"Falling ill is not something that happens to us, it is a choice we make as a result of things happening to us."

Choice

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Thematic Reflection

This quotation examines the core nature of Choice as articulated by Jonathan Miller. Within historical and literary traditions, reflections on Choice provide actionable mental models, challenging individuals to evaluate personal ethics, self-discipline, and daily actions.

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About Jonathan Miller

Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE was an English theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, comedian and physician. After training in medicine and specialising in neurology in the late 1950s, he came to prominence in the early 1960s in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett. He popularized anatomy in The Body in Question.

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More by Jonathan Miller

"Science is a self-sufficient activity."

— Jonathan Miller
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"The thing about science is that it's an accurate picture of the world."

— Jonathan Miller
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More about Choice

"It is a subtle truth that bravery is born the moment you decide your values outweigh your comforts — an essential principle for the reflective life."

— Donald Barthelme
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"Leadership is not a title, it is the realization that every choice we make paints the canvas of our life."

— Samuel Hopkins Adams
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"Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization."

— Marquis de Sade
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"I wish I had coined the phrase 'tyranny of choice,' but someone beat me to it. The counterintuitive truth is that have an abundance of options does not make you feel privileged and indulged too many options make you feel like all of them are wrong, and that you are wrong if you choose any of them."

— Susan Orlean
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