76 Quotes About Choices

Choosing the right path in life can often feel overwhelming, with each decision carrying its own unique set of challenges and rewards. Whether we’re contemplating major life changes, navigating career moves, or simply making daily decisions, the choices we make shape our journey and define who we become. To inspire and guide you through these pivotal moments, we’ve curated a collection of the top 76 quotes about choices. These insightful words from thinkers, leaders, and visionaries will not only offer you wisdom but also empower you to embrace the power of choice in every aspect of your life. Dive in and let these quotes inspire you to make decisions with confidence and clarity.

1. “As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.” - J.K. Rowling

2. “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” - J.K. Rowling

3. “Everything has a price.” - Anne Bishop

4. “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

5. “Keep in mind, Eragon, that no one thinks himself a villain, and few make decisions they think are wrong. A person may dislike his choice, but he will stand by it because, even in the worst circumstances, he believes that it was the best option available to him at the time.” - Christopher Paolini

6. “The difficulty in dealing with a maze or labyrinth lies not so much in navigating the convolutions to find the exit but in not entering the damn thing in the first place.Or, at least not yet again.As a creature of free will, do not be tempted into futility.” - Vera Nazarian

7. “It is a painful thing to say to oneself: by choosing one road I am turning my back on a thousand others. Everything is interesting; everything might be useful; everything attracts and charms a noble mind; but death is before us; mind and matter make their demands; willy-nilly we must submit and rest content as to things that time and wisdom deny us, with a glance of sympathy which is another act of our homage to the truth.” - Antonin Sertillanges

8. “The first time I was ever called ugly, I was thirteen. It was a rich friend of my brother Carlton's over to shoot guns in the field.'Why you crying, girl?' Constantine asked me in the kitchen.I told her what the boy had called me, tears streaming down my face.'Well? Is you?'I blinked, paused my crying. 'Is I what?''Now you look a here, Egenia'-because constantien was the only one who'd occasionally follow Mama's rule. 'Ugly live up on the inside. Ugly be a hurtful, mean person. Is you one a them peoples?''I don't know. I don't think so,' I sobbed.Constantine sat down next to me, at the kitchen table. I heard the cracking of her swollen joints. She pressed her thumb hard in the palm of my hand, somthing we both knew meant Listen. Listen to me.'Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision.' Constantine was so close, I could see the blackness of her gums. 'You gone have to ask yourself, Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?'She kept her thumb pressed hard in my hand. I nodded that I understood. I was just smart enough to realize she meant white people. And even though I still felt miserable, and knew that I was, most likely, ugly, it was the first time she ever talked to me like I was something besides my mother's white child. All my life I'd been told what to believe about politics, coloreds, being a girl. But with Constantine's thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.” - Kathryn Stockett

9. “Can't it be stopped?" said Lina. She shifted around under her blanket, trying to find a place to sit where rocks weren't digging into her.Maybe it can be stopped at the beginning," Maddy said. "If someone sees what's happening and is brave enough to reverse the direction."Reverse the direction?"Yes, turn it around."How would you do that?"You'd do something good," said Maddy. "Or at least you'd keep yourself from doing something bad."But how could you?" said Lina. "When people have been mean to you, why would you want to be good to them?"You wouldn't want to," said Maddy. "That's what makes it hard. you do it anyway. Being good is hard. Much harder than being bad.” - Jeanne DuPrau

10. “If you choose to not deal with an issue,then you give up your right of control over the issue and it will select the path of least resistance.” - Susan Del Gatto

11. “The best way to avoid responsibility is to say, 'I've gotresponsibilities.” - Richard Bach

12. “What kind of tea do you want?""There´s more than one kind of tea?...What do you have?""Let´s see... Blueberry, Raspberry, Ginseng, Sleepytime, Green Tea, Green Tea with Lemon, Green Tea with Lemon and Honey, Liver Disaster, Ginger with Honey, Ginger Without Honey, Vanilla Almond, White Truffle Coconut, Chamomile, Blueberry Chamomile, Decaf Vanilla Walnut, Constant Comment and Earl Grey."-"I.. Uh...What are you having?... Did you make some of those up?” - Bryan Lee O'Malley

13. “You climbed into my window in the middle of the night. So, either you're some kind of Vampire or some kind of Perv. Which is it?” - Kami Garcia

14. “All my life they had made choices for me, and I had resented it. Now the choice was mine, and once it was made, I would have no right to blame anyone else for the consequences. Loss of that privilege, to blame others, unexpectedly stung.” - Megan Whalen Turner

15. “We don't get to chose what is true. We only get to choose what we do about it.” - Kami Garcia

16. “Pamela realizes for the first time in her life that she hadn't made the wrong choice at all. Nor had she made the right choice. She had simply made a choice. And somewhere along the way, she had lost the courage to live by it.” - Pip Karmel

17. “I am anything I wish to be. The world cannot choose for me. No, it is for me to choose what the world shall be.” - Frances Hardinge

18. “In the end that was the choice you made, and it doesn't matter how hard it was to make it. It matters that you did.” - Cassandra Clare

19. “Everybody's got the potential for great good and great wrong in them, but it's thechoices we make that define who we really are.” - Charles de Lint

20. “What is right is often forgotten by what is convenient.” - Bodie Thoene

21. “The hardest choices in life aren't between what's right and what's wrong but between what's right and what's best.” - Jamie Ford

22. “Resentment is often a woman's inner signal that she has been ignoring an important God-given responsibility - that of making choices.” - Brenda Waggoner

23. “Desires dictate our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions.” - Dallin H. Oaks

24. “I hadn't been "possessed", after all. Not by an angel or a demon. Maybe there were aspects of both inside me, but I was the one who chose which to let out.” - Lauren Myracle

25. “By choosing healthy over skinny you are choosing self-love over self-judgment. You are beautiful!” - Steve Maraboli

26. “Happiness is a state of mind, a choice, a way of living; it is not something to be achieved, it is something to be experienced.” - Steve Maraboli

27. “The easiest thing is to say no. What's not so easy is telling yourself to stop.” - Alix

28. “Just because you can make a choice, doesn’t mean you should. Some things are better left alone.” - Laura Burks

29. “I want you to take note, Commander, that turning in my badge would be like cutting off my arm. But if it comes down to a choice between the job and my marriage, then I lose the arm.” - J.D. Robb

30. “Through my choices and actions, I have learned the most effective way of speaking to God is without saying a word.” - Steve Maraboli

31. “I wouldn't even consider it if I were you. But then if I were you, I would not be me, and if I were not me, I would not be able to advise you, and if I were unable to advise you, you'd do as you like, so you might as well do as you like and have done with it.” - Catherynne M. Valente

32. “Misperceiving that there is one correct choice is a common mistake. Coming to understand that there are usually a few good choices--and then there's the one you pick, commit to, and make great--is the best way to make flexible, optimal, good decisions in life.” - Katie Couric

33. “Life was a short window and there was no sense in doing the wrong thing over and over even if it was so difficult to stop.” - Anna Godbersen

34. “The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof.” - Shannon Alder

35. “To be too knowing is a downfall.” - Laura Linney

36. “One might have said that reason made him flee from reason.” - André Maurois

37. “I think you should listen to your heart. It is there the True One speaks to us most.” - Derek Donais

38. “The way you live your day is a sentence in the story of your life. Each day you make the choice whether the sentence ends with a period, question mark, or exclamation point.” - Steve Maraboli

39. “You can't make yourself feel positive, but you can choose how to act, and if you choose right, it builds your confidence.” - Julien Smith

40. “‎Today is a new day. It's a day you have never seen before and will never see again. Stop telling yourself the 'same crap, different day' lie! How many days has that lie stolen from you? Seize the wonder and uniqueness of today! Recognize that throughout this beautiful day, you have an incredible amount of opportunities to move your life into the direction you want it to go.” - Steve Maraboli

41. “You got one choice at the beginning but if you didn't choose right, things got narrow real quick.” - Ron Rash

42. “A small profit it better than a big loss” - Ron Rash

43. “The truth is that this was something over which I had no control and the question is not why but what. What am I going to do with this? What am I going to make of it?” - Vicki Forman

44. “Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.” - Roger Crawford

45. “Life presents many challenges...Temptation is one of them.. And free will govern us all. We have the power to choose.” - Lee Monroe

46. “Sometimes good choices are really bad ones, wrapped up in so much fear you can't even see straight.” - Deb Caletti

47. “People make decisions, and maybe you don't always agree, but those choices are still their own.” - Brenna Yovanoff

48. “Freedom is anxiety's petri dish. If routine blunts anxiety, freedom incubates it. Freedom says, "Even if you don't want to make choices, you have to, and you can never be sure you have chosen correctly." Freedom says, "Even not to choose is to choose." Freedom says, "So long as you are aware of your freedom, you are going to experience the discomfort that freedom brings." Freedom says, "You're on your own. Deal with it.” - Daniel B. Smith

49. “Maybe you had to be dying to finally get to do what you wanted.I fidgeted around with the puzzle pieces for a while longer, but I wasn't lucky. Nothing seemed to fit without a whole lot of work.Then I had this thought: What if it was enough to realize that you would die someday, that none of this would go on forever? Would that be enough?” - Carol Rifka Brunt

50. “Regrets are the last words you speak to your loved ones when you die and the one thing we all fear when we live. I'd rather regret the things I've done and said than regret the things I haven't done or said. It is all the experiences and people you missed out on in life that you will feel the most regretful for in the end. God will forgive you of your mistakes, but there is nothing to forgive if you have never even tried, done or said anything that made a difference in your life or others.” - Shannon L. Alder

51. “I offered you a choice, and you took it."I shot him what I hoped was a truly scathing glare. "Some choice. I was dying. Some drunk shot me from a pickup. Why wouldn't I have just woken up with gonorrhea like every other girl of loose moral fiber?” - Molly Harper

52. “True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature.” - Robert McKee

53. “No matter what choice you make, it doesn't define you. Not forever. People can make bad choices and change their minds and hearts and do good things later; just as people can make good choices and then turn around and walk a bad path. No choice we make lasts our whole life. It there's ever a choice you've made that you no longer agree with, you can make another choice . . . you can't change the past. Ah, but the future . . . you own the future. So, tell me . . . what choice do you want to make now?” - Jonathan Mayberry

54. “We stand at the crossroads, each minute, each hour, each day, making choices. We choose the thoughts we allow ourselves to think, the passions we allow ourselves to feel, and the actions we allow ourselves to perform. Each choice is made in the context of whatever value system we have selected to govern our lives. In selecting that value system, we are, in a very real way, making the most important choice we will ever make.Those who believe there is one God who made all things and who governs the world by this providence will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who hold in reverence that being who gave them life and worship Him through adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving will make choices different from those who do not. Those who believe that mankind are all of a family and that the most acceptable service of God is doing good to man will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who believe in a future state in which all that is wrong here will be made right will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who subscribe to the morals of Jesus will make many choices different from those who do not.Since the foundation of all happiness is thinking rightly, and since correct action is dependent on correct opinion, we cannot be too careful in choosing the value system we allow to govern our thoughts and actions.And to know that God governs in the affairs of men, that He hears and answers prayers, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, is, indeed, a powerful regulator of human conduct.” - Benjamin Franklin

55. “The choice is not in what you do. The choice is in the why.” - Emma Raveling

56. “Empowerment is being aware that there is no one to blame for my choices and actions; that I have a personal choice and responsibility for my life.” - Steve Maraboli

57. “A lot of things should have been, Zigmund, but they aren’t. Are you going to be miserable about the things you cannot change, or do something about the things you can?” - Melika Dannese Lux

58. “Thirteen years of friendship had bonded us together more thoroughly than if we had been born of the same mother. Even at this late stage, I was unwilling to let him go.” - Melika Dannese Lux

59. “We are told we must choose — the old or the new. In fact, we must choose both. What is a life if not a series of negotiations between the old and the new?"[Speech upon being awarded the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels (Peace Prize of the German Book Trade), Frankfurt Book Fair, October 12, 2003]” - Susan Sontag

60. “Who knows? Maybe they’re right. Maybe we are driven crazy by our feelings. Maybe love is a disease, and we would be better off without it. But we have chosen a different road. And in the end that is the point of escaping the cure: We are free to choose.We are even free to choose the wrong thing.” - Lauren Oliver

61. “Some decisions in life naturally lead to an unhappy ending, leaving you sinking by degrees in a lake of quicksand.  And, unless someone reaches to pull you out, chances are you will drown in the consequences.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

62. “Courage doesn’t happen when you have all the answers. It happens when you are ready to face the questions you have been avoiding your whole life.” - Shannon L. Alder

63. “It is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things ... I would have to make a list, a very, very long list and make sure I hated the people on it the right amount ... No ... we always have a choice. All of us.” - M. L. Stedman

64. “Do what is right because it is right.” - Nancy Slocumb

65. “Circumstances don't determine who you are, or what you will be. Only you do that. You either decide, or you don't. Even the decision not to decide was still yours.” - Julie-Anne

66. “Sometimes I think if we didn’t have these problems the whole world would stop spinning on her axis, we’d all stop spinning on our axises, axes, or whatever you want to call them, and then we’d have to settle into the nasty business of finding a way to be happy.” - Daniel Clausen

67. “Every brush stroke on the canvas, every dab of color introduced, the fine textures impressed in the paint—this accumulation of many small acts combines to shape a final work of art.  And so it is with life; each step, each deed, each brief choice builds gradually, day by day, to shape both character and destiny.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

68. “Choices, options, decisions abound. Choose right, take the best option and decide well.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

69. “If I ever have to cast an acting role, I want the wrong person for the part. I can never visualize the right person in a part. The right person for the right part would be too much. Besides, no person is every completely right for any part, because part in a role is never real, so if you can't get someone who's perfectly right, it's more satisfying to get someone who's perfectly wrong. Then you know you've really got something.” - Andy Warhol

70. “We are the sum total of the decisions we have made.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

71. “You will always be a monster - there is no turning back from it. But what kind of monster you become is entirely up to you.” - Julie Kagawa

72. “You are creating through your choices, even now. Choose wisely.” - Bryant McGill

73. “Simplify and focus on the good. The beauty of the journey ahead will flourish on its own.” - Erik Tomblin

74. “Life is a treasure-chest of opportunities, choices, and time. Unfortunately, the choice many people make is to argue about the details of the chest instead of seizing the treasure within it.” - Steve Maraboli

75. “Remember it is your choice; you can either wait for someone or end someone’s waiting.” - M.F. Moonzajer

76. “Choice, and all its attendant energy, is a characteristic of youth. It is before one chooses that one feels desire and longing without fulfillment, which gives an edge to any artistic endeavor. Galway Kinnell recently said in an interview that a young poet has so many choices but an old poet must simply endure his chosen life.” - Mary Ruefle