You Choose Your Friends Quotes & Sayings

You will meet a lot of people in your life; some laugh with you, others will laugh at you; some will love to clean your mess, others will love to mess you up! Love all, but choose carefully the one who stays close to you forever! — Israelmore Ayivor

This is what I have held against boyfriends all my life: that they are the people who steal your best friends away from you piece by piece, and when they give them back (if they ever do), it is only when they have made your best friends sadder and more heartbroken than when they were first taken. Because that's what it looks like, from here. It had to be his fault, because how could someone who is my best friend ever really choose to see me less and less until we see each other almost not at all? This is what I believed: Best friends, if only by virtue of you calling them your "best friend," just don't do that.
But they do. — Katie Heaney

More than anything, I began to hate women writers. Frances Burney, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Browning, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf. Bronte, Bronte, and Bronte. I began to resent Emily, Anne, and Charlotte - my old friends - with a terrifying passion. They were not only talented; they were brave, a trait I admired more than anything but couldn't seem to possess. The world that raised these women hadn't allowed them to write, yet they had spun fiery novels in spite of all the odds. Meanwhile, I was failing with all the odds tipped in my favor. Here I was, living out Virginia Woolf's wildest feminist fantasy. I was in a room of my own. The world was no longer saying, "Write? What's the good of your writing?" but was instead saying "Write if you choose; it makes no difference to me. — Catherine Lowell

Sixth letter : Choose your influences well

We do not move through our days alone or apart from the world around us. And we must always be aware of the things and the people we allow in our lives. It's a mark of wisdom to choose to spend time in those places that inspire and energize you. Whether in our work or within our personal lives, these most positive friends and peers will inspire us to be our greatest selves and to lead our largest lives. — Robin S. Sharma

There are a lot of things that aren't fair, Aladdin."
She drew back from him, still holding his hands, and looked into his eyes.
"That's just the way life is- which is why it's so important for us Street Rats to take care of each other. That's a good instinct you have. You should always look out for your friends and your family. Because no one is looking out for us.
But that doesn't mean you should become a thief."
Aladdin looked at the ground, chagrined.
She put her hand under his chin to make him look up at her.
"Don't let life's unfairness, don't let how poor you are decide who you are. You choose who you will be, Aladdin. Will you be a hero who looks after the weak and powerless? Will you be a thief? Will you be a beggar- or worse? It's up to you, not the things-or people- around you. You can choose to be something more. — Liz Braswell

Choose your friends carefully. They are a reflection of you. — Jim George

Choose your friends carefully but don't worry about your enemies, they will choose you — Carl Henegan

You will lose touch with people you thought you wouldn't, watch from a distance while these people get married, gain weight, lose weight, move across the country, and get new sets of friends you will never meet. But you will look at your pictures of them and remember the nights you drank too much rum with them and you will enjoy those moments immensely. You will know what it is like to experience true nostalgia - the feelings a Hot Pocket can elicit will be astounding. It will not be a bittersweet kind of thing, because you know that it's not as much growing apart as it is growing up.
There will be successes, and failures, and a lot of good and bad things. You will watch yourself and the people you choose to be with fall in love and get married, get jobs, get fired, get a terrible tattoo, have babies, get sick, get better, get worse, lose parents, grow older, grow smarter. Things will flash forward, pass before your eyes like the lights at a terrible nightclub. — Alida Nugent

Reuven listen to me. The Talmud says that a person should do two things for himself. One is to acquire a teacher. Do you remember the other."
"Choose a friend," I said.
"Yes. You know what a friend is, Reuven? A Greek philosopher said that two people who are true friends are like two bodies with one soul."
I nodded.
"Reuven, if you can, make Danny Saunders your friend."
"I like him a lot, abba."
"No. Listen to me. I am not talking about only liking him. I am telling you to make him your friend and to let him make you his friend. — Chaim Potok

Choose the beautiful story, with the bright lights, the one where he can hear us," she told him. "That's the true one. Not the scary story, not the sharks." "But isn't it more scary to be utterly alone upon the waters, completely cut off from everyone, no friends, no family, no direction, nothing but a radio for solace?" She touched the side of his face. "That's your story," she said. "You're trying to tell me your story, aren't you?" Jun Do stared at her. "Oh, you poor boy," she said. "You poor little boy. It doesn't have to be that way. Come in off the water, things can be different. You don't need a radio, I'm right here. You don't have to choose the alone." ========== The Orphan Master's Son: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) (Johnson, Adam) — Anonymous

