Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Choice
If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes.
Alexander to Diogenes when requested to stand a little out of his sunshine. Plutarch—Life of Alexander.
He that will not when he may,
When he will he shall have nay.
Burton—Anat. of Mel. Pt. III. Sect. 2. Mem. 5. Subs. 5. Quoted.
Better to sink beneath the shock
Than moulder piecemeal on the rock!
Byron—The Giaour. L. 969.
Of harmes two the less is for to chose.
Chaucer—Troilus and Criseyde. Bk. II. L. 470.
What voice did on my spirit fall,
Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost?
’Tis better to have fought and lost
Than never to have fought at all!
Arthur Hugh Clough—Peschiera.
Life often presents us with a choice of evils, rather than of goods.
C. C. Colton—Lacon. P. 362.
Devine, si tu peux, et choisis, si tu l’oses.
Guess, if you can, and choose, if you dare.
Corneille—Héraclius. IV. 4.
The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.
George Eliot—Daniel Deronda. Bk. VI. Ch. XLII.
God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose.
Emerson—Essay. Intellect.
Betwixt the devil and the deep sea.
Erasmus—Adagia. Ch. III. Cent. IV. 94. Quoted from the Greek. Proverb in Hazlitt—English Proverbs. Clarke—Parœmiologia. (1639). Said by Col. Monroe—Expedition and Observations. Pt. III. P. 55. (Ed. 1637).
Inter sacrum et sazim.
Between the victim and the stone knife.
Erasmus—Letter to Pirkheimer. Plautus—Captivi. 3. 4. 84. Also said by Appuleius.
Se soumettre ou se démettre.
Submit or resign.
Gambetta.
Where passion leads or prudence points the way.
Robert Lowth—The Choice of Hercules. 1.
But one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.
Luke. X. 42.
For many are called, but few are chosen.
Matthew. XXII. 14.
Rather than be less
Car’d not to be at all.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. II. L. 47.
Who would not, finding way, break loose from hell,
******
And boldly venture to whatever place
Farthest from pain?
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. IV. L. 889.
The difficulty in life is the choice.
George Moore—Bending of the Bough. Act IV.
Or fight or fly,
This choice is left ye, to resist or die.
Pope—Homer’s Odyssey. Bk. XXII. L. 79.
S’asseoir entre deux selles le cul a terre.
Between two stools one sits on the ground.
Rabelais—Gargantua. Bk. I. Ch. II. Entre deux arcouns chet cul a terre. In Les Proverbes del Vilain. MS. Bodleian. (About 1303).
Set honour in one eye and death i’ the other,
And I will look on both indifferently.
Julius Cæsar. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 86.
Which of them shall I take?
Both? one? or neither? Neither can be enjoy’d,
If both remain alive.
King Lear. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 67.
I will not choose what many men desire,
Because I will not jump with common spirits,
And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.
Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 9. L. 31.
Preferment goes by letter and affection.
Othello. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 36.
There’s small choice in rotten apples.
Taming of the Shrew. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 138.
“Thy royal will be done—’tis just,”
Replied the wretch, and kissed the dust;
“Since, my last moments to assuage,
Your Majesty’s humane decree
Has deigned to leave the choice to me,
I’ll die, so please you, of old age.”
Horace Smith—The Jester Condemned to Death.
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.
Tennyson—Locksley Hall. St. 92.
When to elect there is but one,
’Tis Hobson’s Choice; take that or none.
Thos. Ward—England’s Reformation. Canto IV. L. 896. (“Hobson’s Choice” explained in Spectator. No. 509.)
Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan, suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
Wordsworth—Miscellaneous Sonnets. Pt. I. Sonnet XXXIII.
A strange alternative***
Must women have a doctor or a dance?
Young—Love of Fame. Satire V. L. 189.