Our 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

We don't go out there into the world and do what would make us feel happy and fulfilled with our lives, because what if it's not good enough for our parents? What if it's not cool enough for our friends? What if our choices aren't good enough for everybody else? "But know this: no matter what you do, you will never escape judgment and criticism. Don't even take this as bad news. It just is. It's what people do. They can't help it. You're getting judged either way, so you might as well do what makes you happy. — Katie Morton

Many of us don't realize that we have a choice about which aspect of ourselves we will use as the foundation upon which we build our lives. — Debbie Ford

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

Some choices are forever ... Just because people aren't in our lives anymore, doesn't mean they stop thinking about us and vice versa. — Wendy Mass

Our twenties can be like living beyond time. When we graduate from school, we leave behind the only lives we have ever known, ones that have been neatly packaged in semester-sized chunks with goals nestled within. Suddenly, life opens up and the syllabi are gone. There are days and weeks and months and years, but no clear way to know when or why any one thing should happen. It can be a disorienting, cave-like existence. As one twentysomething astutely put it, The twentysomething years are a whole new way of thinking about time. There's this big chunk of time and a whole bunch of stuff that needs to happen somehow. — Meg Jay

So this is the way it unfolds. In the absence of what people like my grandfather could count on - a vast extended family constantly on hand to let him make his own choices - our elderly are left with a controlled and supervised institutional existence, a medically designed answer to unfixable problems, a life designed to be safe but empty of anything they care about. — Atul Gawande

The childhood poverty of both my parents and their minimal education did much to influence me and my two younger brothers in our education and career choices. One brother became a dentist and the other, a professor of anthropology with a Ph.D. degree. — Ferid Murad

There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust. But we lean forward nonetheless because, despite all risks and rational argument, we believe that the path we are choosing is the right and best thing to do. We refuse to be bystanders, even if we do not know exactly where our actions will lead.
This is the kind of passionate conviction that sparks romances, wins battles, and drives people to pursue dreams others wouldn't dare. Belief in ourselves and in what is right catapults us over hurdles, and our lives unfold.
"Life is a sum of all your choices," wrote Albert Camus. Large or small, our actions forge our futures and hopefully inspire others along the way. — Howard Schultz

Life is full of painful events, and people who have lost their way and hurt others. Our pain is not lessened when we respond with hatred. In fact, the opposite occurs: When we hate people who hurt us, we come to resemble what we hate, or worse, and then we suffer all the more. What is evil is our response. We have choices, and love is the most powerful eliminator of all. — Bernie Siegel

We make our own choices in life. Our actions shape our lives and we alone are responsible for them. — Ilona Andrews

It is our choices that define us, not our abilities. — Michelle Hodkin

Don't do the right thing for the wrong reasons. It is the "why" that keeps us committed to our choices and defines our character. — Shannon L. Alder

Much of our lives consists of a series of choices over which we have absolute control. — Gina Greenlee

In this, our age of infamy Man's choice is but to be A tyrant, traitor, prisoner: No other choice has he. — Alexander Pushkin

No one can make us angry. It is our choice. — Thomas S. Monson

Pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the starting point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it we always come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing. — Epicurus

It's the choices we make that decides our own fate. — S.B.J.

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

War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to "a war against" whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to Yes/No, On/Off. This is puerile, misleading, and degrading. In stories, it evades any solution but violence and offers the reader mere infantile reassurance. All too often the heroes of such fantasies behave exactly as the villains do, acting with mindless violence, but the hero is on the "right" side and therefore will win. Right makes might. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Belief, like fear or love, is a force to be understood as we understand the theory of relativity and principals of uncertainty. Phenomena that determine the course of our lives. Yesterday, my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Yesterday, I believe I would never have done what I did today. These forces that often remake time and space, that can shape and alter who we
imagine ourselves to be, begin long before we are born and continue after we perish. Our lives and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment. That each point of intersection, each encounter, suggest a new potential direction. Proposition, I have fallen in love with Luisa Rey. Is this possible? I just met her and yet, I feel like something important has happened to me. — David Mitchell