Choose good friends. Friends help to determine your future. You will tend to be like them and to be found where they choose to go. Remember, the path we follow in this life leads to the path we follow in the next. — Thomas S. Monson

1. Find your own style and have the courage to stick to it.
2. Choose your clothes for your way of life.
3. Make your wardrobe as versatile as an actress. It should be able to play many roles.
4. Find your happiest colours - the ones that make you feel good.
5. Care for your clothes, like the good friends they are! — Joan Crawford

The company you keep determines how others view you. Identify with mediocrity and you will be labeled sub par. Collaborate with questionable people and your reputation becomes suspect. Guilt by association can end a career, hurt your business and cost you friends. Choose alliances wisely or you may be condemned for someone else's sins. — Carlos Wallace

If you're going to choose your friends, you better choose them well, because when you look at your friends, you're looking at a mirror reflection. You're looking at you; you are looking at you. — Paul Washer

Be mindful of your social environment. By nature, the group you hang-out with will develop a common behavior and mindset. This behavior usually gravitates towards the lowest common denominator. Choose your group wisely. — Steve Maraboli

Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen Hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Appreciate your friends.
Continue to learn.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is. — Mary Anne Radmacher

Fate chooses your relations,
you choose your friends. — Jacques Delille

In our friendships we have to be wise that we choose godly people to be our friends. Somebody might say, well does that mean that you should never have a lost person as your friend? No, I wouldn't say that. But you can't have the same intimacy with a lost person that you can with a godly person in whom the Holy Spirit is living. — Charles Stanley

Do not choose for your friends and familiar acquaintance those that are of an estate or quality too much above yours ... You will hereby accustom yourselves to live after their rate in clothes, in habit, and in expenses, whereby you will learn a fashion and rank of life above your degree and estate, which will in the end be your undoing. — Matthew Hale

Some of us are blessed, or cursed, with a dream, and have to bare claw and fang to claim it. To anyone with a diehard dream I want to say: Put aside all the kneading and fretting. Choose your trail. Jump. Watch a moose as it paws through a great depth of snow to get to the antelope bitterbrush underneath (you want to grow that kind of persistence). Deflect naysayers for now; they'll come around in the end. Be open to the sturdy graces that show up. Welcome friends, regardless of species. Beware of trappings; they tend to transmute into traps. Trust thyself. — Mary Beth Baptiste

You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't. — Harper Lee

I cannot stress enough the perils of your friends marrying or becoming court inventors. One day you are all a society of outlaws, adventurous comrades and companions who will be pushing off somewhere or other when things become tiresome; you have all the world to choose from, just by looking at the map ... And then, suddenly, they're not interested any more. They want to keep warm. They're afraid of rain. They start collecting big things that can't fit in a rucksack. They talk only of small things. They don't like to make sudden decisions and do something contrariwise. Formerly they hoisted sail; now they carpenter little shelves for porcelain mugs. — Tove Jansson

Choose your friends wisely, and also choose friends that you can trust. — Elyn Saks

Be careful who you choose as your friends because their bad habits can become your bad habits. Choose wisely ... we all have a choice in life. — Mimi Jenkins

Because work takes up a lot of time, you have to choose your moments for really letting rip. I hang out with my friends and my family and I spend time with my kids when I'm not working. They don't see my being an actor as exotic. For them, it's just an everyday thing. Sometimes it's amusing to them and other times, embarrassing. — Aidan Gillen

You don't need to compromise your standards to be accepted by good friends. The more obedient you arethe more the Lord can help you overcome temptation. You can also help others because they will feel your strength. Let them know about your standards by consistently living themNo one intends to make serious mistakes. They come when you compromise your standards to be more accepted by others. You be the strong one. You be the leader. Choose good friends and resist peer pressure together. — Richard G. Scott

But it's not enough to be in love. It's about how you spend your days, what you do together, who you choose as friends, and most of all it's what work you do ... Better to break both our hearts now than watch them wither away over time. — Helen Simonson

People think that once you're in movies your life changes in a crazy way. It really doesn't. If you choose to have it change in a crazy way, it will. I have my same groups of friends I was friends with in high school. We're all a bunch of really normal guys. — Jonah

Weren't your friends the family you got to choose? — Karen Swan

There is no way to your personal joy if you hand over the keys to someone who is not ready to open the door for you. You have the right to choose your friends; do it carefully! — Israelmore Ayivor

