70 Choice Quotes on Life's Motivations & Decisions We Make (2022)

These inspirational choice quotes will remind you of how important the choices we make in life are. In the comments below, share which quote you thought was the most inspiring.

Many of us don’t understand the importance of the choices that we make, or the power that we have over them.

Too often, people attribute what is good to external causes, and what is bad to internal ones. By this I mean, we feel like the good things happen to us, and the bad things are our fault.

What we need to realize is that each and every day, we make numerous choices that influence the outcome of all areas of our lives.

We can learn from our missteps, and we can build on our strengths. To remind you on the importance of making decisions, here are some inspirational, wise, and thought-provoking choice quotes, choice sayings, and choice proverbs.

Choice Quotes About Life and Words of Wisdom

1. “Life presents many choices, the choices we make determine our future.” – Catherine Pulsifer

2. “The hardest decisions in life are not between good and bad or right and wrong, but between two goods or two rights.” – Joe Andrew

3. “Choose your life’s mate carefully. From this one decision will come 90 percent of all your happiness or misery.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr.

4. “When we find inspiration, we need to take action for ourselves and for our communities. Even if it means making a hard choice, or cutting out something and leaving it in your past.” – Aron Ralston

5. “Any decision I make is the biggest decision of my life.” – Carmelo Anthony

6. When bad things happen to you, focus on what you can learn from it. If you focus on the bad, you’re doomed to repeat it. – Mel Robbins

7. “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.” – Amelia Earhart

8. “And we have complete control over our own attitude. We are the ones we decide how we feel, how we look at things, how we react.” – Catherine Pulsifer

9. “This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live.” – Omar Bradley

10. “Each person has a choice; the choice to do as one may wish and as one wants remains with the individual. If a person sees no benefit to change, they will not change.” – Byron Pulsifer

11. “We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals.” – Stephen Covey

12. “Did you know that to worry about a situation you are making a conscious choice to do so?” – Mike C. Adams

13. “We all need to decide whether to “play it safe” in life and worry about the downside, or instead take a chance, by being who we really are and living the life our heart desires. Which choice are you making?” – Charlie Badenhop

14. “Your life changes the moment you make a new, congruent, and committed decision.” – Anthony Robbins

15. “There are a lot of things going on with my life right now that don’t just have to do with career. So I have a hard time making decisions about work. That’s really a luxury problem.” – Philip Seymour Hoffman

16. “You came empty on earth, why overloaded now, were all your choices absolutely correct, it is never too late to reconsider them?” – William Ngwako Maphoto

17. “You always do what you want to do. This is true with every act. You may say that you had to do something, or that you were forced to, but actually, whatever you do, you do by choice. Only you have the power to choose for yourself.” – W. Clement Stone

Also read these Dante’s Inferno quotes about consequences and justice.

Quotes About Choices and Consequences

18. “The choices that we make in our life, indeed determine the kind of results that we experience and the quality of the life that we live.” – Sumeet Jain

19. “The choices we make every minute of every day can contribute to making someone’s life a little bit better or worse even without intending to.” – Chikamso Efobi

20. “In every single thing you do, you are choosing a direction. Your life is a product of choices.” – Dr. Kathleen Hall

21. “May your choices reflect your hopes not your fears.” – Nelson Mandela

22. “Big changes don’t have to be hard, but they do have to start with a choice. This is where real change begins; this is where you start taking control of your life and how you choose to live it; this is where it all starts.” – Nathalie Thompson

23. “In my experience working with a variety of people over several decades, far too many individuals choose to be anonymous members of the pack, therefore suffering from the inner remorse that makes them feel like failures, filled with conflict and resentment and wondering what the meaning of life is.”- Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

24. “By knowing that you can fail and making the choice to take the risk you will be setting yourself up for success and not failure.” – Jennifer N. Smith

25. “Addicts cannot change the abuse suffered in childhood. They cannot undo the choices they have made or the hurt they have caused. But they can change the future – through the power they have in the present moment.” – Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman

26. “Most of the choices we make each day may feel like the products of well-considered decision making, but they’re not. They’re habits. And though each habit means relatively little on its own, over time, the meals we order, what we say to our kids each night, whether we save or spend, how often we exercise, and the way we organize our thoughts and work routines have enormous impacts on our health, productivity, financial security, and happiness.” – Charles Duhigg

27. “Expanding our capacity to talk, particularly when we face critical choices, is a life-enhancing skill. I believe that there is no faster way for us to evolve than through the process of interacting with one another.” – Sarah Rozenthuler

28. “In this new era, you have two choices: become a temp staffer (not a horrible choice) or become an artist-entrepreneur. Choose to commoditize your labor or choose yourself to be a creator, an innovator, an artist, an investor, a marketer, and an entrepreneur.” – James Altucher

29. “How you react emotionally is a choice in any situation—and those cumulative choices can make or break your chances for well-being.” – Judith Orloff

30. “I discovered I always have choices and sometimes it’s only a choice of attitude.” – Judith M. Knowlton

You might also like these deep quotes will change how you see the world.

More choice quotes and sayings

31. “If you don’t have the information you need to make wise choices, find someone who does.” – Lori Hil

32. “Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.” – John C. Maxwell

33. “Life is a choice – as is how you handle the pitfalls along its bumpy road.” – Julie Donner Andersen

34. “There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.” – Denis Waitley

35. “And in life, it is all about choices we make. And how the direction of our lives comes down to the choices we choose.” – Catherine Pulsifer

36. “You always have two choices: your commitment versus your fear.” – Sammy Davis Jr.

37. “You always have two choices with your life and experience: you can either learn from it or you can place blame. The choice is always yours.” – Kevin Horsley

38. “We make our choices, then our choices make us.” – Anonymous

39. “I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

40. “Every choice you make has an end result.” – Zig Ziglar

Choice quotes from The Giver

41. “It’s the choosing that’s important, isn’t it?” — Lois Lowry, The Giver

42. “We really have to protect people from wrong choices.” — Lois Lowry, The Giver

43. “How could someone not fit in? The community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made.” — Lois Lowry, The Giver

44. “It’s the way they live. It’s the life that was created for them. It’s the same life that you would have if you had not been chosen as my successor.” — Lois Lowry, The Giver

45. “Even trained for years as they all had been in precision of language, what words could you use which would give another the experience of sunshine?” — Lois Lowry, The Giver

46. “They were satisfied with their lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them.” — Lois Lowry, The Giver

47. “Having you here with me over the past year has made me realize that things must change. For years I’ve felt that they should, but it seemed so hopeless. Now for the first time I think there might be a way.” — Lois Lowry, The Giver

48. “Sometimes I wish they’d ask for my wisdom more often-there are so many things I could tell them; things I wish they would change. But they don’t want change. Life here is so orderly, so predictable-so painless. It’s what they’ve chosen.” — Lois Lowry, The Giver

49. “If he had stayed in the community, he would not be. It was as simple as that. Once he had yearned for choice. Then, when he has had a choice, he had made the wrong one: the choice to leave. And now he was starving.” — Lois Lowry, The Giver

50. “Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time, back and back and back. We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with difference. We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.” — Lois Lowry, The Giver

Choice quotes to encourage good decisions

51. “Every day brings new choices.”  –Martha Beck

52. “Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain… To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices – today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it.” –Kevyn Aucoin

53. “Life is about choices. Some we regret. Some we’re proud of.” –Graham Brown

54. “There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.” –Jack Welch

55. “Making better choices takes work. There is a daily give and take, but it is worth the effort.” -Tom Rath

56. “I have made the choices that work best for me.  I cannot please everyone everyone, and that’s fine.”  –Marlee Matlin

57. “You write your life story by the choices you make. You never know if they have been a mistake. Those moments of decision are so difficult.” –Helen Mirren

58. “We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.” –Thomas Merton

59. “Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices.”  –Jean-Paul Sartre

60. “I’m open for possibilities. I’m open for choices. I always welcome new ideas. I’m always eager to learn. I’m never going to close my mind from learning.” –Cesar Milan

Choice quotes when you’re feeling indecisive

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

62. “You cannot control the behavior of others, but you can always choose how you respond to it.” ― Roy T. Bennett

63. “But until a person can say deeply and honestly, “I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,” that person cannot say, “I choose otherwise.” ― Stephen R. Covey

64. “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

65. “We are our choices.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre

66. “It is not for me to judge another man’s life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.” ― Herman Hesse

67. “There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it.” ― Shannon L. Alder

68. “Sometimes you have to choose between a bunch of wrong choices and no right ones. You just have to choose which wrong choices feels the least wrong.” ― Colleen Hoover

69. “You are not the victim of the world, but rather the master of your own destiny. It is your choices and decisions that determine your destiny.” ― Roy T. Bennett

70. “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

The paradox of choice | Barry Schwartz

Were you able to relate with any of these choice quotes?

Realizing and acknowledging the choices that we make is empowering, whether the outcome is good or bad.

It is also important, as it helps us evaluate what we do and do not have control over. This is an important distinction to make, as we can let go of what we will never have a choice – or control over – and focus our time and energy on what we do.

I hope these choice quotes helped you realize the power you possess regarding life’s decisions.

Did you enjoy these choice quotes? Which of the quotes resonated with you best? Let us know in the comment section below.