Better Choices Quotes & Sayings

We are alive. We are human, with good and bad in us. That's all we know for sure. We can't create a new species or a new world. That's been done. Now we have to live within those boundaries . What are our choices? We can despair and curse, and change nothing. We can choose evil like our enemies have done and create a world based on hate. Or we can try to make things better. — Carol Matas

Politicians and bureaucrats clearly have no idea how complicated markets are. Every day people make countless tradeoffs, in all areas of life, based on subjective value judgements and personal information as they delicately balance their interest, needs and wants. Who is in a better position than they to tailor those choices to best serve their purposes? Yet the politicians believe they can plan the medical market the way you plan a birthday party. — John Stossel

When you are surrounded by people who are much better than you, you have two choices: You can sh*t the bed, and the performance can go to hell. Or you can step up and rise to the occasion. — John Cena

most importantly, this prediction is less of a prophecy and more a way of discussing our present choices. If the discussion makes us choose differently, so that the prediction is proven wrong, all the better. What's the point of making predictions if they cannot change anything? — Yuval Noah Harari

She didn't want to. She loved you. She loves you now. Yes, she hurt you and she made a terrible mistake in leaving you. But your father made mistakes, too, and you will, as well. We all make bad choices - decisions that would better be left to rot in the bottom of the barrel. But we can't undo them. We can only move forward. — Tracie Peterson

Do not regret too much the choices you have made in the past, Gabriel," she said, aware that she was using his Christian name, but not able to help it. "Only make the right ones in the future. We are ever capable of change and ever capable of being our better selves. — Cassandra Clare

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

Now that I am older, I am rounder and softer, which isn't always a bad thing. I remember fewer names so I try to focus on someone's eyes instead. Sex is better and I'm better at it. I don't miss the frustration of youth, the anticipation of love and pain, the paralysis of choices still ahead. The pressure of "What are you going to do?" makes everybody feel like they haven't done anything yet. Young people can remind us to take chances and be angry and stop our patterns. Old people can remind us to laugh more and get focused and make friends with our patterns. Young and old need to relax in the moment and live where they are. Be Here Now, — Amy Poehler

In my own field, I know that solid science can easily be done with ethics and compassion. There's nothing wrong with compassionate or sentimental science or scientists. Studies of animal thought, emotions, and self-awareness, as well as behavioral ecology and conservation biology, can all be compassionate as well as scientifically rigorous. Science and the ethical treatment of animals aren't incompatible. We can do solid science with an open mind and a big heart.
I encourage everyone to go where their hearts take them, with love, not fear. If we all travel this road, the world will be a better place for all beings. Kinder and more humane choices will be made when we let our hearts lead the way. Compassion begets compassion and caring for and loving animals spills over into compassion and caring for humans. The umbrella of compassion is very important to share freely and widely. — Marc Bekoff

No more than two opinions or ideas on any one issue should be out there, the General said. Look at the voting system. Same concept. We had multiple parties and candidates and look at the mess we had. Here you choose the left hand or the right and that's more than enough. Two choices and look at all the drama with every presidential election. Even two choices may be one too many. One choice is enough, and no choice may be even better. Less — Viet Thanh Nguyen

I believe that a lot of people in our society today, people who have been hurt and even people who haven't been hurt, get their worth and value from what they do, what they look like, what they own, what kind of job they have, what kind of house they live in, how much money they have, what social circles they're in, what level of education they have, especially even how other people respond to them. They feel better about themselves if everybody is giving a smiling nod to the way they look and all their choices. — Joyce Meyer

I always knew that I wanted to work and I knew I wanted to be a singer and an actor. I knew that every choice I made would help me get to that point. So the better the choices I made, the more of a chance I would have to get to where I wanted to be. — Lea Michele

I hate the word shy. I don't ever use that word. Shy was when I was seven and my one Princess signature got smeared across the pastel yellow page because I dripped tears all over it, because I was afraid and couldn't lift my head no matter how much I wanted to. That's how the shyness works. You want to talk, but you can't. People look at you with scorn. Being ice princess is infinitely better, even if some people think you're a total bitch. A snob. Reserved. Those are choices a person makes, to be reserved, to be quiet, or to be a snob. Shy isn't a choice. — Bethany Griffin

I think I'm learning to be bolder in my career choices and be more confident in my personal life. I haven't always felt very secure as an individual, but now I feel I certain confidence and sense of self that gets me through the day a lot better than before. — Winona Ryder

You've got two choices: you could either complain about it, or use it as fuel to make you a better person. — Brent Smith

Sometimes we need to let go of things in our lives to make room for better things. Stress less and live more. Don't waste your energy, when you have the choice to be happy. — Brian Tracy

Not all choices in life are ones you would like, but those are all that are presented to you. Sometimes you must choose what is better for the ones you love than yourself. — Terry Goodkind

At times, we need to let our choices die, for us to get a better direction in life. — Sunday Adelaja

To reach your full potential, you have to set goals that will stretch you. You must not be afraid of taking risks. You must learn to recognize opportunities and have the courage to pursue them. You have to make better choices that will provide better results. Finally, you need to avoid the negative influences of other people and surround yourself with successful people who will encourage you to pursue your dreams. — Zig Ziglar

Don't be surprised by smart people doing bad choices! Dumb spirits seek to reborn with a better brain. — Robin Sacredfire

But I have seen many men for whom death truly is the end walk towards their demise for reasons no greater than that it was what they were told to do. On the beaches of Normandy, where the bodies floated in the water beside the falling ramps of the landing craft, I saw men run into machine-gun fire who would say, "Hell, I never thought it would come to this, but now I'm here, what's a guy to do?" With no going back, and no going forward, they went to their deaths with no better plan immediately to hand, having gambled that their choices would not narrow so far, and having been found to be wrong. — Claire North

The good news is that every morning we have the choice; not to be controlled by circumstances nor our past but by purposely designing our day, hence our lives better. Not to react to life but to respond with love. — Bernard Kelvin Clive

Just because you're in the process of bettering yourself doesn't mean there won't be times when you make questionable choices, respond out of character, lack proper communication, or let negativity get the best of yourself. That's all a part of the process of becoming better. How else would you know what needs cleaning up if you don't stand in your mess every once in a while? — Emily Maroutian

I am happy that the young girls have a lot more choices these days and an opportunity to feel better about themselves. — Mia Hamm

I moved to Chicago in the early 1990s and I studied improvisation there. I learned some rules that I try to apply still today: Listen. Say yes. Live in the moment. Make sure you play with people who have your back. Make big choices early and often. Don't start a scene where two people are talking about jumping out of a plane. Start the scene having already jumped. If you're scared, look into your partner's eyes - you will feel better. — Amy Poehler

Better to choose a limit capriciously than to have none. — Thomas Hardy

Life is a matter of choice. Everything we manifest in our day to day lives is the direct result of our choices along the way. Each choice automatically creates a consequence. From our choices other people's lives are influenced for better or worse. — Dannion Brinkley

Do not regret too much of the choices you have made in the past, only make the right ones in the future. We are ever capable of change and ever cable of being our better selves. — Cassandra Clare

You always have choices," the teen placed her hands on her hips. "You just choose to disobey."
I wanted to strangle her, yet I lifted an eyebrow to her claim. It would have been a mess anyway. "Oh? And how do you explain the matter at River Park?"
The question perked Jane to ask, "What incident at River Park?"
The teen's face whitened, her eyes bulged like pool balls. "I thought we'd agreed to not mention it!"
"We did," I said, casually. "But you should've known better than to trust a demon. — Millicent Ashby

In a world where women do not say no, the man is never forced to settle down and make serious choices. His sex drive
the most powerful compulsion in his life
is never used to make him part of civilization as the supporter of a family. If a woman does not force him to make a long-term commitment
to marry
in general, he doesn't. It is maternity that requires commitment. His sex drive only demands conquest, driving him from body to body in an unsettling hunt for variety and excitement in which much of the thrill is in the chase itself.
The man still needs to be tamed. His problem is that many young women think they have better things to do than socialize single men. — George Gilder