You won't bully or threaten me into the life you want me to live." Drew went on. "I wish you could see how happy I am, how excited. I wish when you looked at Trent, you saw the man I did. A man who is passionate about business, who is loyal to his friends, and who feels more deeply in his little finger than you do in your entire body. You might be disgusted that I love him, but I'm proud. I'm proud to love someone who loves me enough to walk into this house and take the abuse you've so casually thrown at him. You want to make me choose? I choose him. I choose my life over the life you want me to have. — Cambria Hebert

The lion snorted. 'You treat all as a game. That is why they sent for me - Malcador cannot trust you. No one can trust you. Your Legion is a rabble that would brawl among themselves if you were not there to smack their heads together.' 'If only they were more like yours,' said Russ, mockingly. 'Yes,' replied the Lion, exasperated. 'Yes. Is that so hard to imagine?'

Russ loosened his arms, letting Krakenmaw swing lazily before him. 'I know why you do this. I know why you conquer, world after world, driving your sons after every campaign Malcador finds for you. But our father won't do it, brother. He won't choose a favourite. And if He did, it wouldn't be you - it would be Sanguinius, or Rogal, or Horus. So you're wasting yourself, trying to be noticed. It doesn't work like that.'

The Lion let slip a scornful laugh. 'Not all of us are so without friends in the Palace, Leman, and you have no idea who our father favours. — Chris Wraight

You can choose your friends but not your friendships. — Sarah Manguso

Choose your friends carefully. It is they who will lead you in one direction or the other. — Gordon B. Hinckley

We all should choose our friends carefully. I used to think that no one could know me better than somebody else, because you're inside yourself, your body, you can't see yourself. If you think like that, you surround yourself with other people who are willing to tell you who you are, which are usually judgmental people ... we should really surround ourselves with the ones that adore us and believe in the highest of us. — Jewel

It is true that you can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends.
It is also true that you can choose your partner and in doing so, you end up choosing the family you've always wanted. — J.R. Rim

You don't choose your friends, they choose you, and you either reject them or you accept them without reservations. — Arturo Perez-Reverte

As for those who choose to remain outside the presence, it really doesn't matter whether you warn them or not. They are determined to stay apart (2:6). They are behind a curtain by our command and their choosing. The wall in front of them is made of their bodies. You cannot know who is behind the curtain. You can only stand out of sight and call to your friends. Those who respond do so according to eternal findings. But it is good for you to call and continue calling. You are like a diver who goes to the bottom and brings up sometimes a pure gem, sometimes an ordinary stone. Your diving does not change one into the other. — Bahauddin

And yeah, I know most people would think it weird that two guy friends touch as much as we do, but when you choose your family, you get to choose how it is between you, too. This is how we work. I hope you get to choose your family and I hope it means as much to you as mine does to me. — Patrick Ness

If you are a warrior, the nature and scale of your enemies will determine the nature and scale of your actions. In this sense, it is even more important to choose your enemies more wisely than your friends. — CrimethInc.

Now The Head Lines


How do you like your truth?
Gently spoken on breakfast TV
By a man and a woman who sit comfortably
Saying riots, and murder, when will it end?
As they struggle to act as if they are good friends.

How do you like your truth?
Bite-sized in sound bites cut easy to chew, With a talking head saying the victim's like you
And when you've digested the horrors you've seen
You find good, you find evil, and no in-between.

How do you like your truth?
Fantastic, sensational, printed in bold,
Today it's exclusive, tomorrow it's old,
All on the surface with nothin too deep
With a story about animals to help you to sleep

How do you like your youth?
From perfect families with parents thet care,
Or in perfect families but still in despair,
Ten out of ten parents say they'd not choose
To have bad kids like those in the news. — Benjamin Zephaniah

Is there such a thing as a life without any regrets? I've never believed so. We spend our lives aiming for happiness and fulfilment in work, in love and with our friends and family, and yet often our energy is spent lamenting bad boyfriends, wrong career turns, fallouts with friends and opportunities missed. Or is that just me? I admit I'm naturally a glass-half-empty kind of girl, but I know regrets are a burden to happiness and I'm trying to let go of them because I've learned that it's all about choice. You can choose to turn regrets into lessons that change your future. Believe me when I say I'm really trying to do this. But the truth is, I'm failing. Because all I can think right now is: maybe I deserve it. Maybe this is my penance. — Ali Harris

