Choice

“ And this is a choice not of one day or one set of people, not a tumultuary and giddy choice; it is a deliberate election of ages and of generations; it is a constitution, made by what is ten thousand times better than choice; it is made by the peculiar circumstances, occasions, tempers, dispositions, and moral, civil, and social habitudes of the people, which, disclose themselves only in a long space of time. ”

“ Choice alone should take, and choice alone should surrender. There was a time, indeed, when I had not retired thus early, Languidly thus, from pursuit of a purpose I once had adopted, But it is all over, all that! ”

“ The choice will be by no means a haphazard one, for it will be founded on psychological principles, on basal elements of human character, and it will, for the very same cause, be an absolutely autocratic choice. ”

“ At any rate, because we choose is the reason that the concept of will has arisen in the minds of both philosopher and the man in the street, and much of our feeling of worth, individuality and power—mental factors of huge importance in character—arises from the power to choose. Choice is influenced by—or it is a net result of—the praise and blame of others, conscience, memory, knowledge of the past, plans for the future. ”

“ If we make choice of any other thing besides, it must be taken from us, or we must be taken from it: But if we make choice of this one thing, it shall never be taken from us, neither in this life, nor the life to come. ”

“ It may be true that we can act as we choose, but can we choose? Is not our choice determined for us? We cannot determine from the fact, because we always have chosen as soon as we act, and we cannot replace the conditions in such a way as to discover whether we could have chosen anything else. ”

“ He said that, if a man were to choose on such a momentous question as this, choose adequately, choose fairly, he must be so circumstanced and endowed that he could comprehend the entire result of his choice. ”

“ If the choice be first, before the existence of a good disposition of heart, what is the character of that choice? There can, according to our natural notions, be no virtue in a choice which proceeds from no virtuous principle, but from mere self-love, ambition, or some animal appetite: therefore, a virtuous temper of mind may be before a good act of choice, as a tree may be before the fruit, and the fountain before the stream which proceeds from it,” p. ”

“ You shall have your free choice!" are expressions that may be pronounced in such a tone, and with such an emphasis to a child, as immediately to excite a species of triumphant ecstasy from the mere idea of having his own free choice. ”

“ Human life itself, as well as every different advantage or disadvantage which can attend it, might, they said, according to different circumstances, be the proper object either of our choice or of our rejection. If, in our actual situation, there were more circumstances agreeable to nature than contrary to it; more circumstances which were the objects of choice than of rejection; life, in this case, was, upon the whole, the proper object of choice, and the propriety of conduct required that we should remain in it. ”

“ The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. ”

“ And the same reason ought to determine us to make a choice even among the senses, and to give the precedence, not to the noblest, or most useful, but to the simplest, and that whose objects are least in danger of being mistaken for other things. ”

“ Still this is part of its meaning; if we regard an event as determined by a variety of circumstances, a man’s choice being among them, we say that he is responsible for just that choice which is left him by the other circumstances. ”

“ Free will again is the sovran motion of an intelligent soul. Choice is desire accompanied by deliberation, or deliberation accompanied by desire for things that lie in our power; for in choosing we desire that which we have deliberately preferred. ”

“ When these truths have become sufficiently clear to him, he soon comes to a point where he decides which things he cares about a great deal, and which less. He chooses, and choice largely determines character, primarily character in its objective aspects. ”

“ This decision is our preference, our choice. Our minds, as we say, are made up what to do, what course to pursue. When the time comes, we shall act. Something may prevent our having our way; opportunity may not offer, or we may see fit, subsequently to reconsider and revoke our decision. Otherwise, our choice is carried out in action. ”

“ I have all the world to choose from, but no reason whatever for a choice. ”

“ Now since that which is the object of Moral Choice is something in our own power, which is the object of deliberation and the grasping of the Will, Moral Choice must be “a grasping after something in our own power consequent upon Deliberation:” because after having deliberated we decide, and then grasp by our Will in accordance with the result of our deliberation. ”

“ Choice being the unition of the mind’s sensitivity and the object,—that is, being an affection of the sensitivity, by reason of its perfect agreement and correlation with the object, and of course of the perfect agreement and correlation of the object with the sensitivity, in determining the cause of choice, we must necessarily look both to the mind and the object. ”

“ I say that the strongest principle of growth lies in human choice. ”

“ Choice, which is intimately associated with inhibition, is par excellence a cerebral function and in general is associated with intense consciousness. The act of choosing brings to the circumstances the whole past history of the individual; it marshals his resources of judgment, intelligence, will, purposes and desires. In choice lies the fate of the personality, for it is basically related to habit formation. ”

“ And I think there is no doubt it is often true that we should have chosen to do a particular thing if we had chosen to make the choice; and that this is a very important sense in which it is often in our power to make a choice. There certainly is such a thing as making an effort to induce ourselves to choose a particular course ”

“ I want to begin by saying that choice isn't so easy and so necessary as it seems. We think we are going to choose presently, and in the end we may never choose at all. Choice needs perhaps more energy than we think. ”

“ Upon such considerations he has to make his choice—a choice which is far more than the adoption of any intellectual opinion, which is one of the ruling decisions of his life, to which, when once made, he is bound to adhere. ”

“ But there is something more important than conscious choice, and something more tremendous than definite conduct, because conscious choice and conduct are but its separate and plainly visible results. ”

“ Therefore choice is not concerned with human acts alone.
Obj. 3: Further, men are chosen for certain posts, whether secular or ecclesiastical, by those who exercise no action in their regard. Therefore choice is not concerned with human acts alone. ”

“ Every choice we make is thus literally built into our character and becomes a part of ourselves. After that, the old choice will help determine the new, and we shall find ourselves being directed by all of our past choices, and even by the choices of our ancestors. ”

“ Now such rules of conduct comprise rules for choosing, enduring, staying, and distributing; so that if a man does some things by intelligent choice, some things with fortitude, some things by way of just distribution, and some steadily, he is at once wise, courageous, just, and temperate. ”

“ The complexity of life is shown by the extension of the necessity of choice. Each of us has to render a decision, to say yes or no a hundred times when our grandfathers were called upon a single time. ”

“ It cannot indeed be otherwise; every thought and action springs from some cause, in many cases referable to events which took place in lives outside of and anterior to our own. In any case in which a man seems to enjoy the faculty of choice, [68] his choice is in reality determined by a number of previous causes ”

“ But you know there is no such thing as choice in reality, say what you like," you will interpose with a chuckle. "Science has succeeded in so far analysing man that we know already that choice and what is called freedom of will is nothing else than——"
Stay, gentlemen, I meant to begin with that myself. ”

“ The moment we recognize that the self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action, the whole situation clears up. ”

“ The substitution of action based on knowledge for action based on feeling is made possible in the individual and in society by the development of higher centers of control and the power of choice through inhibition and legislation. ”

“ In the abstract or at large, apart from the needs of a particular situation in which choice has to be made, there is no such thing as degrees or order of value. ”

“ With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits, all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers, for certainly their nature and destiny are interesting to all alike. ”

“ In the one case it presents love of the right as right; in the other a love of the more agreeable consequences of right. Unquestionably, indeed, a desire of the better consequences is a proper motive for choices. ”

“ Lo! tortures on thy body are set like gems of beryl,
And the sword on thy neck like a chain of choice gold.
Thy blood upon thy form is a robe of glory full of beauty,
And the scourging of thy back a vesture with which the sun may not compare.
Radiant thou art and comely by virtue of these thy sufferings, so abounding;
And resplendent are thy beauties, because of the pains which are so severe upon thee.
Shamuna, our riches, richer art thou than the rich:
For lo! the rich stand at thy door, that thou mayest relieve them. ”

“ "By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed. ”

“ Why need you choose so painfully your place, and occupation, and associates, and modes of action, and of entertainment? Certainly there is a possible right for you that precludes the need of balance and wilful election. For you there is a reality, a fit place and congenial duties. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and a perfect contentment. ”

“ Each day of your life will prove that you have decided, and are acting upon the decision you make on this momentous point. Your conduct in society proves it, your behaviour in your family, every thought which occupies your mind, every wish you breathe, every plan you form, every pleasure you enjoy, every pain you suffer—all prove whether it is your object to live for yourself, or for others.
Again, is it your aim to live for this world only, or for eternity? ”

“ But each of the maxims can be taken to the heart and conscience of the individual, to become a principle of each man’s own character and conduct, and then to reappear, retranslated into social action, according to the wisdom of the time or the wisdom of the man or the wisdom of the Church. ”

“ But apart from that altogether, let me just remind you, in half a dozen sentences, of the various limitations or fences which hedge up our lives on every side. There are the obligations which we owe, and the relations in which we stand, to the outer world, the laws of physical life, and all that touches the external and the material. There are the relations in which we stand, and the obligations which we owe, to ourselves. ”

“ Process (2) , which may be called a reconciliation of reason with itself, because it is the appropriation by reason as a personal principle in the individual of the work which reason, acting through the media of other persons, has already achieved in the establishment of conventional morality, is the condition of the third stage in which the moral progress of the individual consists; viz. the growth of a personal interest in the realisation of an idea of what should be, in doing what is believed to contribute to the absolutely desirable, or to human perfection, because it is believed to do so. ”

“ Our deeds, judged in the light of a reasonable survey of life--a survey of life such as that to which, when we form our opinions, and when we act on our opinions, we intend to appeal--are, for a determinate purpose, either hits or misses. If the issues of life in question when we act are definite enough, our deeds, under the rules of the game of life, cannot avoid this character of being the right deeds or the wrong deeds for the purpose in question and in view of their actual place in real life. ”

“ It is the will which here mostly decides; and, according to the nature and leaning of his character, leads the individual to choose between the two opposite paths, the one he would follow in speculation and in science, in faith and in life. ”