Brigham Young Quotes

The child is not a prisoner of its inheritance; it holds its inheritance as a new creation which its future actions will unfold.

All attempts to coerce the living will of human beings into the service of something they do not want must fail

Anybody can do anything, it's up to themselves. All it takes is the right intentions.

It is easy to substitute our will for that of the child by means of suggestion or coercion; but when we have done this we have robbed him of his greatest right, the right to construct his own personality.

It is the beginning of wisdom when you recognize that the best you can do is choose which rules you want to live by, and it's persistent and aggravated imbecility to pretend you can live without any.

Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.

Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.

Human beings cannot be willed and molded into non-existence.

Look. I brought you here to give you a choice-" "You didn't bring us here," said Nick. "You're here," said Bod. "I wanted you here. I came here. You followed me. Same thing.

I think people do have their own minds.

Nobody sets the rules but you. You can design your own life.

Some men […] choose to seek greatness, while others are forced to it. It is always better to choose than to be forced. A man who is forced is never completely his own master. He must dance on the strings of those who forced him.

Choice is a signature of our species.

Each person makes their own decision about what it is that is happening, whether they like it or don't like it, whether they want to lend their energy to it or not or what, you know.

The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it.

God writes the story of our lives with the pen strokes of our own free choices.

You think me the child of circumstance; I make my circumstance.

I am who I choose to be. I have always been what I chose, though not always what I pleased.

In the cross-over, you get to a point where you realize that you've got all this genetic inheritance, and you've got all this social conditioning, but there is a point where you do have to make a choice, and that's the optimist in me: you have the freedom to make a choice about how you are going to be, and what you're going to do.

Who can control his fate?

Highly proactive people don't blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice.

I started with the belief that every person who came to the laboratory was free to accept or to reject the dictates of authority. This view sustains a conception of human dignity insofar as it sees in each man a capacity for choosing his own behavior. And as it turned out, many subjects did, indeed, choose to reject the experimenter's commands, providing a powerful affirmation of human ideals.

But if it matters to you, you'll be able to choose Gryffindor over Slytherin. The Sorting Hat takes your choice into account." "Really?" "It did for me," said Harry. He had never told any of his children that before, and he saw the wonder in Albus's face when he said it.

All of us prepare our own lunch. If we don't like our jobs, if we don't like the state of our relationships, if we don't like what's happening to our spiritual lives - we have no one to blame but ourselves. Because God has given us free will.

No man must encroach upon my province, nor I upon his. He may advise me, moderately and without pertinaciousness, but he must not expect to dictate to me. He may censure me freely and without reserve; but he should remember that I am to act by my deliberation and not his. I ought to exercise my talents for the benefit of others; but that exercise must be the fruit of my own conviction; no man must attempt to press me into the service.