Choice Quotes - page 51
Once we realize that the principles of our actions have no other support than our blind choice, we really do not believe in them anymore... In order to live, we have to silence the easily silenced voice of reason, which tells us that our principles are in themselves as good or as bad an any other principles. The more we cultivate reason, the more we cultivate nihilism...
Leo Strauss
The French symbolists had a special term to express their love for things that had lost their objective significance, namely, ‘spleen.' The conscious, challenging arbitrariness in the choice of objects, its ‘absurdity' and ‘perverseness,' as if by a silent gesture discloses the irrationality of utilitarian logic, which it then slaps in the face in order to demonstrate its inadequacy with regard to human experience. And while making it conscious, by this shock, of the fact that it forgets the subject, the gesture simultaneously expresses the subject's sorrow over his inability to achieve an objective order. Twentieth-century society is not troubled by such inconsistencies. For it, meaning can be achieved in only one way-service for a purpose.
Max Horkheimer
Russia has made its choice in favor of democracy. Fourteen years ago, independently, without any pressure from outside, it made that decision in the interests of itself and interests of its people - of its citizens. This is our final choice, and we have no way back. There can be no return to what we used to have before. And the guarantee for this is the choice of the Russian people, themselves. No, guarantees from outside cannot be provided. This is impossible. It would be impossible for Russia today. Any kind of turn towards totalitarianism for Russia would be impossible, due to the condition of the Russian society.
Vladimir Putin
[Guided reinvention is] striking a subtle balance between the freedom of inventing and the force of guiding, between allowing the learner to please himself and asking him to please the teacher. Moreover, the learner's free choice is already restricted by the "re” of "reinvention”. The learner shall invent something that is new to him but well-known to the guide.
Hans Freudenthal
The urn model is to be the expression of three postulates: (1) the constancy of a probability distribution, ensured by the solidity of the vessel, (2) the randomcharacter of the choice, ensured by the narrowness of the mouth, which is to prevent visibility of the contents and any consciously selective choice, (3) the independence of successive choices, whenever the drawn balls are put back into the urn. Of course in abstract probability and statistics the word " choice " can be avoided and all can be done without any reference to such a model. But as soon as the abstract theory is to be applied, random choice plays an essential role.
Hans Freudenthal
"Arise, take up thy bed and walk." You are on your bed now. You put yourself there by your own sin. You have kept yourself there by your own choice. Every sinner is a sinner because he chooses to be; and you are no exception. Jesus commands you to repent and trust Him and follow Him. The moment you are willing to obey, He gives you strength to obey.
Theodore L. Cuyler
Growing up the way I did, I learned how easy it is for white people to get comfortable with a system that awards them all the perks. I knew my cousins were getting beaten for things that I'd done, but I wasn't interested in changing my grandmother's perspective, because that would mean I'd get beaten, too. Why would I do that? So that I'd feel better? Being beaten didn't make me feel better. I had a choice. I could champion racial justice in our home, or I could enjoy granny's cookies. I went with the cookies.
Trevor Noah
The innovation is hazardous, impossible for most producers. But if someone establishes a business having regard to this source of supply, and everything goes well, then he can produce a unit of product more cheaply, while at first the existing prices substantially continue to exist. He then makes a profit. Again he has contributed nothing but will and action, has done nothing but recombine existing factors. Again he is an entrepreneur, his profit entrepreneurial profit. And again the latter, and also the entrepreneurial function as such, perish in the vortex of the competition which streams after them. The case of the choice of new trade routes belongs here.
Joseph Schumpeter
Only a few people have these qualities of leadership and only a few in such a situation, that is a situation which is not itself already a boom, can succeed in this direction. However, if one or a few have advanced with success many of the difficulties disappear. Others can then follow these pioneers, as they will clearly do under the stimulus of the success now attainable. Their success again makes it easier, through the increasingly complete removal of the obstacles analysed in the second chapter, for more people to follow suit, until finally the innovation becomes familiar and the acceptance of it a matter of free choice.
Joseph Schumpeter
Owing to the neglect of our defences and the mishandling of the German problem in the last five years, we seem to be very near the bleak choice between War and Shame. My feeling is that we shall choose Shame, and then have War thrown in a little later on even more adverse terms than at present.
Winston Churchill
I am afraid that if you look intently at what is moving towards Great Britain, you will see that the only choice open is the old grim choice our forbears had to face, namely, whether we shall submit or whether we shall prepare. Whether we shall submit to the will of a stronger nation or whether we shall prepare to defend our rights, our liberties and indeed our lives.
Winston Churchill
Gandhi himself never ruled out violence absolutely and unreservedly. He conceded the necessity of arms in certain situations. He said, "Where choice is set between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... I prefer to use arms in defense of honor rather than remain the vile witness of dishonor ..."
Nelson Mandela
Except in a few metropolitan ghettos, my experience has been that few Negroes have any interest at all in this organization, much less give any allegiance to its pessimistic doctrines. The Black Muslims are a quasi-religious, sociopolitical movement that has appealed to some Negroes who formerly were Christians. For the first time, the Negro was presented with a choice of a religion other than Christianity. What this appeal actually represented was an indictment of Christian failures to live up to Christianity's precepts; for there is nothing in Christianity, nor in the Bible, that justifies racial segregation. But when the Negroes' genuine fighting spirit rose during 1963, the appeal of the Muslims began to diminish.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter - but beautiful - struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Scientists believe there is a hierarchy of facts and that among them may be made a judicious choice. They are right, since otherwise there would be no science... One need only open the eyes to see that the conquests of industry which have enriched so many practical men would never have seen the light, if these practical men alone had existed and if they had not been preceded by unselfish devotees who died poor, who never thought of utility, and yet had a guide far other than caprice.
As Mach says, these devotees have spared their successors the trouble of thinking.
Henri Poincaré
We see that experience plays an indispensable role in the genesis of geometry; but it would be an error thence to conclude that geometry is, even in part, an experimental science. If it were experimental it would be only approximative and provisional. And what rough approximation!
...The object of geometry is the study of a particular 'group'; but the general group concept pre-exists... in our minds. It is imposed on us, not as form of our sense, but as form of our understanding. Only, from among all the possible groups, that must be chosen... will be... the standard to which we shall refer natural phenomena.
Experience guides us in this choice without forcing it upon us; it tells us not which is the truest geometry, but which is the most convenient.
Notice that I have been able to describe the fantastic worlds... imagined without ceasing to employ the language of ordinary geometry.
Henri Poincaré
