Quotes on Decisions Made

There is no reason to accept the doctrines crafted to sustain power and privilege, or to believe that we are constrained by mysterious and unknown social laws. These are simply decisions made within institutions that are subject to human will and that must face the test of legitimacy. And if they do not meet the test, they can be replaced by other institutions that are more free and more just, as has happened often in the past.

Your life changes the moment you make a new, congruent, and committed decision.

When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons.

Character cannot be summoned at the moment of crisis if it has been squandered by years of compromise and rationalization. The only testing ground for the heroic is the mundane. The only preparation for that one profound decision which can change a life, or even a nation, is those hundreds of half-conscious, self defining, seemingly insignificant decisions made in private. Habit is the daily battleground of character.

The sun is not ridiculous, quite the contrary. On everything I like, on the rust of the construction girders, on the rotten boards of the fence, a miserly, uncertain light falls, like the look you give, after a sleepless night, on decisions made with enthusiasm the day before, on pages you have written in one spurt without crossing out a word.

We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.

If you have a 2 or 3 year old who is not talking, you must start an early intervention program. The worst thing you can do with an autistic 3 year old is to do nothing.

I think everyone who makes movies should be forced to do television. Because you have to finish. You have to get it done, and there are a lot of decisions made just for the sake of making decisions. You do something because it's efficient and because it gets the story told and it connects to the audience.

It doesn't matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions.

And then sometimes I think the people to feel saddest for are people who once knew what profoundness was, but who lost or became numb to the sensation of wonder – people who closed the doors that leads us into the secret world – or who had the doors closed for them by time and neglect and decisions made in times of weakness.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.

If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.

I've never found an important decision made by a great organization that was made at a point of unanimity. Significant decisions carry risks and inevitably some will oppose it. In these settings, the great legislative leader must be artful in handling uncomfortable decisions, and this requires rigor.

Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader.

You have to be able to separate business from the love of the game. There were a lot of decisions made business-wise that I wasn't happy with, and I took a lot of blame over the years. But you have to be able to separate that from the love you have for the game.

The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim.

Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.

When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature.