Choice

"He that will not when he may, When he will he shall have nay."

"Better to sink beneath the shock Than moulder piecemeal on the rock!"

"The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice."

"Betwixt the devil and the deep sea."

"Be they wynners or loosers,…beggers should be no choosers."

"He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty."

"Imagine a captain of a ship the moment a shift of direction must be made; then he may be able to say: I can do either this or that. But if he is not a mediocre captain he will also be aware that during all this the ship is ploughing ahead with its ordinary velocity, and thus there is but a single moment when it is inconsequential whether he does this or does that. So also with a person-if he forgets to take into account the velocity-there eventually comes a moment where it is no longer a matter of an Either/Or, not because he has chosen, but because he has refrained from it, which also can be expressed by saying: Because others have chosen for him-or because he has lost himself."

"Every person, if he so wills, can become a paradigmatic human being, not by brushing of his accidental qualities, but by remaining in them and ennobling them. He ennobles them by choosing them."

"So much to win, so much to lose, No marvel that I fear to choose."

"Rather than be less Car'd not to be at all."

"Who would not, finding way, break loose from hell, * * * * * * And boldly venture to whatever place Farthest from pain?"

"When presented with options it's interesting to see what choices the people make."

"We must now take precautions to prevent you from being embarrassed by something in which the ignorant majority is at fault for lack of proper consideration, and so from supposing with them, that man has not been created truly good simply because he is able to do evil. ... If you reconsider this matter carefully and force your mind to apply a more acute understanding to it, it will be revealed to you that man's status is better and higher for the very reason for which it is thought to be inferior: it is on this choice between two ways, on this freedom to choose either alternative, that the glory of the rational mind is based, it is in this that the whole honor of our nature consists, it is from this that its dignity is derived."

"Set honour in one eye and death i' the other, And I will look on both indifferently."

"Which of them shall I take? Both? one? or neither? Neither can be enjoy'd, If both remain alive."

"I will not choose what many men desire, Because I will not jump with common spirits, And rank me with the barbarous multitudes."

"Preferment goes by letter and affection."

"There's small choice in rotten apples."

"[W]e now face a demand to make choices that is unparalleled in human history."

"When conflicted between two choices, take neither."

"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay."

"It is misleading to say that somebody "chose" a dysfunctional relationship or any other negative situation in his or her life. Choice implies consciousness - a high degree of consciousness. Without it, you have no choice. Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and its conditioned patterns, the moment you become present. Until you reach that point, you are unconscious, spiritually speaking. This means that you are compelled to think, feel, and act in certain ways according to the conditioning of your mind. That is why Jesus said: "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." This is not related to intelligence in the conventional sense of the word. I have met many highly intelligent and educated people who were also completely unconscious, which is to say completely identified with their mind. In fact, if mental development and increased knowledge are not counterbalanced by a corresponding growth in consciousness, the potential for unhappiness and disaster is very great. p. 142"

"A strange alternative * * * Must women have a doctor or a dance?"

"If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes."

"Of harmes two the less is for to chose."

"What voice did on my spirit fall, Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost? 'Tis better to have fought and lost Than never to have fought at all!"

"Life often presents us with a choice of evils, rather than of goods."

"Devine, si tu peux, et choisis, si tu l'oses."

"God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose."

"Inter sacrum et sazim."

"Se soumettre ou se démettre."

"Where passion leads or prudence points the way."

"But one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her."

"For many are called, but few are chosen."

"The difficulty in life is the choice."

"Or fight or fly, This choice is left ye, to resist or die."

"S'asseoir entre deux selles le cul a terre."

"Thy royal will be done—'tis just," Replied the wretch, and kissed the dust; "Since, my last moments to assuage, Your Majesty's humane decree Has deigned to leave the choice to me, I'll die, so please you, of old age."

"When to elect there is but one, 'Tis Hobson's Choice; take that or none."

"Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan, suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn."