Great Throughts Treasury

"Choice is what enables us to tell the world who we are and what we care about."

"Any time choice is restricted in some way, there is bound to be someone, somewhere, who is deprived of the opportunity to pursue something of personal value."

"When people have no choice, life is almost unbearable. As the number of available choices increases, as it has in our consumer culture, the autonomy, control, and liberation this variety brings are powerful and positive. But as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize."

"Dating at least from ancient Rome, the holiday was a time of public and communal celebration, a time to commemorate some event of civic or religious significance that all citizens participated in equally. The set of holidays observed by a given community was a way of defining that community. Each holiday, with its unique history and set of rituals, connected the members of a community to one another, and to the community's collective past. The holiday was fundamentally noneconomic in character. Everyone participated, independent of economic circumstances.... In contrast, the vacation is thoroughly private and economic. People negotiate for paid vacations with their employers. They decide whether to spend their money on vacations or on things, in a way that they never would with holidays. Imagine asking whether to buy a new car or celebrate Easter. The point of a vacation is not to join in celebration with other members of the community but to escape it--at least for a while. People take vacations for a change of scene, and they take them alone, or just with their families."

"As these things get better and better, nobody has to encounter ideas they don't already agree with. We lose that sense of community we had when there were shared cultural experiences, even though we may not have liked them. Now we can create our own cocoon and keep all that unpleasant stuff out."

"I would say it probably has (hurt business). I think it's just hurt everybody. Because of how badly fouled up the Saw Mill is and you're dumping all this traffic onto local roads getting (into) Pleasantville has been quite problematic ... Bad weather, period, kills business, whether the Saw Mill shuts down or not."

"A lot of people end up doing nothing. In the case of a 401(k), that can mean passing up matching money from employers. That can be like lighting a match to a $5,000 bill."

"It is a daunting challenge if you have 100 funds to choose from. People are terrified that they will make a mistake. They say that they will figure it out tomorrow. But tomorrow will be no different than today."

"Don't believe for a minute that this is about the patient. This is about doctors wanting to make more money."

"But only time will tell. I am sure they will start off slow and buggy. But they should be able to catch up to the competition soon. Plus, they have the tools to be more successful in the near future."

"It's just been accepted that since choice is good, more choice is better, but . . . this perfectly reasonable assumption turns out to be false,"

"It paralyzes people into indecision."

"The assumption is that if choice is good, more choice is better. That's not necessarily true."

"Our institutions and values are in jeopardy as the mores of the market pervade all social life in this country. Loyalty, honesty, courage, discipline, patriotism, and commitment to family are being crowded out by the goals and rules of economic rationality -- do whatever makes the most money."

"The most important thing is to learn that good enough is almost always good enough; you don't need to find the best. You'll be happier if, once you find something that meets your standards, you stop looking and don't worry about it."

"People are really attracted to bountiful variety, but then when they're in that store that has a lot they suffer as they try to make decisions and they don't buy more."

"The unbelievable catastrophe that is (the Medicare situation) is a prime example of ideology dominating sense. Here the unquestioned assumption that you're making people better off if you give them more choices is just plain wrong. Some people who can't process the intricacies of Medicare are making the choice not to participate at all."

"We felt it would be a great promotion working with a partner like AOL. This is something unique."

"This is just not a world for amateurs. The stakes are higher for things like health care and retirement plans than jeans or cereal."

"Yom Kippur is about personal and community transgressions. The fasting remains a compelling element. The purpose of the ritual observance is to change our ethical observance,"

"There's an ice cream place in Vancouver that has 200 flavors, if you can believe that. But the people who go there end up less satisfied with their purchase than the people who buy their ice cream at a place with only 20 flavors. Yet people are lined up out the door at the place with 200 flavors because it seems like you're more likely to get exactly what you want."

"When I give talks, I lay out the areas of life in which we have decisions to make. Then I tick off everything where there used to be no choice and now there are many -- from romantic relationships and spiritual beliefs to small and large purchases. Nearly everyone I speak to has a problem with choosing something."