John Steinbeck Quotes About Choices

Quotes about: Choices

• We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God. Fearful and unprepared, we have assumed lordship over the life or death of the whole world — of all living things. The danger and the glory and the choice rest finally in man. The test of his perfectibility is at hand. Having taken Godlike power, we must seek in ourselves for the responsibility and the wisdom we once prayed some deity might have.

  John Steinbeck

  God, Taken, Responsibility

  John Steinbeck (2003). “America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction”, p.147, Penguin

• But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.

  John Steinbeck

  Men, Eden, Giving

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.265, Penguin

• Man has a choice and it's a choice that makes him a man.

  John Steinbeck

  Men, Choices

• But 'Thou mayest!'! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win

  John Steinbeck

  Brother, Fighting, Winning

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.265, Penguin

• But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There's no godliness there.

  John Steinbeck

  Cat, Men, Thinking

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.265, Penguin

• The Hebrew word, the word timshel - 'Thou mayest' - that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open...Why, that makes a man great...He can choose his course and fight it through and win...I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest'. ch 24

  John Steinbeck

  Fighting, Winning, Unique

• I have no choice of living or dying, you see, sir--but I do have a choice of how I do it. If I tell them not to fight, they will be sorry, but they will fight. If I tell them to fight, they will be glad, and I who am not a very brave man will have made them a little braver.

  John Steinbeck

  Sorry, Fighting, Men

  John Steinbeck (2001). “Novels, 1942-1952”

• In literary criticism the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of his attention into something the size and shape of himself.

  John Steinbeck

  Choices, Criticism, Attention

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.47, Penguin

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