James Freeman Clarke Quotes

The difference between a hero and a villain is that they just make different choices.

I believe firmly that in making ethical decisions, man has the prerogative of true freedom of choice.

The awful importance of this life is that it determines eternity.

Most of my career I purposely spent doing good guys.

All good biography, as all good fiction, comes down to the study of original sin, of our inherent disposition to choose death when we ought to choose life.

There's right and there's wrong. You got to do one or the other. You do the one and you're living. You do the other and you may be walking around, but you're dead as a beaver hat.

Each decision - to kill, to sign a petition, to write a letter, to make a speech, to attack, to lie, to surrender - was made at some point in somebody's day.

The most striking feature if this map is the stark fat of the Two Roads. There is the road that leads to Life, and there is the road that leads to Death. There is Good, and there is Evil. There is Right and there is Wrong.

Whenever you've got a choice, do good, kiddo. It isn't always fun or easy, but in the long run it makes your life better.

Everybody's got the potential for great good and great wrong in them, but it's the choices we make that define who we really are.

One's obligation every day, is to choose to follow the nobler one.

Given a choice between life and death, choose life. Given a choice between right and wrong, choose what's right. And given a choice between a terrible truth and a beautiful lie, choose the truth every time.

And I realize that the decision to be human is not one single instant, but is a thousand choices made very day. It is choices we make every second and requires constant vigilance. We have to fight to remain human.

A fool is a person who knows the difference between right and wrong, and chooses to do wrong.

Know that the thing that is easiest to do is rarely the thing that is best to do.

You have a choice in life very often whether you do good or you feel good.

What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy - they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.

It is better to do nothing Than to do what is wrong. For whatever you do, you do to yourself.

The course of human history consists of a series of encounters between individual human beings and God in which each man and woman or child, in turn, is challenged by God to make his free choice between doing God's will and refusing to do it.

Get up, and set your shoulder to the wheel - How long is this life for? As you have come into this world, leave some mark behind. Otherwise, where is the difference between you and the trees and stones? They too come into existence, decay and die.

I believe that you and I - and everyone we'll ever meet - has the inborn capacity to be heroic, to take daring, courageous, and noble steps to make life better for others, even when in the short term it seems to be at our own expense. The capacity to do the right thing, to dare to take a stand and make a difference, is within you now.

You will make a difference in the world, but not immediately. Your first obligation is to find something you like doing, because if you like doing it, you'll do it well.

The choice of life is not between fame and fortune, nor wealth and poverty, but between good and evil.

You've just got to do what you think is right, and just make the decisions based upon noble causes. And a noble cause is peace and security and freedom.

Every individual can make a difference every day by making conscious choices.