Careful, sidhe-seer. I have chosen to spare you. Do not press your luck."
I locked my jaw, pushed myself up, and lit another match, studying my enemies in the flickering light. Both would devour me. Just in different ways. If forced to choose, I'd take death-by-Shade.
"Why have you chosen to spare me?"
"I want us to be ... what is your word? Friends."
"Psychotic rapists don't have friends."
"I was unaware you were psychotic rapist or I would not have offered. — Karen Marie Moning

You may choose your friends, but not your unlikely saviors, Magnus said cheerfully. — Cassandra Clare

I carefully choose people in my life and if you are not happy with it, then its your call to be angry, broken, disappointed and lose sleep over my choice, judgement & decision ... no apologies. — Uzoma Nnadi

The people you choose to have around you make all the difference. My family and close friends keep me grounded. You have to have a mind of your own and a strong head on your shoulders. Cricket is the most important thing to me, so the rest of it pales in comparison. — Virat Kohli

To maximize what you get out of your college experience, I want your friends to look at your semester schedule and say "this is the weirdest schedule I've ever seen!"
Trust me on this one. If you want to be an engineer, take Engineering 101, and a crash course in philosophical literature. then take Engineering 102, and art appreciation. then Engineering 103, and Intro to Women's Rights.
You will expand your knowledge and ways of looking at the world, and become a more powerful person for it. Because that way, when you encounter difficulties, you won't only tackle the problem from the point of view of an engineer. Anybody can do that. You will be able to look at it as a scientist, a philosopher, an artist, and choose the best course of action from there. — Anonymous

Try to find like-minded people. Don't choose your friends based on the outside, choose your friends based on your similar views or something that you can learn from. — Chuck D

Choose your friends because you feel most like yourself around them, because the jokes are easy and you feel like you're in your best outfit when you're with them, even though you're just in a t-shirt. — Caitlin Moran

But too many kids get to college and try to collapse it, to make it as comfortable and recognizable as possible. They replicate the friends and friendships they've previously enjoyed. They join groups that perpetuate their high school cliques. Concerned with establishing a "network" they seek out peers with aspirations identical to their own. In doing so, they frequently default to a clannishness that too easily becomes a lifelong habit. ....Open your laptops . Delete at least one of every four bookmarks. Replace it with something entirely different, even anti ethical. Go to twitter, Facebook etc start falling or connecting with views that diverge from your own. Conduct your social lives along the same lines, mixing it up. Do not go only to the campus basketball games....wander beyond the periphery of campus, and not to find equally enchanted realms-if you study abroad, don't choose the destination for its picturesqueness-but to see something else. — Frank Bruni

How do you choose your books?' my friends had asked. Less than a week into my project, I can now tell them the beginning of the truth. I don't always choose the books, I'll say. Sometimes the books choose me. — Sara Nelson

I choose my battles, Dresden. Not you." She looked up at me calmly. "Let me put this in terms that will get through your skull: My friend is going to save a child from monsters. I'm going with him. That's what friends do, Harry. — Jim Butcher

You will learn more from your friends than you ever will from books. Choose your friends wisely — Matthew Kelly

What should dictate one's life? Money? Fame? No. Friends. Love. Your life's story is formed by those around you. Choose well and share. — James Maslow

Of course not. No one is chosen. Not ever. Not in the real world. You chose to climb out of your window and ride on a leopard. You chose to get a witch's Spoon back, and to make friends with a wyvern. You chose to trade your shadow for a child's life. You chose not to let the Marquess hurt your friend
you chose to smash her cages! You chose to face your own Death, not to balk at a great sea to cross and no ship to cross it in. And twice now you have chosen not to go home when you might have, if only you abandoned your friends. You are not the chosen one, September. Fairyland did not choose you
you chose yourself. You could have had a lovely holiday in Fairyland and never met the Marquess, never worried yourself with local politics, had a romp with a few brownies and gone home with enough memories for a lifetime's worth of novels. But you didn't. You chose. You chose it all. Just like you chose your path on the beach: to lose your heart is not a path for the faint and fainting. — Catherynne M Valente

For the next week, every day, listen to the words of your friends or colleagues. Try to hear what others communicate as a need or want. Your goal is to begin to give to others out of things that you already have in your possession. They may just need to borrow something, or you may choose to give them a gift with no strings attached. Listen to statements like this: "I really need _." "I could really use a _." "I have been wanting to get ." Try to think about everyday things in your home that you could give to make a friend's life easier and your life simpler. Match something you have in your possession with a need of a friend. No strings attached. Just let it go. Give it away. Be generous. Give something larger than usual. You will be amazed how others will respond positively and with surprise. Get a taste of what it feels like to give out of your excess this week. — Jeff Shinabarger

