Free-will Quotes

You are not the happy, unthinking child you have always appeared to be, accepting everything at its ...

There's such a thing as free will, Tanner. You didn't have to go along with me, unless you want to a...

Honestly, I cannot understand what people mean when they talk about the freedom of the human will. I...

I felt that the metal of my spirit, like a bar of iron that is softened and bent by a persistent fla...

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom...

The thoughts of a prisoner—they're not free either. They kept returning to the same things. A single...

Remember your connection with the cosmos. Remember your connection with the infinity and that rememb...

You have a perfect right to consign us all to hell, rector, but you must allow us the choice of how ...

The single word that directs a person’s fate and ultimately the fates of those she comes in contact ...

We're a government that believes in everybody having the illusion of free will.

Virtue lies in our power, and similarly so does vice; because where it is in our power to act, it is...

A man can do as he will, but not will as he will.

You can do what you will: but at each given moment of your life you can will only one determined thi...

Spinoza says that if a stone which has been projected through the air, had consciousness, it would b...

The choices we’re working with here are a block universe, where past, present and future all coexist...

That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call ‘free will’ i...

Free will is the sensation of making a choice. The sensation is real, but the choice seems illusory....

The sin both of men and of angels, was rendered possible by the fact that God gave us free will.

If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possibl...

The whole struggle was over, and yet there seemed to have been no moment of victory. You might say, ...

God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some peopl...

Time is the very lens through which ye see—small and clear, as men see through the wrong end of a te...

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those t...

For you will certainly carry out God's purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you wh...

It is possible to become discouraged about the injustice we see everywhere. But God did not promise ...

The same way a compact disk isn't responsible for what's recorded on it, that's how we are. You're a...

Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to...

There are a lot of myths which make the human race cruel and barbarous and unkind. Good and Evil, Si...

Were these boys in their right minds? Here were two boys with good intellect, one eighteen and one n...

Every instinct that is found in any man is in all men. The strength of the emotion may not be so ove...

He sat a long time and he thought about his life and how little of it he could ever have foreseen an...

They are talking like fools. They are saying that two and two make nothing. They are saying that a m...

Your personal will is the web your disease sits and spins in. The will you call your own ceased to b...

In a universe in which past, present, and future came into existence all at once, complete from begi...

...your life is yours to shape as you wish with free will...

Fate isn't a straight road," I said, becoming the oracle that earlier in the day I had declined to b...

You can change the road you take, but sometimes it can bend back to lead you straight to that same s...

Free will," she agreed, "our greatest gift, the thing that makes life worth living, in spite of all ...

This secular Leftist denial of human free will is one of the reasons the Left recoils from labeling ...

We gallop through our lives like circus performers balancing on two speeding side-by-side horses--on...

There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under my jurisdiction...

You can let yourself off the hook anytime you want, Liz. That's the divine contract of a little some...

To be a god can ultimately become boring and degrading. There'd be reason enough for the invention o...

It has occurred to me more than once that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the inventi...

And because God's love is uncoercive and treasures our freedom - if above all he wants us to love hi...

If we are to believe he is really alive with all that that implies, then we have to believe without ...

It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable; it is precisely thereby that i...

...we are concluding falsely that we can deduce the justification, the rational admissibility of dis...

The wind from the Caribbean blew in the windows along with the racket made by the birds, and Fermina...

My method is atheism. I find the atheistic outlook provides a favourable background for cosmopolitan...

Man doeth this and doeth that from the good or evil of his heart; but he knows not to what end his s...

Life's no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe's my own to fool with.

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty.

Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; ...

Thus he has two standpoints from which he can consider himself...: first, as belonging to the world ...

...in its practical purpose the footpath of freedom is the only one on which it is possible to make ...

This, for both Schopenhauer and Tolstoy, is the central tragedy of human life; if only men would lea...

I could not 'make' you--except by force, which would break your mind.

Our flesh shrinks from what it dreads and responds to the stimulus of what it desires by a purely re...

Zombies are familiar characters in philosophical thought experiments. They are like people in every ...

God isn't about making good things happen to you, or bad things happen to you. He's all about you ma...

Harry, life isn't simple. There is such a thing as black and white. Right and wrong. But when you're...

I think my dad was so fascinated by this idea because he realizedon some fundamental level that he w...

Liberty is not an Idea belonging to Volition, or preferring; but to the Person having the Power of d...

So saving grace, converting grace, for Augustine, is God's giving us a sovereign joy in God that tri...

So saving grace, converting grace, for Augustine, is God's giving us a sovereign joy in God that tri...

So saving grace, converting grace, for Augustine, is God's giving us a sovereign joy in God that tri...

So saving grace, converting grace, for Augustine, is God's giving us a sovereign joy in God that tri...

He who let's the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of an...

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please.

What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of s...

You can’t change the past. You can’t even change the future, in the sense that you can only change t...

Each man lives for himself, uses his freedom to achieve his personal goals, and feels with his whole...

You say: I am not free. But I have raised and lowered my arm. Everyone understands that this illogic...

Having learnt from experiment and argument that a stone falls downwards, a man indubitably believes ...

Any good world would allow for us to have free will, yes?" he continued. "Can we agree to this point...

If we are to make progress, we must not repeat history but make new history. We must add to inherita...

When the Rabbis stated that obedience or disobedience to the commandments depends not on the will of...

When the whole world is silent,Even one voice becomes powerful.

[Research] suggests that what we think of as free will is largely an illusion: much of the time, we ...

Was this a betrayal, or was it an act of courage? Perhaps both. Neither one involves forethought: su...

The process of miraculous change is twofold.  One:  I see my error or dysfunctional pattern.  Two: I...

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of m...

Stress can alter the expression of genes, which can affect the response to stress and so on. Human b...

This is one of man's oldest riddles. How can the independence of human volition be harmonized with t...

Yet our ability to exercise free will and transcend the most extraordinary obstacles does not make t...

Annushka has already bought the sunflower oil, and has not only bought it, but has already spilled i...

Then why do we do so many bad things?He sighed. “Because one thing God gave us—and I’m afraid it’s a...

The idea of original sin--of guilt with no possibility of innocence, no freedom of choice, no altern...

And so from then onwards, Daniel understood that the point of this grueling sundial project was not ...

This is one of the two great labyrinths into which human minds are drawn: the question of free will ...

Human beings do not like being pushed about by gods. They may seem to, on the surface, but somewhere...

Each of us, A CEll Of Awareness... imperfect, and incomplete.Genetic blends, with uncertain ends.

[...T]he ways of God have been manifested beyond example: the sea is divided, the cloud has led the ...

God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which ...

What remains to be done must be done by you; since in order not to deprive us of our free will and s...

I shall decide what I do. If you say my work is fighting, or healing, or exploring, or whatever you ...

We ought to regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its antecedent state and as th...

Since man always remains free and since his freedom is always fragile, the kingdom of good will neve...

...our free will could convert a curse into a blessing or a blessing into a curse...To transform a c...