This is why we seek personal growth - to be free from the pain we cause ourselves, to make better choices, to feel better about who we are becoming, to act more confidently in social situations, and to unleash our full creativity and contributions into the world in order to make our highest difference. Gaining Personal Freedom in this sense is letting go of any self-doubt and self-loathing and allowing ourselves permission to be our unique, powerful, authentic selves. — Brendon Burchard

When our society lost this communal network, many aspects of our culture died, including the fact that we lost contact with older family members who could give us perspective on our lives. Without that perspective, we've become overscheduled, hyperstimulated, and culturally grumpy. We are so burdened by the pace of our lives that when we must interact with older people who cannot keep up, we run out of patience trying to fit them into our schedules. We have forgotten - or never learned - how to value our senior adults' advice. As they begin to slow down, we push them aside so they don't impede our progress. While we may accomplish a lot every day, we don't necessarily feel good about our achievements because no one is there to tell us about the longer-term implications of choices we make. Many of us assume some things about senior adults that aren't true, and then can't understand why we aren't getting along better with this aging population. — David Solie

Our children need to see and hear about more black role models in many fields so they can make better choices. — Ben Carson

We make the choices that are right for us. Sometimes, they aren't our first choices, because those have been taken from us, or perhaps, because they were never there to begin with, but they're the best we have. We try for better, but sometimes better is just a fleeting shadow, and it belongs to someone else. — Kimberly Kinrade

I don't know what people want, really. Does somebody have to die? What is meant by resolution? These are questions that I don't quite know what to do with. That being said, I did want the characters to be changed by the end of the book. But will what they've gone through alter their lives from this point forward, i.e. will they make different (better) choices? Probably not. — Mary J. Miller

Instead of just giving lip service to improving our schools, I will actually put the kids first and the teachers union behind in giving our kids better teachers, better options and better choices for a better future. — Mitt Romney

That's the thing about choices. They're an act of knowledge, of faith, of love. It's how we make them that sets us apart, because every single day, worlds are colliding, and our choices shape so much more than just our own story. And if we want to change this world for the better, then we must be the best possible version of ourselves, because who we are in each moment is a gift to the universe. This is what the present is: when the sum of one person's past meets a world's collective future. — Sarah Ayoub

When you learn economy. It strips away self-indulgence. Just in the act itself it requires a certain amount of humility. You have to accept the fact that you might feel you can do better but in the moment you have to make a choice. — Charlie Huston

Our story, Maryland's story, is the story of better choices and better results. — Martin O'Malley

Think. Learn. Act. The more you know, the better and more educated choices you have the opportunity to make. — Mehgan Heaney-Grier

One learns better than to hand one's choices to fear. With age, with every wound and scar, one learns. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Art requires choices, the more specific, the better. — Jesse Kellerman

There are people that say they will do better but they never do better. They have no power in them to do better until they come to Christ. — Billy Graham

Child, the good Lord got plans for all of us that we don't know-and he always got His reasons. He want us to learn and rejoice in the good that come from His design.
God's plan ain't a free pass. Uh-uh. He give us moments to make choices, and we make them. We accountable for those choices. God's job ain't to make our lives easier, it's to make us better souls by the lessons he give us. I tell you now, I wouldn't change one choice I made since I met you. No matter what. — Susan Crandall

I found that when women were able to act in line with their natural inclinations and ambitions
whether to work or stay at home
they were generally happy, and generally felt that their children were happy too. Whereas those whose natural inclinations and ambitions had been thwarted
whether they were working or stay-at-home moms
were sure that they and their kids would be better off if they changed course, and either went to work or went home. The morality of the situation
whether they felt it was good or bad for their chidlren
derived, not from some external sense of the morality of their "choices," but from the amount of happiness generated by any given arrangement. — Judith Warner

The victims I've worked with taught me that individuals want to believe they are entitled to justice. My community taught me that when the choice is clear-cut enough, so do entire counties.

