#choice

I want you to take note, Commander, that turning in my badge would be like cutting off my arm. But if it comes down to a choice between the job and my marriage, then I lose the arm. ↗

— J.D. Robb

#death

I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment? ↗

— Epictetus

#death #happiness #life #positivity #death

It is a painful thing to say to oneself: by choosing one road I am turning my back on a thousand others. Everything is interesting; everything might be useful; everything attracts and charms a noble mind; but death is before us; mind and matter make their demands; willy-nilly we must submit and rest content as to things that time and wisdom deny us, with a glance of sympathy which is another act of our homage to the truth. ↗

— Antonin Sertillanges

#generalist #specialization #death

... is it truly possible to steal a life, if... the Self is eternal and cannot die? Should this be so, then one who 'murders' does no more than transgress against the will of another, whose choice it is to live. At bottom, a murderer offends not against the body, but against the spirit. ↗

— Ki Longfellow

#death #murder #philosophy #upanishad #death

It's one of the things that makes us different than they are, Harry. The blood on their hands does not make it right to bloody my own. My choices are measured against my own soul. Not against the stains on theirs. ↗

— Jim Butcher

#harry-dresden #michael-carpenter #death

Life is a test.  It was designed to be so.  It is where we taste the bitter and the sweet; where we feel pain and pleasure; where we learn right from wrong; where we pass through both darkness and light.  It is a time to make choices.  And through this process we form our characters - some grand and glorious, some barely decent, and others just plain monstrous.  ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#choices #learning #life #opposition #richelle

Most humans, in varying degrees, are already dead. In one way or another they have lost their dreams, their ambitions, their desire for a better life. They have surrendered their fight for self-esteem and they have compromised their great potential. They have settled for a life of mediocrity, days of despair and nights of tears. They are no more than living deaths confined to cemeteries of their choice. Yet they need not remain in that state. They can be resurrected from their sorry condition. They can each perform the greatest miracle in the world. They can each come back from the dead... ↗

— Og Mandino

#choices #mediocrity #miracle #potential #potential-for-greatness

إن الوجود في جوهره حرية ، وإن الحرية تتمثل في الاختيار ↗

— عزالدين شكري فشير

#freedom #novel #freedom

Life calls the tune, we dance. ↗

— John Galsworthy

#determinism #fate #free #freedom #will

... how terrible is the pain of the mind and heart when the freedom of mankind is suppressed! ↗

— E.A. Bucchianeri

#free-will #freedom #heart #heartache #liberty