Topic

Decision

Burroughs: if you think you can do it, you can. Brandeis connects bold reasoning with the right to act boldly. Lichtenberg's paired observations — doing the opposite is also a form of imitation; worrying about what you could have done is the worst thing possible — bracket the territory between excessive deliberation and insufficient reflection. Bacon: choose the life most useful and habit will make it the most agreeable. Emerson: go where there is no path and leave a trail. These quotes favor motion over paralysis — they are suspicious of the decision made by deferral, and interested in what happens when you commit to a course and follow it past the point of comfortable revision.

75

Quotes

1/4

Page

Vote: The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country

Source: The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

Source: The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Everybody likes to go their own way--to choose their own time and manner of devotion

Source: Mansfield Park (1814)

If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.

Source: The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there

Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest

As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back

It's not the size of the boat, it's the motion in the ocean.

Only choose in marriage a man whom you would choose as a friend if he were a woman

The beginning is the most important part of the work

If we would guide by the light of reason we must let our minds be bold

The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.

There are periods when to dare, is the highest wisdom

In the struggle between yourself and the world second the world.

The measure of choosing well, is, whether a man likes and finds good in what he has chosen

To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new

Choose the life that is most useful and habit will make it the most agreeable