A Quote by Robert Jordan

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.

Robert Jordan

Quote Topics

Always Better Choose Dance Forced Greatness Him His Man Master Men Must Never Others Own Seek Some Some Men Strings Than Those While

Quote Author

Robert Jordan
American - Writer
October 17, 1948 - September 16, 2007

I wanted to know how much of conversion was forced - that is, forced in the sense that the Inquisition forced people to choose - forced Jews, let's say, and Muslims to choose conversion to Christianity or death. I wanted to see how much of conversion historically was forced in that way and how much of it was really a kind of persuasion.

Susan Jacoby

When I came into the music, I was forced to be a CEO. I was forced to be an entrepreneur; I was forced to... because I was looking for a deal. I didn't have this grand scheme of starting a record company and then morphing into a clothing empire.

Jay-Z

I have known some grim bells, with not a single joyous note in the whole peal, so forced to hurry for a human festival, with their harshness made light of, as though the Bishop of Hereford had again been forced to dance in his boots by a merry highwayman.

Alice Meynell

Joe Cocker never sounded forced. Crazy, perhaps, but not forced.

Andrew Rosenthal

A heart can no more be forced to love than a stomach can be forced to digest food by persuasion.

Alfred Nobel

I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They can only force me who obey a higher law than I.... I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live?

Henry David Thoreau

I was forced to grow up quicker than most. I was forced to be a young man at a young age.

Ray Rice

Those who ignore history's lessons in the ultimate folly of war are forced to do more than relive them ... they may be forced to die by them.

Dan Simmons

First, God does not send people to hell. He simply honors their choice. Hell is the ultimate expression of God's high regard for the dignity of man. He has never forced us to choose Him, even when that means we would choose Hell.

Max Lucado

I am here for my mother and all the Americans who are forced to spend time arguing with health insurance companies instead of focusing on getting well. I am here for the millions of lives that will be touched and in some cases, saved, by health insurance reform. I am here for the small businesses who are forced to choose between health care and hiring. I am here for the seniors who are unable to afford the prescriptions they need.

Barack Obama

The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the life, or of the work And if it take the second must refuse A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.

William Butler Yeats

The rewrites are a struggle right now. Sometimes I wish writing a book could just be easy for me at last. But when I think about it practically, I am glad it's a struggle. I am (as usual) attempting to write a book that's too hard for me. I'm telling a story I'm not smart enough to tell. The risk of failure is huge. But I prefer it this way. I'm forced to learn, forced to smarten myself up, forced to wrestle. And if it works, then I'll have written something that is better than I am.

Shannon Hale

I was never forced to write. At least, I was never forced or even encouraged to write fiction. Creative writing wasn't in the curriculum at my school when I was in sixth grade.

Rodman Philbrick

My reason taught me that I could not have made one of my own qualities - they were forced upon me by Nature; that my language, religion, and habits were forced upon me by Society; and that I was entirely the child of Nature and Society; that Nature gave the qualities and Society directed them. Thus was I forced, through seeing the error of their foundation, to abandon all belief in every religion which had been taught by man.