We are very hip on the fact that America's always No. 1. On this we are not, in terms of the number of women in our legislative branches and obviously as head of state. We need to push on that. I hate to say this: It isn't all men's fault. I think some of it is our own attitude and approach. Some of it very healthy, that women want to make choices about their lives and how they want to spend their time, and what they value. — Madeleine Albright

The greatest choice we have is to think before we act and then take action toward our life goals every day. Our problems result not only from our lack of action, but from our action without thought. — Denis Waitley

With limited time or opportunity to experiment, we intentionally narrow our choices to those at the top. — Seth Godin

The question of place and climate is most closely related to the question of nutrition. Nobody is free to live everywhere; and whoever has to solve great problems that challenge all his strength actually has a very restricted choice in this matter. The influence of climate on our metabolism, its retardation, its acceleration, goes so far that a mistaken choice of place and climate can not only estrange a man from his task but can actually keep it from him: he never gets to see it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Are we defined by our choices? Our behavior? Our actions? No. I don't believe that defines our worth. — Nadya Suleman

If our main goal is to connect emotionally, we should want to have as many tools as we possibly can to achieve that goal. The more abilities that we have, the more choices we can make musically. — Ken Hill

I think I'm very interested in people, in the way our minds work and how we navigate through the experience that is life. Very interested in people's struggles and their choices and their regrets and joys. I'm very interested in the human animal. — Victor Salva

If you aren't hearing your inner voice, it could mean you're overburdened or not stimulated enough, or that you've learned to shut it off because the people around you have refused to engage it. Perhaps you've had a hardening of the arteries around your soul. I believe the choices we make in our lives and the people and places surrounding us increase the volume of our inner voice, decrease it, or annihilate it entirely. — Kelly Cutrone

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 ethical choices in what we buy, do, and watch. In a consumer-driven society our individual choices, used collectively for the good of animals and nature, can change the world faster than laws. — Marc Bekoff

What kind of nation we will be, what kind of world we will live in, whether we shape the future in the image of our hopes, is ours to determine by our actions and our choices. — Richard M. Nixon

Our lives are like these things I make. Turn 'em, build 'em, bake 'em in fire. That's what you've been, son. Baked and fired. But a pot don't have the right to choose whether he be for water, wine, or just left empty. You have, son. You have. — Joanne Harris

For decades we have been living lives of abundance, with little regard for our natural resources or global health. But we are now facing hard choices in our energy policy. Future generations - my children and grandchildren, along with yours - will have to live with the decisions we make today. And so it is time for us to make some tough and - hopefully - smart choices regarding our energy use and production before it is too late. — John McCain

Our own intellectual shortfalls and perplexities do not alter the fact of God's astonishing foreknowledge, which takes into account our choices for which we are responsible. Amid the mortal and fragmentary communiques and the breaking news of the day concerning various human conflicts, God lives in an eternal now where the past, present, and future are constantly before Him (see D&C 130:7). — Neal A. Maxwell

A mission is not just a casual thing-it is not an alternative program in the Church. Neither is a mission a matter of choice any more than tithing is a choice, any more than sacrament meeting is a choice, any more than the Word of Wisdom is a choice. Of course, we have our free agency, and the Lord has given us choices. We can do as we please. We can go on a mission or we can remain home. But every normal young man is as much obligated to go on a mission as he is to pay his tithing, attend his meetings, keep the Sabbath day holy, and keep his life spotless and clean. — Spencer W. Kimball

Matter does not control us; we control matter through our thinking and choosing. We cannot control the events and circumstances of life but we can control our reactions. In fact, we can control our reactions to anything, and in doing so, we change our brains. It's not easy; it is hard work, but it can be done through our thoughts and choices. — Caroline Leaf

And so it is, that if you believe it you can honestly choose what you want to be. But choose carefully, with your intuition, and have the courage to trust your choice! It is vital that we allow our self the privilege of quite space, for it is there we discover the passion that drives us to our heart's desire, to our destiny. — Braam Malherbe

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

Much later, when I understood what perfection was, I realized that to become a saint one must suffer a great deal, always seek what is best, and forget oneself. I understood that there were many kinds of of sanctity and that each soul was free to respond to the approaches of Our Lord and to do little or much for Him - in other words,to make a choice among the sacrifices He demands. — Therese Of Lisieux

Words are words. People add meaning to words.
Information is information. With words people add value to information.
Words breathe life into information. Words move mountains of information.
Words are action. Momentum for living evolves from pursuit of deeper, wider and higher significance, utility and value of words.
Words we sow, nourish and harvest feed hungry minds and hearts. Gathered words strengthen, ignite and release us.
Words identify, signify and proclaim our individuality. Words pronounce a purposeful life's choices.
With wisdom, courage and patience we must choose high-performing words for long-term relationships. Chosen words become soul mates. — John R. Dallas Jr.

Saturn takes twenty-nine years to return to the point in the sky where it was at the moment we were born. Until that happens, everything seems possible, our dreams can come true, and any walls hemming us in can still be broken down. When Saturn completes this cycle, it puts an end to any romanticism. Choices become definitive and it's nearly impossible to change direction. — Paulo Coelho

As a body in a world, here is our choice: we can be more loving or less loving. That's it. We can relax as the entire moment's show of love's swirl, feeling open as all
a vicious rainstorm, tweeting birds, our lover's lips, a sense of worthlessness
or we can close to some aspect of experience, pulling away as if we were separate. — David Deida

I prefer to believe we have some hand in our fates, that our choices matter as much as our stars. — Jessica Spotswood

A good financial plan is a road map that shows us exactly how the choices we make today will affect our future. — Alexa Von Tobel

The future success of our nation depends on our ability to understand the difference between right and wrong and to have the strength of character to make the right choices. — George W. Bush

It is our choices that define who we are, not our abilities. — J.K. Rowling

If one had to single out the most revolutionary novelty furnished by Qumran, its contribution to our understanding of the genesis of Jewish literary compositions could justifiably be our primary choice. — Geza Vermes

We don't get to choose if we get hurt in this world, old man, but we do have a say in who hurts us. I know I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.
I do, Augustus.
I do. — John Green

As you know, the separation of church and state is not subject to discussion or alteration. Under our Constitution no church or religion can be supported by the U.S. Government. We maintain freedom of religion so that an American can either worship in the church of his choice or choose to go to no church at all. — Richard M. Nixon

Do we pour $40 billion into grandiose Louisiana engineering projects or do we instead put up no trespassing- signs in the areas below sea level? All are hard choices with various merits and pains. The important thing, however, is for America to decide whether the current policy of inaction is really the way we want to deal with the worst natural disaster in our history. — Douglas Brinkley

As survivors, we've been conditioned to be victims sexually. Many of us have never learned to say no or to set limits on our sexual activities ... To heal, it's important that we take control, that we make active choices concerning if, when, and how we want to explore sexuality. Especially in the beginning, you need to put your own needs about sex ahead of anyone else's. — Ellen Bass

Freedom is a choice, and we have to defend our choices. — Vahid Asghari

We would rather be in the company of somebody we like than in the company of the most superior being of our acquaintance. — Frank Arthur Swinnerton

The more I look around and listen I realize that I'm not alone. We are all facing choices that define us. No choice. However messy is without importance in the overall picture of our lives. We all at our own age have to claim something, even if it's only our own confusion. I am in the middle of growing up and into myself. — Sabrina Ward Harrison

