Quotes & Sayings About Making Choices

you may be wrong to be right in the wrong direction, but, what is the wrong direction? — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

If it was a choice between making movies and doing nothing, he'd probably still wish me to make movies, So he made me keep going. — Ang Lee

This is true emergence, the wisdom of crowds - like flocking, it represents group members making choices together. The bigger message of the nomenclature evolution was exactly what I had been telling new Twitter employees. It was our job to pay attention, to look for patterns, and to be open to the idea that we didn't have all the answers. — Biz Stone

When we feel good about the choices we're making and when we're engaging with the world from a place of worthiness rather than scarcity, we feel no need to judge and attack. — Brene Brown

Technology has a shadow side. It accounts for real progress in medicine, but has also hurt it in many ways, making it more impersonal, expensive and dangerous. The false belief that a safety net of sophisticated drugs and machines stretches below us, permitting risky or lazy lifestyle choices, has undermined our spirit of self-reliance. — Andrew Weil

Sometimes I get extremely disturbed with the things that are written. But you can't do anything about it. As a celebrity, you are putting yourself out there to be judged, and that's fine. I am now learning not to get affected by such things. I am building my career and making choices that I think are right while minding my own business. — Anushka Sharma

Choice Theory explains that, for all practical purposes, we choose everything we do. — William Glasser

I also think within the scene, a specific scene - if I were to play a part that I played 10 years ago now, my interpretation of that scene would be totally different. I would be making different choices. Because I can't somehow subtract all of the experiences that I've had in my life. And it's fascinating to see, because somewhere I'm very reflective in that. You know, I've been playing basically actually close to 40 years old, so I'm somewhere lost in age in this movie. But it's been fascinating to see that I can't subtract that time. — Jake Gyllenhaal

People have got to get used to making low carbon choices. If they have a direct incentive to do so they will think about it. Many times a day you have a choice between a low carbon option and a high carbon option, whether it is at home or at work. — Tim Yeo

It was a choice of making it or still eating chicken onstage. — John Lennon

Choices are our choices so I am not taking away anyone's personal choice, but we run into difficulty when we're having choices made for us rather than making our own. — Robert Moss

It was very hard to make 'Funny Face' in Paris because making movies is difficult and making a movie in a city that was glorious, that was unique and surprising, to get it, to put it on film you have to make choices and reject a lot of things so you're always wondering: 'Am I doing it right?' — Stanley Donen

I once heard an air force commander tell his pilots that every second, they are making a decision to change course or to stay their course, and that they should always think about their actions as active choices. The problem is that very few of us think about our decisions this way. We think that moving, getting married, changing jobs, etc., as decisions, but we don't think about staying in the same place, staying single, keeping the same job etc., as decisions. Or at least we don't think of them as decisions to the same degree. — Dan Ariely

It is not always the most brilliant speculations nor the choice of the most exotic materials that is most profitable. I prefer Monsieur de Reaumur busy exterminating moths by means of an oily fleece; or increasing fowl production by making them hatch without the help of their mothers, than Monsieur Bemouilli absorbed in algebra, or Monsieur Leibniz calculating the various advantages and disadvantages of the possible worlds. — Noel-Antoine Pluche

I guess when I think about it, one of the things I like to dramatise, and what is sometimes funny, is someone coming unglued. I don't consider myself someone who is making the argument that I support these choices. I just think it can be funny. — Wes Anderson

God is waiting for you to start making healthy choices. — Rick Warren

Because growing up means making tough choices, and doing the right thing doesn't necessarily mean doing the thing that feels good. — Katie McGarry

Say no to everything, so you can say yes to the one thing. — Richie Norton

As borrowers, we may feel guilty about running up debt, anxious about making payments, and resentful of the constraints that old obligations (and old credit records) impose on our current choices. We may find it too easy to buy things we may later regret. — Virginia Postrel

We're constantly making choices about the way we spend our time. The issue is not between the good and the bad, but between the good and the best. So often, the enemy of the best is the good. — Stephen Covey

Make choices in life that don't leave people bitter, worse off or confused. Any choice that leads you to do this is a choice that didn't include God in the decision making process. — Shannon L. Alder

Freedom is not a constant attribute which we either "have" or "have not." In fact, there is no such thing as "freedom" except as a word and an abstract concept. There is only one reality: the act of freeing ourselves in the process of making choices. In this process the degree of our capacity to make choices varies with each act, with our practice of life. — Erich Fromm