We have become profoundly discouraged about whether we have such choices. My own experience is that we do, if we are willing to pay the price. We need better data to make decisions based on performance, but getting that data is a matter of passing the right laws requiring crunchable statistics and mandatory public reports. The rest is on us. If Tip O'Neil was right, if all politics is local, then our local district attorneys are the place to start. Crime is local. What we do about it is as close as the nearest voting booth. — Alice Vachss

To make a choice not to sacrifice is to decide that I am better off allowing a life to perish than release the resources I possess that might allow it to thrive. And because of choices such as these, the life that I am really allowing to perish is mine. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Each second is a second you can make a new choice, a better choice, a healthy choice, a present choice. — Mariel Hemingway

People were messy. They were defined not only by what they'd done, but by what they would have done, under different circumstances, molded as much by their regrets as their actions, choices they stood by and those they wished they could undo. Of course, there was no going back - time only moved forward - but people could change.

For worse.

And for better.

It wasn't easy. The world was complicated. Life was hard. And so often, living hurt.

So make it worth the pain. — Victoria Schwab

There is no better way to earn money than to do the things that you love to do. Money can flow into your experience through endless avenues. It is not the choice of the craft that limits the money that flows - but only your attitude toward money. — Esther Hicks

My hope is that if people have the knowledge, and if they actually see where their food comes from and have access to the information, they will make better ethical choices. — Michael Pollan

If you don't make a choice, life makes it for you and then you're stuck with what it decides. Take control of your destiny so that doesn't happen — Stewart Stafford

I compare a lot of life to looking at a map through a straw. The less ability you have to see life in a humorous way, the smaller the straw is that you're looking at the map of life. You're not looking at the whole picture. You can't see the whole topography without it, and it can help you to make better choices. — Reggie Watts

If we focus on our health, including our inner health, our self-esteem, and how we look at ourselves and our confidence level, we'll tend to be healthier people anyway, we'll tend to make better choices for our lives, for our bodies, we'll always be trying to learn more, and get better as time goes on. — Queen Latifah

Why was I still traveling? Was it purely because it was better than turning around and going home, where I would have to make grown-up choices about my future? Or was I waiting to happen across a place that would tell me to stay? — Pete Spurrier

I have come to believe that we steer our individual spheres of being through the spectra of possible worlds via the choices we make, the acts we perform. Most people stick to known routes, and therefore cannot travel far. They live too modestly, and perhaps too privately. Only by being strange can we move, for strange acts cause us to be rejected by whatever normality we have offended, and to be propelled towards a normality that can better accommodate us. — K.J. Bishop

If you organize your family life to spend even ten or fifteen minutes a morning reading something that connects you with these timeless principles, its almost guaranteed that you will make better choices during the day
in the family, on the job, in every dimension of life. Your thoughts will be higher. Your interactions will be more satisfying. You will have a greater perspective. You will increase that space between what happens to you and your response to it. You will be more connected to what really matters most. — Stephen R. Covey

We do the same thing in our own lives, embracing information that supports what we already prefer or vindicates choices we previously made.
After all, it feels better to justify our opinions rather than challenge them, to contemplate only the pros and relegate the cons to the back of our minds. However, if we want to make the most of choice, we have to be willing to make ourselves uncomfortable. The question is, if we are willing, how exactly do we go about fortifying ourselves against these biases? — Sheena Iyengar

A small profit it better than a big loss — Ron Rash

Maybe my descendants will make better choices where I failed."
"Your descendants? Are you planning on having a lot of descendants?"
"One day I'd like a whole army of tiny vigilantes."
"A worthy goal. — Jodi Meadows

If you have the choice, it's far better to say, "That person has the job, and they really don't need that much of my oversight." Maybe they don't need any of it. — Jamie Dimon

I can't say for sure if I'm better off, since I have no way of knowing what would have been. I could have traveled to exotic places and kissed exotic men in the moonlight. Or I could have ended living alone in a dumpy apartment with the flesh eating virus I contracted from a public toilet. Could haves are always a great unknown. — Anna White

