"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"

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

"When conflicted between two choices, take neither."

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

"There's small choice in rotten apples."

"Preferment goes by letter and affection."

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

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

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

"Betwixt the devil and the deep sea."

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

"Of the terrible doubt of appearances, Of the uncertainty after all, that we may-be deluded, That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all, That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only. May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters, The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be these are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known."

"Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum."

"A fair exterior is a silent recommendation."

"Looked as if she had walked straight out of the Ark."

"L'habit ne fait le moine."

"Non semper ea sunt, quæ videntur; decipit Frons prima multos: rara mens intelligit Quod interiore condidit cura angulo."

"Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsæ."

"All is not gold that glisteneth."

"Whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones."

"He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked."

"All is not golde that shewyth goldishe hewe."

"All is not golde that outward shewith bright."

"Même quand l'oiseau marche on sent qu'il a des ailes."

"Garde-toi, tant que tu vivras, De juger des gens sur la mine."

"Fronti nulla fides."

"Judge not according to the appearance."

"Gloomy as night he stands."

"Not all that tempts your wandering eyes And heedless hearts is lawful prize, Nor all that glisters gold."

"Things are seldom what they seem, Skim milk masquerades as cream."

"By outward show let's not be cheated; An ass should like an ass be treated."

"He was one of a lean body and visage, as if his eager soul, biting for anger at the clog of his body, desired to fret a passage through it."

"Cucullus (or Cuculla) non facit monachum."