Sunday, August 21, 2016 – Out of Options
We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause. ~ William James
Consider what you think justice requires, and decide accordingly. But never give your reasons; for your judgment will probably be right, but your reasons will certainly be wrong. ~ Lord Mansfield
The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn. ~ David Russell
Although every man believes that his decisions and resolutions involve the most multifarious factors, in reality they are mere oscillation between flight and longing. ~ Herman Broch
Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now. ~ Veronica Roth, Divergent
It’s easy to make good decisions when there are no bad options. ~ Robert Half
It’s an infinite creative universe to explore so why chase conservative options? ~ Yahoo Serious
Desires dictate our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions. ~ Dallin H. Oaks
In History, stagnant waters, whether they be stagnant waters of custom or those of despotism, harbor no life; life is dependent on the ripples created by a few eccentric individuals. In homage to that life and vitality, the community has to brave certain perils and must countenance a measure of heresy. One must live dangerously if one wants to live at all. ~ Herbert Read
After losing my job, I felt the only options available to me were razors, cyanide, or a shot to the face, until Renaldo, being the good friend that he is, reminded me how to tie a noose. ~ Jarod Kintz
The ignoramus crow of “love it or leave it” omits other viable options, such as staying and changing it. ~ Bryant McGill
Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find you’re here-and-now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences. ~ Eckhart Tolle
Confronted with the choice, the American people would choose the policeman’s truncheon over the anarchist’s bomb. ~ Spiro T. Agnew
A man is only as faithful as his options. ~ Chris Rock
In the last few years, the very idea of telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is dredged up only as a final resort when the alternative options of deception, threat and bribery have all been exhausted. ~ Michael Musto
All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last. ~ Marcel Proust
Decisions, particularly important ones, have always made me sleepy, perhaps because I know that I will have to make them by instinct, and thinking things out is only what other people tell me I should do. ~ Lillian Hellman
Coping with the demands of everyday life would be exceedingly trying if one could arrive at solutions to problems only by actually performing possible options and suffering the consequences. ~ Albert Bandura
What’s so hard about that first sentence is that you’re stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you’ve laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone. ~ Joan Didion
The future is too interesting and dangerous to be entrusted to any predictable, reliable agency. We need all the fallibility we can get. Most of all, we need to preserve the absolute unpredictability and total improbability of our connected minds. That way we can keep open all the options, as we have in the past. ~ Lewis Thomas
Really, what are the options? Levi’s or Wranglers. And you just pick one. It’s one of those life choices. ~ Harrison Ford
I won’t tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world’s voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely – or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose. ~ Oscar Wilde
People pay for what they do and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead. ~ James Baldwin
Changing is what people do when they have no options left. ~ Holly Black, Red Glove
I am tired of people saying that poor character is the only reason people do wrong things. Actually, circumstances cause people to act a certain way. It’s from those circumstances that a person’s attitude is affected followed by weakening of character. Not the reverse. If we had no faults of our own, we should not take so much pleasure in noticing those in others and judging their lives as either black or white, good or bad. We all live our lives in shades of gray. ~ Shannon L. Alder
It always comes down to just two choices. Get busy living, or get busy dying. ~ Stephen King
The ex-suicide opens his front door, sits down on the steps, and laughs. Since he has the option of being dead, he has nothing to lose by being alive. It is good to be alive. He goes to work because he doesn’t have to. ~ Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book
In my dream I drove an RV off a cliff, because rather than hit the brakes or steer to safety, I was more concerned with either changing the radio station or turning the volume all the way down. They were playing Lady Gaga. ~ Jarod Kintz
So from then on, he looked at all his choices and said, what would a good person do, and then did it. But he has now learned something very important about human nature. If you spend your whole life pretending to be good, then you are indistinguishable from a good person. Relentless hypocrisy eventually becomes the truth. ~ Orson Scott Card, Ender in Exile
Any system which allows men to choose their own future will end by choosing safety and mediocrity, and in such a reality the stars are out of reach. ~ Isaac Asimov
The fine thing about pacts with the devil is that when you sign them you are well aware of their conditions. Otherwise, why would you be recompensed with hell? ~ Umberto Eco, Postscript to the Name of the Rose
The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair. ~ Walker Percy
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. ~ Oscar Wilde
God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness. ~ Aldous Huxley
In an age robbed of religious symbols, going to the shops replaces going to the church. We have a free choice, but at a price. We can win experience, but never achieve innocence. Marx knew that the epic activities of the modern world involve not lance and sword but dry goods. ~ Stephen Bayley
If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast. ~ William Tecumseh Sherman
Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they’re both just aspirin. ~ Gore Vidal
In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from. ~ Peter Ustinov
Nothing that you do will ever feel good if you let people convince you that you have no choice. ~ Fiona Apple
Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith
Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backward. ~ e. e. cummings