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

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

You don't get very far in life without having to be brave an awful lot. Because we all have our frightening moments and difficult trials and we don't have much of a choice but to get through 'em, and it takes a lot of bravery to do that. The most important thing about bravery is this - It's not about not being scared - it's about being scared and doing it anyway - that's bravery. — Ysabella Brave

As adults we choose our own reading material. Depending on our moods and needs we might read the newspaper, a blockbuster novel, an academic article, a women's magazine, a comic, a children's book, or the latest book that just about everyone is reading. No one chastises us for our choice. No one says, 'That's too short for you to read.' No one says, 'That's too easy for you, put it back.' No one says 'You couldn't read that if you tried
it's much too difficult.'
Yet if we take a peek into classrooms, libraries, and bookshops we will notice that children's choices are often mocked, censured, and denied as valid by idiotic, interfering teachers, librarians, and parents. Choice is a personal matter that changes with experience, changes with mood, and changes with need. We should let it be. — Mem Fox

Our word choices give a sentence its luster, and they deserve intense attention. — Constance Hale

Some decisions are hard, some are easy, but either way it's our choices that matter. Who we chose to align with. What we choose to give in to. What we choose to resist. And most of all, who we choose to be. Because it is always our choice. — Daisy Whitney

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

A hundred different paths may lighten the world's load of suffering. Giving up meat is one path; giving up bananas is another. The more we know about our food system, the more we are called into complex choices. — Barbara Kingsolver

Our domestic lives reflect the major trend that dominates the consumer marketplace today: an ever-increasing emphasis on variety and choice ... we find ourselves inventing our lives as we go along, improvising in an effort to take advantage of the bewildering range of choices that we face. — Sally Helgesen

When I look at him, I don't see the cowardly young man who sold me out to Jeanine Matthews, and i don't hear the excuses he gave afterward.
When I look at him, I see the boy who held my hand in the hospital when our mother broke her wrist and told me it would be all right. I see the brother who told me to make my own choices, the night before the Choosing Ceremony. I think of all the remarkable things he is
smart and enthusiastic and observant, quiet and earnest and kind. — Veronica Roth

Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

I think we choose who we are and what we do about life events. Paige, isn't that what you've been doing since Kevin threw you out of the company? You've been stepping out in faith, trusting God to help you make your own life. Working at life is what matters most. What we do for a living is a component. Where we come from, who's in our lives, our families, our pets, and the people we decide we want to grow old with are all about life, but we make our own choices and build from the materials we've been given. — Lynette Endicott

We are all such accidents. We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice. We make what we can of our condition with the means available. We must accept the mixture as we find it - the impurity of it, the tragedy of it, the hope of it. — Saul Bellow

There are lies in life we accept. Whether it's for the sake of ignorance, bliss, or, in my case, survival, we all make our choices. — Katie McGarry

The way I figure it, life's the sum total of all our small mistakes, little tragedies, bad choices. — Lauren Oliver

I believe that we must maintain pride in the knowledge that the actions we take, based on our own decisions and choices as individuals, link directly to the magnificent challenge of transforming human history. — Daisaku Ikeda

God's is the causality at the level of our being, and therefore the roots of our freedom. Ours in causality is determinative of what kind of being we're going to be through our free choices, what kind of action we are going to do through our decisions. — Francis George

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

I have always hesitated to give advice, for how can one advise another how to act unless one knows that other as well as one knows himself? Heaven knows. I know little enough of myself: I know nothing of others. We can only guess at the thoughts and emotions of our neighbours. Each one of us is a prisoner in a solitary tower and he communicates with the other prisoners, who form mankind, by conventional signs that have not quite the same meaning for them as for himself. — W. Somerset Maugham

In heaven, there is no judgment, but rather an opportunity to examine our lives-who we touched, the choices we made, and the consequences of those choices.
-Blue Man — Mitch Albom

When we travel down the path of life, we have so many forks, so many choices, but we have no idea where each path will take us. But there are times when we can look across the abyss and see where we might have been, had we taken the other path. But we cannot go back; we cannot change our past. We can only wonder about the path not taken and continue on the path that we have chosen. — Frank Karkota

The world, as it is, is not a permanent reality, but is a temporary product of our choices as creators. — Bryant McGill

[W]ar is a question, under our constitution, not of Executive, but of Legislative cognizance. It belongs to Congress to say whether the Nation shall of choice dismiss the olive branch and unfurl the banners of War. — Alexander Hamilton

My father so appropriately put it that we are certainly the only animal that makes conscious choices that are bad for our survival as a species. — Louise Leakey

I don't believe we own our children, they're their own souls who make their own choices, we just guide and support them. — Elle Macpherson

The choices we make now will shape the future of not just our countries, but the world at large. We should intensify our cooperation in confronting global challenges like Terrorism, Cyber Security and Climate Change. — Narendra Modi

Nature is our salvation, not technology or the intellect. Technology can neither save us nor destroy us. Technology can only aid the will, thus it is the will and our choices which determine everything. — Bryant McGill

IT is only when we are no longer in control
because of sickness, death, or our own bad choices
that we no longer cling. The path to salvation is the path of humiliation. — Jonathan Martin

Our marriage, like many others, has had its ups and its downs. It took a lot of work and a whole lot of therapy to get to a place where I could forgive Anthony. It was not an easy choice in any way. But I made the decision that it was worth staying in this marriage. That was a decision I made for me, for our son and for our family. — Huma Abedin

He allows us the luxury of difficult choices so that we can prove our love for Him. These are our opportunities to choose God rather than the world. — Erwin W. Lutzer

But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. — Isaiah 64 8

Our personal consumer choices have ecological, social, and spiritual consequences. It is time to re-examine some of our deeply held notions that underlie our lifestyles. — David Suzuki

There are two ways to look at most problems ... 'Oh Crap!' or, 'Good Information!,' and our choice will give us good information on how to deal with problems in the future. — Bill Crawford

We work our whole lives trying to get rich so we can impress the world with our fancy houses and cars, but in the end it doesn't matter how much money we make. What matters most are the choices we make, and unfortunately I made some very bad choices. — J.S. Bailey

Like the swimming rats in Richter's experiment, we can survive for only so long without solid ground beneath our feet; if the choices aren't real, sooner or later we will go under. It's important, therefore, that we examine our assumptions about choice and that we openly discuss how, when and why it falls short. — Sheena Iyengar

There are many ways to be haunted, not all of them supernatural. From photo album to love letters, the memory of bad choices, broken promises, lost loves, and scattered dreams can often longer far longer than the glow if satisfaction from our greatest accomplishments. Indeed, the most frightening ways to be haunted may be in the many ways we haunt ourselves. — Tonya Hurley

We can make our earth a heaven or a hell based on the choices that we make. — Kate McGahan

We're taught to solely blame our luck-of-the-draw genes for our health issues, rather than our daily habits, dietary choices, and interplay with the environment that surrounds us. — Kris Carr

Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot. — Jane Rule

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

A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It's the testing point of our character and competence. — Stephen R. Covey

When you take the time to really know yourself - know your values, know your beliefs, know what is important to you - you can make the right choice, even when it's hard.We all have choices. We can choose our direction, every single day. — Suraj Dahal

The final disease that nature inflicts on us will determine the atmosphere in which we take our leave of life, but our own choices should be allowed, insofar as possible, to be the decisive factor in the manner of our going. — Sherwin B. Nuland

The choices and decisions we make in terms of how we use the land ultimately affect our very DNA. Environmental issues are life issues. — Terry Tempest Williams

The problem is that the choice we make in the market don't fully reflect our values as citizens. We might make different choices if we understood the social consequences of our purchases or investments and if we knew all other consumers and investors would join us in forbearing from certain great deals whose social consequence were abhorrent to us. — Robert B. Reich