For a witch stands on the very edge of everything, between the light and the dark, between life and death, making choices, making decisions so that others may pretend no decisions have even been needed. Sometimes they need to help some poor soul through the final hours, help them to find the door, not to get lost in the dark. — Terry Pratchett

Sometimes I'm so afraid of making the wrong choice that I just don't make any choice at all. — Charlotte Stein

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

I think that both our lives and the potential directions our lives may go are predestined. By using our free will in making our life choices, we do nothing else but picking up one of many already predestined options. To us, it seems like we were making the decision, while in reality, we just selected one of many possibilities that were already a part of our destiny. — Stevan V. Nikolic

You made me laugh at your jokes.
You made me cry at your criticism.
You made me shout at your lies.
Then I noticed how in every case someone else was present,
hearing you without laughter or tears or anger.
I alone reacted.
I see now; you never made me laugh or cry or rage.
I chose to find humor.
I chose to take offense.
I chose to feel scorned.
The truth is, you never had power over me. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Think things, not words." In words, many see a need for "social justice" to override "the dictates of the market." In reality, what is called "the market" consists of human beings making their own choices at their own cost. What is called "social justice" is government imposition of the notions of third parties, who pay no price for being wrong. — Thomas Sowell

Within the new self-help books for women, patriarachy and male domination are rarely identified as forces that lead to the oppression, exploitation, and domination of women. Instead, these books suggest that individual relationships between men and women can be changed solely by women making the right choices. — Bell Hooks

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

Set reasonable goals; not something vague and unrealistic like "I want to be super-model skinny." I always had visions of very thin actresses in my mind when I was at the gym and it seemed so unattainable that I would quit any health regimen before it even got off the ground. But when I changed my mindset to focusing on making the healthiest choices possible for myself, it was a lot more realistic, more attainable, and then the results were visible. — Alison Sweeney

Your choices are made in a moment, and yet their consequences transcend a lifetime. — MJ DeMarco

and more warriors than there were in Utentok. There was an impromptu war that broke out and Delanoa was faced with two choices. To remain in Utentok for the sake of his wife, her tender midnight touch and the passionate love making she fed him with all the time recommended as they newly got wedded and the excitement was fresh for a week's honey — Alyssa Price

What you eat, how much you exercise, what example you set for those you influence are all matters of choice. Consistently making that best choice will add up to living your best life. Your health is the key to that. — Adam Rodriguez

ordinary people acting together for common goals have accomplished incredible amounts. There is nothing magical about making social change happen. What is required is a sense of hope that it is possible to make a difference and some understanding of the world that helps orient our choices about what kinds of actions to take. — Garrett J. McAuliffe

What I tell student athletes is first of all, you've made good choices this far in order to be able to be in college and to be an athlete. Keep making good choices. — Condoleezza Rice

On the way back, Dennis, who has been unusually quiet this lunchtime, speaks up. 'I've been thinking about that Robert Frost poem,' he says. 'I don't think it's about making choices at all.'
'What's it about, so?' Geoff says.
'Anal sex,' Dennis says.
'Anal sex?'
'How'd'you figure, Dennis?'
'Well, once you see it, it's pretty obvious. Just look at what he says. He's in a wood, right? He sees two roads in front of him. He takes the one less travelled. What else could it be about? — Paul Murray

The truth for women living in a modern world is that they must take increasing responsibility for the skills they bring into birth if they want their birth to be natural. Making choices of where and with whom to birth is not the same as bringing knowledge and skills into your birth regardless of where and with whom you birth. — Michel Odent

Finally I said, my words soft, "How did you get so wise, Effie?" "I've survived seventy-seven years on this planet," she answered wryly, "and by making the right choices I even managed to live for most of them. — Samantha Young

Every entrepreneur faces trade-offs when founding and growing their company. As we discovered at YouTube, those early decisions have far-reaching impacts and lead to unforeseen pitfalls down the road. Noam Wasserman uses vivid anecdotes and deep research to expertly outline the key early choices that define a startup, making The Founder's Dilemmas an invaluable alternative to real-world trial and error. — Chad Hurley

