truth.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
Follow your instincts. That’s where true wisdom manifests itself.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
I have discovered that we may be in some degree whatever character we choose. Besides, practice forms a man to anything.
—James Boswell (1740–95) Scottish Biographer, Diarist
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own.And you know what you know. You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
—Theodor Seuss Geisel (‘Dr. Seuss’) (1904–91) American Children’s Books Writer, Writer, Cartoonist, Animator
Liberty is the right to choose. Freedom is the result of the right choice.
—Anonymous
Our generation, like the one before us, must choose. Without the threat of the Cold War, without the pain of economic ruin, without the fresh memory of World War II’s slaughter, it is tempting to pursue our private agendas—to simply sit back and let history unfold. We must resist the temptation.
—Bill Clinton (b.1946) American Head of State, Lawyer, Public Speaker
He’d have given me rolling lands,
Houses of marble, and billowing farms,
Pearls, to trickle between my hands,
Smoldering rubies, to circle my arms.
You- you’d only a lilting song,
Only a melody, happy and high,
You were sudden and swift and strong-
Never a thought for another had I.
He’d have given me laces rare,
Dresses that glimmered with frosty sheen,
Shining ribbons to wrap my hair,
Horses to draw me, as fine as a queen.
You- you’d only to whistle low,
Gayly I followed wherever you led.
I took you, and I let him go-
Somebody ought to examine my head!
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American Humorist, Journalist
The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage.
—Rollo May (1909–94) American Philosopher
We are as much informed of a writer’s genius by what he selects as by what he originates.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher