Destiny Hangs On Encounters With Choices
Scholars Among Slaves What a Man Chooses, He Is
What a Man Chooses, He Is
All through life we must keep choosing. Destiny hangs on
"yes" and "no." As we look back, it is to wonder what
would have happened if we had gone the other way when
the road forked.
On life's bargain-counter are wares piled up for the
pleasing of all tastes. We marvel that some eagerly
select what we contemptuously reject. Our tastes are
as various as our natures.
How can Nature originate so great a variety of patterns?
We speak of the mass of mankind as if it was all one. But
it presents a bewildering variation. Human beings are as
different from one another as their parental influences
and their environments and their personal natures are
different. Flesh and blood can never be run in mould of
monotonous uniformity. The fascination of travel is the
endless variety of mankind that one encounters, more than
in silent buildings or inarticulate scenery.
The choice of personal associates is the all-influencing
choice. To go wrong here is the likeliest way to cripple
one's chances of eminence or of plain, everyday success.
A man goes into business with partners guilty of malfeasance,
and they pull him down. A woman marries the wrong husband,
and though her courage may keep her at the sticking point
and may enable her to preserve the appearance of domestic
felicity, all that makes for the ideal relationship is
absent. The basis of happiness is not in things, but in
people. Those of us who are thoroughly normal cannot get
along without congenial society. The kind of persons we
choose to be with is the first and surest indication of
character. The worthiest must be uneasy and unhappy in
the company of the worst; and the best will naturally
seek the best.
What a man chooses, he is.
Philadelphia Public Speaker
Destiny grants us our wishes,
but in its own way, in order
to give us something beyond
our wishes.
Goethe
Men heap together the mistakes of their lives,
and create a monster they call Destiny.
John Oliver Hobbes
There is no such thing as an omen.
Destiny does not send us heralds.
She is too wise or too cruel for that.
Oscar Wilde
Destiny is not a matter of chance,
it is a matter of choice; it is not
a thing to be waited for, it is a
thing to be achieved.
William Jennings Bryan
Private choices are not private;
they all have public consequences.
Our society is the sum total of what
millions of individuals do in their
private lives.
James E. Faust
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.
I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to
live by the light that I have. I must stand with
anybody that stands right, stand with him while he
is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
Abraham Lincoln