If we are living under the assumption that we are only one way or another, inside a limited spectrum of human qualities, then we would have to question why more of us aren't wholly satisfied with our lives right now. Why do we have access to so much wisdom yet fail to have the strength and courage to act upon our good intentions by making powerful choices? And most important, why do we continue to act out in ways that go against our value system and all that we stand for? We will assert that it is because of our unexamined life, our darker self, our shadow self where our unclaimed power lies — Deepak Chopra

When you marry a woman out of pity, then its a pity that you'll send her away very soon. — Michael Bassey Johnson

There is only one reality: the act of feeling ourselves in the process of making choices. — Erich Fromm

It is not by regretting what is irreparable that true work is to be done, but by making the best of what we are. It is not by complaining that we have not the right tools, but by using well the tools we have. What we are, and where we are is God's providential arrangement - God's doing, though it may be man's misdoing; and the manly and the wise way is to look your disadvantages in the face, and see what can be made our of them. — Will Schwalbe

In real markets, agents make bad choices. They are often ignorant, misinformed, and irrational. Yet, markets tend to punish agents for making bad choices, and they tend to learn from their mistakes. For instance, if you fail to pay your bills, your credit rating declines and you have a harder time getting loans. If you fail to do research and buy an unreliable car, you suffer from repair bills. In contrast, when people in government make bad choices, the political process almost never punishes them. Studies show that voters are terrible at retrospective voting - they do not know whom to blame for bad government - and so politicians are not punished for making bad choices. — Jason Brennan

Where you are today is the sum of every choice you've ever made. If you don't like where you are, start making different choices! — Dave Ramsey

Once you realize that you're in something that you've always wanted and you don't want to lose it, you behave differently. And that means the integrity, the professionalism, and knowing what's right from wrong and still making choices that you probably wouldn't have made. — Paul Anka

"I will call not just on Israel, but on the Palestinians, on the Arab States, and the international community to join us in this effort, because the burden of making hard choices must not be Israel's alone." "We stand with Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. America's commitment and my commitment to the security of Israel is unshakeable." — Barack Obama

Time after time, on matters great and small, we are still standing on the sidelines, mutely accepting what is decided elsewhere instead of raising our voices and making our own choices. Scotland's much vaunted partnership of Jonah and the whale. — Winnie Ewing

You can make money or you can make excuses. Your choice. — John Addison

Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it's about deliberately choosing to be different. — Michael Porter

I think back story can help guide your choices, but when you're playing a scene, you're not making choices; you're just intuitive. — Willem Dafoe

You have one of two choices. Either you can panic and start making frantic attempts to reform under the glare of these awful critical eyes, or you can just say, The hell with you! I know what I'm doing. If you don't yet, it's because you haven't given me an attentive reading. — Saul Bellow

The instinctual shortcut that we take when we have "too much information" is to engage with it selectively, picking out the parts we like and ignoring the remainder, making allies with those who have made the same choices and enemies of the rest. — Nate Silver

Nevertheless we are free individuals, and this freedom condemns us to make choices throughout our lives. There are no eternal values or norms we can adhere to, which makes our choices even more significant. Because we are totally responsible for everything we do. Sartre emphasized that man must never disclaim the responsibility for his actions. Nor can we avoid the responsibility of making our own choices on the grounds that we "must" go to work, or we "must" live up to certain middle-class expectations regarding how we should live. Those who thus slip into the anonymous masses will never be other than members of the impersonal flock, having fled from themselves into self-deception. On the other hand our freedom obliges us to make something of ourselves, to live "authentically" or "truly". — Jostein Gaarder

All over America, people are making kamikaze choices about what to wear. They are misrepresenting the goods. They are letting their clothes write checks that their personalities cannot cash. — Simon Doonan

Pay attention to what your body is telling you about your own wants and needs. Find the rhythms in your cycles. There is wisdom in our biology. Above all, do what feels best. Making healthy choices feels good. This is not deprivation. It is nourishment on all levels. It is the opposite of neglect. — Julie Holland

No one is anything but a shade of grey. It's good people making bad choices. — Sara Bareilles

Therefore, for me, living true to my self may be defined as: Making the daily choices in all areas of my life that are in the best interests of my survival, evolution and prosperity, that aid the ongoing achievement of the highest physical, mental and spiritual objectives of which I am capable, that are based on the most correct assessment of reality I have available, and that honor the evolving truth of who I am and who I choose to be, all in the personal pursuit of freedom, function, fun, as well as the highest good of all. — Walt F.J. Goodridge