When your vision is powerful enough, everything else falls into place: how you live your life, your workouts, what friends you choose to hang out with, how you eat, what you do for fun. Vision is purpose, and when your purpose is clear, so are your life choices. Vision creates faith and faith creates willpower. With faith, there is no anxiety, no doubt - just absolute confidence. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

A writer is a dangerous friend. Everything you say, all of your life and experience, is fodder for our writing. We mean you no harm, but what you know and what you've done is unavoidably fascinating to us. Being friends with a writer is a bit like trying to keep a bear as a pet. They're wonderful, friendly creatures, but they play rough and they don't know their own strength or remember that they have claws. Choose the stories you tell to your writer friends carefully. — Randy Murray

By surrounding yourself with people who are positive, caring, intelligent, loving, and open-minded, you create a personal environment that is conducive to your emotional and personal growth. By surrounding yourself with the opposite, you create a personal environment that is conducive to the opposite. Choose accordingly. — Steve Maraboli

AMELIA: To my friends, and family: You all may be batsh*t crazy, but even if I got to choose, I'd still choose to be with you. Life is fragile, and tomorrow is never a sure thing, so thanks for sharing your lives with me..... — Amelia Hutchins

You don't get to pick your family, but you can pick your teachers and you can pick your friends and you can pick the music you listen to and you can pick the books you read and you can pick the movies you see. You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences. The German writer Goethe said, We are shaped and fashioned by what we love. — Austin Kleon

Never make someone have to choose between your ways and the Lord's ways. And always make sure that you're making it easier to live God's commandments for those who are by your side and who are your friends. — Robert D. Hales

When you look around at the six people that you spend the most time with, that's who you are. I think that in making those decisions in who you are going to be married to, who your friends are going to be, those are really huge, critical, life decisions. Who gets to talk to you everyday, is almost like the food that you eat. It is a very huge critical situation to choose who the people are that you are spending your life with, spending your time with and who you are choosing to give your love and everything to. — Will Smith

Being healthy is a way of life. It's not just about what you feed your body; it's about what you feed your mind and the social environment you keep. Make healthy food choices, exercise your body and brain, and choose your friends wisely. — Steve Maraboli

Life is to be lived. It doesn't really matter the how and why of things. It matters how you choose to live. I taught you to live life large. Tha's all, Wyatt. Love when you can. Laugh. Sing. And take care of your family and friends and then your community. It's not always easy, but it's good and at the end of it all, you'll be satisfied. — Christine Feehan

You choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color. — Gary Oldman

The people you surround yourself with influence your behaviors, so choose friends who have healthy habits. — Dan Buettner

The way you remember or dream about your loved ones - the ones who are gone - you can't stop their endings from jumping ahead of the rest of their stories. You don't get to choose the chronology of what you dream, or the order of events in which you remember someone. In your mind - in your dreams, in your memories - sometimes the story begins with the epilogue. — John Irving

15 u No longer do I call you servants, [1] for the servant [2] w does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for x all that I have heard from my Father y I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but z I chose you and appointed you that you should go and a bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, — Anonymous

You don't buy all the clothes in the market. You choose slowly and carefully, asking the prices for each before buying. The same way you choose your friends, by looking into their lives carefully, before taking any as a companion, then dropping those that are not relevant. — Michael Bassey

It's all a matter of perception.
What one person deems to be important may be just as equally unimportant to another.
What one deems to be right may seem very wrong to someone else.
Your moral compass and values may not always be totally in sync with others you meet.
In the end it's all just your perception of how you choose to live your life and this may not always win you friends. In fact it may gain you some enemies.
Live your life how you choose to and if people don't like the way you do things then disagree if you must, but be nice & be respectful and then if you must, move on and leave it all behind you.
It's your life after all and only you can live it. Choose your path and set your compass then start walking. — Michael Tianias

Peculiar as I was, and remain, I was trained to be practical. I'm still amazed at the radical temerity of my friends, you included, Julie, who choose poetry as their vocation. I envy your faith. — Debra Dean

Do not bring people in your life who weigh you down. And trust your instincts ... good relationships feel good. They feel right. They don't hurt. They're not painful. That's not just with somebody you want to marry, but it's with the friends that you choose. It's with the people you surround yourselves with. — Michelle Obama

WHAT CAN YOU SPEND BUT YOU CAN NEVER GET BACK????
TIME!
CHOOSE HOW YOU SPEND YOUR TIME AND WHO YOU SPEND IT WITH WISELY. — Qwana M. BabyGirl Reynolds-Frasier

When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character. — W. Somerset Maugham

You can be anybody you want to be
you can love whomever you will
you can travel any country where your heart leads
and know (we) will love you still.