It isn't necessary to know exactly how your ideal life will look; you only have to know what feels better and what feels worse ... Begin making choices based on what makes you feel freer and happier, rather than on how you think an ideal life should look. It's the process of feeling our way toward happiness, not the realization of the Platonic ideal, that creates our best lives. — Martha Beck

When you present people with things from the heart and from the soul, they make better choices: They make better choices about their bodies, they make better choices about their partners, they make better choices about the environment. — Billy Corgan

Now more than ever I am aware that a person's significant birthdays can either mark the passage of time, or they can mark changes they've made in their lives to reach their potential and become the person they were created to be. With each passing year, I want to make good choices that make me a better person, help me become a better leader, and make a positive impact on others. — John C. Maxwell

You go into marriage, you plow a road. You're going to hit rough patches, and some may be rougher and last longer than others, but you've got choices to make. You work to smooth them out, you hold until they do, or they don't. You stick with the road, or you get off. But you don't do something to make it worse, don't do something that maybe makes you feel better for the short term while it sucker punches the person you're married to. — J.D. Robb

No politician is perfect. But in every election in your life, there will be one choice that is better than the others. Go out and vote for that one. — Bill Maher

Not one word about proposals, no matter how much she pushes," I told my friends. "No matter what she says or how loud she cries, don't try to throw that up as a distraction."
Gabriel's lips twitched. "I don't think it's going to be that bad. It's one woman against five supernatural creatures ... And Zeb."
"You laugh because you haven't heard my mother's thirty-minute verbal dissertation on appropriate seasonal flower choices. We're better off letting her yell at us for being dirty, premarital fornicators. — Molly Harper

Excellence is the result of loving more than others think is necessary, dreaming more than others think is practical, risking more than others think is safe, and doing more than others think is possible. Every day is a golden opportunity to learn, practice gratitude, and positively impact the world around you. Do not ask for instant fulfillment in your life, but for patience to accept your current frustrations. Do not ask for perfection in all you do, but for the wisdom to make better choices. Do not ask for more before saying, "THANK YOU" for everything you have already received. — John Geiger

When we acknowledge that all of life is sacred and that each act is an act of choice and therefore sacred, then life is a sacred dance lived consciously each moment. When we live at this level, we participate in the creation of a better world. — Scout Cloud Lee

Before I start, I trick myself into thinking I know what's going to happen in the story, but the characters have ideas of their own, and I always go with the character's choices. Most of the time I discover plot twists and directions that are better than what I originally had planned. — Neal Shusterman

Please remember, that even in your darkest moments, you still have the choice to focus your energy on the positive and create a better life. — Andy Biersack

Don't make light of one of your better qualities. You love your people like a mother is supposed to love her children. You want what's best for them, even if that makes you uncomfortable, even if you don't like their choices. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Competition is good for consumers for the simple reason that it compels producers to offer better deals - lower prices, better quality, new products, and more choice. — John Vickers

I am far too often the author of terribly poor decisions. Yet I must rest in the unalterable fact that God says I am far better than what the sum total of those decisions would ever suggest. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Most humans, in varying degrees, are already dead. In one way or another they have lost their dreams, their ambitions, their desire for a better life. They have surrendered their fight for self-esteem and they have compromised their great potential. They have settled for a life of mediocrity, days of despair and nights of tears. They are no more than living deaths confined to cemeteries of their choice. Yet they need not remain in that state. They can be resurrected from their sorry condition. They can each perform the greatest miracle in the world. They can each come back from the dead ... — Og Mandino

The greater the volume of thoughts you have to work with, the better the context you can create for developing options and trusting your choices. — David Allen

It is their time for gloom. They will emerge again, because all of life on this earth, in these fleshy incarnations, is contrast. Constant contrast, ups and downs, goods and bads, lights and darks, sweet and sour, hard and soft; through these we learn and experience, and through learning, grow, and through growth, come to make better choices next time, in years to come, in lives to come. They — Joy Perino

Am I getting better at making choices? Well, I think I might be getting better at reading scripts. — Benicio Del Toro

One's fate, obviously, will either be for the better or for the worse, depending on the choices made by the spiritual will. — David R. Hawkins

He said, Don, when something hard happens to you, you have two choices in how to deal with it. You can either get bitter, or better. I chose to get better. It's made all the difference. — Donald Miller

When you understand what the world is, you have two choices: Become a part of that world and perpetuate that system forever and ever, unto the next generation. Or fight it, and break it, and build something new. The former is safer, and easier. The latter is scarier, because who is to say what you build will be any better? — Kameron Hurley

So when you approach any individual, make sure you realize that he will do what he wants to do. Don't laugh at his choices; investigate them to better understand what he's trying to accomplish.
If you wish to trade, you will have to offer the person something he wants more than what he has already. It's his resources you are seeking. He will control their use. You will have to be in tune with his desires or there will be no exchange.
The consumer is the object of the whole process. And he chooses in terms that are meaningful to him (not to you). You will succeed only as you find ways to satisfy him. — Harry Browne

In the morning I stand up, scratch a little bit, then I light a candle and I meditate. Every morning. I've been meditating for maybe 20 years. I meditate so I can make choices; so I'm not a sheep all the time. So I can see better than what everyone else is doing. — Russell Simmons

It is better work without being paid to fulfill a divine purpose than to be rich without any fulfillment. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I do know that if you can name certain things and understand them, it allows you to make better choices. Unfortunately, there's so much misinformation that towers over a person's head, it's really difficult to make the right decisions. Consequently, we just go along because it's way too hard to sift through the information. — Jimmy Santiago Baca

There were so many things we left unsaid. Depending on how you look at it, whether you think it was worth saying it out loud, or better kept inside. — Diyar Harraz

But Ignatian spirituality is so capacious that even an introduction will touch upon a broad spectrum of topics: making good choices, finding meaningful work, being a good friend, living simply, wondering about suffering, deepening your prayer, striving to be a better person, and learning to love. — James Martin

We are each living a story. What many of us are too afraid to admit is that we are the authors of our story. You are living the life you chose for yourself. You are living the result of each and every one of your choices. If you are letting others make decisions for you, you are allowing them to write your story. Do they have your best interests at heart? If you are unhappy, whose fault is that? Don't like your life, go write yourself a better one. — Michael R. Fletcher

It's always better just to do work that you're really proud of and work that you enjoy because really all you have are the choices you make and that's it and who knows after that. I think that's what I love in acting. — Emily Blunt

There was nothing dishonourable in not being blown about by every little modern wind. Better to have worth, to entrench, to be an oak of one's own generation. — John Le Carre

I'm a big believer that your life is basically a sum of all the choices you make. The better your choices, the better opportunity to lead a happy life. — Karen Salmansohn

Janine Hathaway offered to be my guardian, " said Lissa suddenly.
"Janine Hathaway?" Tatiana's eyebrows rose nearly to her hairline. "I'm sure she has other commitments. No, we've got much better choices."
A better choice than Janine Hathaway? Not likely. Before Dimitri, my mother had been the gold standard by which I measured all badassedness. — Richelle Mead

I think filmmaking is a strange animal because it's anti-Democratic and collective at the same time, but I think it's all about not trying to know everything better than everybody else but making the right choices. — Niels Arden Oplev

You have merories?
Lost somebody, which will mean he has died or something is going and you can't stop it the time eats so he dies...
You lost a lot of choices??
Did you...

As far as I can tell, I think that I'm rich. I have one treasure and that's it, it's fill with such stuff. — Deyth Banger

Just because you can make a choice, doesn't mean you should. Some things are better left alone. — Laura Burks

Cynicism is a choice. Optimism is a better choice. — Shonda Rhimes

Whatever the situation, just take it for what it is. You don't have to make it worse or better than it is. It just is what it is. Always deal with the honesty, the truth of what something is, and then you've got all kinds of choices. — Michael J. Fox

There are cases when I can make myself better off by restricting my future choices and commit myself to a specific course of action. — Richard Thaler

Making better choices takes work. There is a daily give and take, but it is worth the effort. — Tom Rath