You know what, Abigail? You're right - it is selfish. But there's nothing inherently immature about making a selfish choice. It is hard to put what you know is right for you first, when you know people you love don't respect your choices. It is hard to say 'what I want is worthy.' It is hard to say 'I know myself and what I need, even if everyone else thinks otherwise.' Don't tell me this is immature when it took me months of thinking about it every damn day to make this choice. — Dahlia Adler

Are the choices you are making going to really make you happy NOW or happy eventually? — Robert Holden

When making a decision, focus on what feels "shackles off" versus "shackles on". — Martha Beck

Free will is something that people struggle with so much, but it's very simple to me. Carl Jung said at the same moment you're a protagonist in your own life making choices, you also are the spear carrier, or the extra, in a much larger drama. You've got to live with these two opposite ideas at the same time. — Wayne Dyer

Never let others define you. — Auliq Ice

If I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other people's choices. If I feel good about my body, I don't go around making fun of other people's weight or appearance. We're hard on each other because we're using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived deficiency. — Brene Brown

Making changes requires making new and different choices, choices that are more conscious, and more life-supporting. Continuing to do what we have been doing so far is also a choice, but not one that will bring any meaningful improvement. I would suggest that before we can intelligently make new choices, a thorough re-evaluation is in order. We need to look more carefully at what we value, what we have, and what we desire to make sure these are really important to us and represent what we truly want. — Ilchi Lee

You make a new life by making new choices. — Sean Stephenson

Tracking action without cutting is the least jarring method of placing the audience into a real-time experience where they are the ones making the subtle choices of where and when to look. — Steven Spielberg

I think I'm a very pretty girl. I'm never going to pretend to think otherwise. There are even days I feel I'm fabulously hot and sexy. I'm grateful for my looks. My family is doing well because of them. I can make career choices and turn down movies because of them and I have been making money from them for 17 years. My looks are who I am. — Milla Jovovich

Usually, the people who wind up making totally arbitrary choices - recklessly going for the next house, the next job, the next relationship that shows up - turn out to be over-calculating. They spend so much time figuring out the risks, looking at all the pros and cons, assessing every worst-case scenario, that no choice looks right, and sheer frustration pushes them to break the deadlock. Ironically, such irrational leaps sometimes work out. The universe has more in store for us than we can ever predict, and bad choices frequently smooth out in the end because our hidden aspirations know where we are going. — Deepak Chopra

When we're surrounded by things that look impossible, making a simple choice to do something that's possible is a powerful thing to do. — Melody Beattie

As an actor, you're always in situations that can be compromising. But you can wipe away that gray area by making a choice. — Kyle MacLachlan

To have an opportunity to get in front of a camera every single day is just priceless because it gets you closer and closer to being less self-consciousness in front of it and really being human and really making choices and standing by them. — Katie Lowes

The typical American reports making about 70 [choices] in a typical day. — Sheena Iyengar

All of us face hard choices in our lives. Some face more than their share. We have to decide how to balance the demands of work and family. Caring for a sick child or an aging parent. Figuring out how to pay for college. Finding a good job, and what to do if you lose it. Whether to get married - or stay married. How to give our kids the opportunities they dream about and deserve. Life is about making such choices. Our choices and how we handle them shape the people we become. For leaders and nations, they can mean the difference between war and peace, poverty and prosperity. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

Your leadership principles give that unique character to your leadership brand. When all your responses, decisions, choices and leadership practices are filtered through your well defined principles, you have automatically connected yourself to making the success of your leadership excellence brand more deliberate. — Archibald Marwizi

True thought is pre-physical. This is the thinking-behind-the-thinking responsible for all the genuinely consequential choices we make in the world. A thinking that is not dependent on linear deduction, but that moves fast as lightning, making connections on different levels, bringing them together. — Eben Alexander

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

Cultivate the habit of making aware choice. Your choice makes your destiny. Do not be carried away by the unconscious choices. — Amit Ray

You can't always make good choices. Sometimes you have to settle for making a choice you can live with. — Vikki Wakefield

The bible doesn't say Jesus had a power to command, only to recommend, which leaves each one of us with an individual freedom of choice. Maybe it's just that there are too many of us making too many bad choices for the good of the whole." He took a bite out of his apple. "Too many people and none of us wanting or able to hear the harmony. — Bryan Islip

Once we're willing to confront our emotional suffering, we begin making choices based on attraction instead of aversion, love instead of fear. Where we used to think about what was 'safe,' we now become interested in doing what seems right or fun or meaningful or ripe with possibilities. — Martha Beck

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

That's one benefit of travelling to your own future, and making the trip part of your past. — James A. Owen

1. Institutions shape politics. The rules and standard operating procedures that make up institutions leave their imprint on political outcomes by structuring political behavior. Outcomes are not simply reducible to the billiard-ball interaction of individuals nor to the intersection of broad social forces. Institutions influence outcomes because they shape actors' identities, power, and strategies. 2. Institutions are shaped by history. Whatever other factors may affect their form, institutions have inertia and "robustness." They therefore embody historical trajectories and turning points. History matters because it is "path dependent": what comes first (even if it was in some sense "accidental") conditions what comes later. Individuals may "choose" their institutions, but they do not choose them under circumstances of their own making, and their choices in turn influence the rules within which their successors choose. — Robert D. Putnam

For too many years, politicians in Washington have been eager to pledge more hard-earned taxpayer dollars to help deal with the student debt load. But this doesn't sit right with the many Americans who take pride in making fiscally responsible choices and paying off their loans on time. — John Kline

Just because we've made poor or wrong choices in the past, does not limit us from making wise and good choices now. — Toni Sorenson

Ignorance, vulnerability, fear, anger, and desire are expressions of the infinite potential of your buddha nature. There's nothing inherently wrong or right with making such choices. The fruit of Buddhist practice is simply the recognition that these and other mental afflictions are nothing more or less than choices available to us because our real nature is infinite in scope. — Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Amazing relationships aren't about making one perfect choice in your choice of partner. They're about the infinite amount of choices you make in each conflict, each conversation, and each moment to open yourself and to stay open, even when it's hard. — Vironika Tugaleva

Living with integrity means: Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe. — Barbara De Angelis

When two sides who consider each other enemies converge in armed struggle, for the moment they are no longer enemies. They are fellow human beings who face the same two choices that their ancestors did for centuries before them: to destroy each other or to prosper together. — Thomas Huynh

That's the way it was, always will be. nothing we can do to make it different. It's a story now, and stories have endings even when you don't know- fools like me- that you're already in the middle of one, and you're already making choices... Choices that will bring you to places you'd never thought you'd be, places in your heart you'll mourn and love the rest of your life.~Mr. Dees — Lee Martin

I was making choices that were very specific: Make a living, take care of your family, and if you can, find some movies that you can sink your teeth into. — Josh Lucas

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

I love making characters real and believable, through my own experience and choices. — Minka Kelly

One thing's for sure: if you decide to be courageous and sane, if you decide not to overspend or overcommit or overschedule, the healthy people in your life will respect those choices. And the unhealthy people in your life will freak out, because you're making a healthy choice they're not currently free to make. Don't for one second let that stop you. — Shauna Niequist

If you haven't already clearly defined your values, you may find yourself making choices that conflict with what you want. If, for example, honesty is a big thing for you, but you hang out with liars, there's a conflict. When your actions conflict with your values, you'll end up unhappy, frustrated, and despondent. In fact, psychologists tell us that nothing creates more stress than when our actions and behaviors aren't congruent with our values. — Darren Hardy

Real people, smart or otherwise, sometimes make stupid choices, and despite judgment, whether from other writers, readers, or haters, books with outwardly stupid characters making stupid choices will continue to sell, because if you dig a little deeper, you'll find a reason for a character's moment of idiocy; and more notably, this moment of idiocy amidst the chaos of life is real and relatable. — Shona Moyce

You know what makes no sense? A bunch of penises making choices for vaginas. That's like interviewing a turtle on the struggles of being a dolphin. We — Luvvie Ajayi

I don't feel that way now. I don't want to make movies for the 10 people who feel exactly the same way about the world that I do. I want to make movies that many, many people see, and I want to say something that I believe is important in a way that people who don't agree with me can hear. And that involves making different kinds of choices, but it's not like a compromise that I'm making. It's that something else interests me, something else is appealing to me. — Maggie Gyllenhaal