#decision

For I am—or I was—one of those people who pride themselves in on their willpower, on their ability to make a decision and carry it through. This virtue, like most virtues, is ambiguity itself. People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. Their decisions are not really decisions at all—a real decision makes one humble, one knows that it is at the mercy of more things than can be named—but elaborate systems of evasion, of illusion, designed to make themselves and the world appear to be what they and the world are not. This is certainly what my decision, made so long ago in Joey’s bed, came to. I had decided to allow no room in the universe for something which shamed and frightened me. I succeeded very well—by not looking at the universe, by not looking at myself, by remaining, in effect, in constant motion. ↗

— James Baldwin

#life #personality #pride #virtue #world

I've done smarter things in my life. Once, for example, I threw myself out of a moving car in order to take on a truckload of lycanthropes singlehandedly." ~Harry Dresden ↗

— Jim Butcher

#lycanthrope #stupid-decisions #life

With the need for the self in the time of another / I left my seaport grim and dear / knowing good work could be made / in the state governed by both Hope and Despair. ↗

— Roman Payne

#choices #decisions #despair #hope #hope-and-despair

That was how it was, sometimes. You put yourself in front of the thing and waited for whatever was going to happen and that was all. It scared you and it didn't matter. You stood and faced it. There was no outwitting anything. When Almondine had been playful, she had been playful in the face of that knowledge, as defiant as before the rabid thing. Sometimes you looked the thing in the eye and it turned away. Sometimes it didn't. ↗

— David Wroblewski

#decisions #fear #life #life

Whether you decision is good or bad at least you had the balls to make one. ↗

— Benjamin Bayani

#humor #inspirational #life-decisions #humor

One of the most foolish of all human philosophies, is to believe that we all have an unavoidable destiny. ↗

— Dennis E. Adonis

#decisions #destiny #life #life

Once Dwight Eisenhower makes up his mind, he's full of indecision. ↗

— Oscar Levant

#eisenhower #full #his #indecision #makes

Dr. Rice's record on Iraq gives me great concern. In her public statements she clearly overstated and exaggerated the intelligence concerning Iraq before the war in order to support the President's decision to initiate military action against Iraq. ↗

— Carl Levin

#against #before #clearly #concern #concerning

Throughout my political career, I've believed in the concept of home rule. Some call it local control. Whichever phrase you use, the concept is the same - the best decisions are those made closest to those who will be impacted by the decisions. ↗

— Linda Lingle

#best #call #career #closest #concept

Here's a news flash: No soldier gives his life. That's not the way it works. Most soldiers who make a conscious decision to place themselves in harm's way do it to protect their buddies. They do it because of the bonds of friendship - and it goes so much deeper than friendship. ↗

— Eric Massa

#bonds #buddies #conscious #conscious decision #decision