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Some make light of decisions, arguing that all possible decisions will occur. In such a world, how could one be responsible for his actions? Others hold that each decision must be considered and committed to, that without commitment there is chaos. Such people are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each.

Alan Lightman
American physicist, science writer, essayist, novelist

Alan Paige Lightman is an American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur. He has served on the faculties of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is currently a Professor of the Practice of the Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Lightman played a major role in establishing MIT's "Communication Requirement," which requires all undergraduates to have training in writing and speaking each of their four years. Lightman was one of the first people at MIT to have a joint faculty position in both the sciences and the humanities. In his thinking and writing, Lightman is known for exploring the intersection of the sciences and the humanities, especially the dialogue between science, philosophy, religion, and spirituality.
Reference: Wikipedia

Most people have learned to live in the moment. The argument goes that if the past has uncertain effect on the present, there is no need to dwell on the past. And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence. Rather, each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own ... It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning.

Alan Lightman
American physicist, science writer, essayist, novelist

Alan Paige Lightman is an American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur. He has served on the faculties of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is currently a Professor of the Practice of the Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Lightman played a major role in establishing MIT's "Communication Requirement," which requires all undergraduates to have training in writing and speaking each of their four years. Lightman was one of the first people at MIT to have a joint faculty position in both the sciences and the humanities. In his thinking and writing, Lightman is known for exploring the intersection of the sciences and the humanities, especially the dialogue between science, philosophy, religion, and spirituality.
Reference: Wikipedia

Say not that honor is the child of boldness, nor believe thou that the hazard of life alone can pay the price of it: it is not to the action that it is due, but to the manner of performing it.

Akhenaton
Egyptian pharaoh in 18th Dynasty

Akhenaten, also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton,, was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning c. 1353–1336 or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Before the fifth year of his reign, he was known as Amenhotep IV.
Reference: Wikipedia

I have a 6-year-old, and his thing is to turn on Radio Disney in the car, and I get such an allergic reaction to listening to that music and the context into which it falls. I'm really working on him about that.

Aimee Mann
American singer-songwriter

Aimee Elizabeth Mann is an American singer-songwriter. Over the course of four decades, she has released more than a dozen albums as a solo artist and with other musicians. She is noted for her sardonic and literate lyrics about dark subjects. Her work with the producer Jon Brion in the 1990s was influential on American alternative music.
Reference: Wikipedia

Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.

Agatha Christie
English mystery and detective writer (1890–1976)

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, was a British writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End since 1952, as well as six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
Reference: Wikipedia

I continued to do arithmetic with my father, passing proudly through fractions to decimals. I eventually arrived at the point where so many cows ate so much grass, and tanks filled with water in so many hours I found it quite enthralling.

Agatha Christie
English mystery and detective writer (1890–1976)

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, was a British writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End since 1952, as well as six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
Reference: Wikipedia

Dreams grow holy put in action.

Adelaide Anne Procter
English poet and songwriter (1825-1864)

Adelaide Anne Procter was an English poet and philanthropist.
Reference: Wikipedia

Unless action is taken soon - unless we can display the same vision of that earlier period - we will lose the treasure of California's open space and environmental beauty.

Adam Schiff
U.S. Representative from California

Adam Bennett Schiff is an American lawyer, author, and politician who has served as a U.S. representative since 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, he has represented California's 28th congressional district since 2013.
Reference: Wikipedia

Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.

Adam Ferguson
Scottish philosopher and historian

Adam Ferguson,, also known as Ferguson of Raith, was a Scottish philosopher and historian of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Reference: Wikipedia

Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed.

Abraham Lincoln
president of the United States from 1861 to 1865

Abraham Lincoln was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War and succeeded in preserving the Union, abolishing slavery, bolstering the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.
Reference: Wikipedia