Sunday, November 8, 2020 – The Options Now
Panic causes tunnel vision. Calm acceptance of danger allows us to more easily assess the situation and see the options. ~ Simon Sinek
Changing is what people do when they have no options left. ~ Holly Black
Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now. ~ Veronica Roth
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
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
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
Preserve the President’s options. He may need them. ~ Donald Rumsfeld
Desires dictate our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions. ~ Dallin H. Oaks
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
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
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 whole image is that eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God’s infinite love. That’s the message we’re brought up with, isn’t it? Believe or die! Thank you, forgiving Lord, for all those options. ~ Bill Hicks
When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, “Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don’t believe?” ~ Quentin Crisp
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
Once you allow yourself to recognize necessity, you find two things: One, you find your options so restricted that the only course of action is obvious, and two, that a great sense of freedom comes with the decision. ~ Steven Brust
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
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, The Last Gentleman
The ignoramus crow of “love it or leave it” omits other viable options, such as staying and changing it. ~ Bryant McGill
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
What is really not fair about life is the fact that we have to pay the cost of our weaknesses which we didn’t chose nor we had the option to refuse. Apart from that life is very fair. ~ Sameh Elsayed
I’m not brave; it’s just that all other choices have been thrown out the window. ~ Holly Goldberg Sloan
Really, what are the options? Levi’s or Wranglers. And you just pick one. It’s one of those life choices. ~ Harrison Ford
Fashion is what you adopt when you don’t know who you are. ~ Quentin Crisp
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
Confronted with the choice, the American people would choose the policeman’s truncheon over the anarchist’s bomb. ~ Spiro T. Agnew
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
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
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
Just Above Sunset 