You can live by yourself,
you can gather friends around
you can choose one special one.
And the only measure of your words and your deeds
will be the love you leave behind when you're done. — Fred Small

Choose your friends carefully, for you will tend to be like them and be found where they choose to go. — Thomas S. Monson

Success is a combination of many things, but a good character is the foundation of the kind of success that will bring you real happiness. Choose your friends wisely-they will make or break you. — J. Willard Marriott

I do think you should be more careful how you choose your friends. You are so credulous, dear, so easily gulled. I suppose it is being a writer and having so much imagination. If you were older and had more experience of life you would have been on guard at once. — Agatha Christie

Choose your team carefully. So much of your success is due to the people who you surround yourself with. Your friends, your family, and the people that you work with
they all play an important role in inspiring you and supporting you and giving you stability. These are the people in your life who will be honest with you. — Tom Ford

It's the gap in the teeth. My friends say I look like Shrek - some of my friends - and you can't choose your friends, so what can I say? — Louis Oosthuizen

Friends are people who are in your life because you feel good around them and you like them. Friends are the people you choose to be with. — Bonnie St. John

Maybe it's about opening up your definition of family to include friends, too. Because friends are the family you choose. — Kim Holden

They were your friends?"
"Yes, they were my friends."
"And they will leave you to suffer alone?"
"Now I see it."
"And until this, were they friends you could trust?"
"I could trust them."
"I see what you mean. You mean they were the kind of friends that a good man could choose, upright, hard-working, obeying the law?
Tell me, were they such friends?
And now they leave you alone?
Did you not see it before?"
"I saw it. — Alan Paton

Gabby thinks of all the times she and her friends have discussed people who have been caught having affairs. None of the them have ever understood it. Just because you're married doesn't mean you'll never been attracted to anyone else, Gabby has always said. But the point is that you have a choice, and you should choose to do the right thing; you shouldn't act on your attraction. — Jane Green

What ideals, when followed, will bring to you those blessings you so much seek, even a quiet conscience, a peace-filled heart, a loving family, a contented home? May I suggest these three: Choose your friends with caution. Plan your future with purpose. Frame your life with faith. — Thomas S. Monson

Choose your friends carefully. Your enemies will choose you. — Yasser Arafat

In school we learn that one of the best survival strategies is being part of a clique . With our friends, we create a little, tiny world with codes for conduct, morality, dress, communication, ethnicity and sexuality. We then learn to judge everyone else who is not part of our little world by the standards that are acceptable to us. This is called "divide and conquer," and happens to be exactly how male, white patriarchal society operates. When you choose not to see how you, yourself, perpetuate this social model, your world assuredly becomes-or remains-small, "safe," persnickety, judgmental and uninspiring. — Inga Muscio

Choose your 'friends' wisely, There are some who would push you to the top, and then there are others who would keep pushing you on over the Cliff. — Andrea L'Artiste

Who you are is why you choose the friends and situations in your life. — Bryant McGill

If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn't cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn't tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you'd seen. The truth is, you wouldn't remember that movie a week later, except you'd feel robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.
But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to be meaningful. The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won't make a story meaningful, it won't make a life meaningful either — Donald Miller

I'm often asked how I take the criticism directed my way. I have three answers: First, if you choose to be in public life, remember Eleanor Roosevelt's advice and grow skin as thick as a rhinoceros. Second, learn to take criticism seriously but not personally. Your critics can actually teach you lessons your friends can't or won't. I try to sort out the motivation for criticism, whether partisan, ideological, commercial, or sexist, analyze it to see what I might learn from it, and discard the rest. Third, there is a persistent double standard applied to women in politics - regarding clothes, body types, and of course hairstyles - that you can't let derail you. Smile and keep going. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

Which would you choose if you could:
pleasure for yourself despite your friends
or a share in their grief? — Sophocles