Free Will Quotes

• Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.

  Jawaharlal Nehru

  Life, Motivational, Inspiring

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  I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.

  Stephen Hawking

  Life, Change, Philosophy

  Stephen W. Hawking (1993). “Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays”, Bantam

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• A man can surely do what he wills to do, but cannot determine what he wills.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Men, Determine

  42 Copy quote

• Fate and free will are equally powerful forces but I consider free will to be more important as it is your free will that determines your fate.

  Vyasa

  Powerful, Fate, Important

  63 Copy quote

• We must believe in free will - we have no choice.

  Isaac Bashevis Singer

  Believe, Choices, Literature

  "Isaac Singer's Promised City". "City Journal", Summer 1997.

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• The forces of good and evil are working within and around me, I must choose, and in a free will universe I do have a choice.

  Martin Luther

  Evil, Choices, Force

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• I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,' accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper.

  Albert Einstein

  Believe, Men, Acting

  24 Copy quote

• Man is free at the instant he wants to be.

  Voltaire

  Inspirational, Life, Spiritual

  "Brutus". Play by Voltaire (Act II, Scene I), 1730.

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• In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Mind, Wish, Lasts

  Baruch Spinoza (1981). “Ethics”, p.82, Commodius Vicus

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• I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will...Practically, I am, nevertheless, compelled to act as if freedom of the will existed. If I wish to live in a civilized community, I must act as if man is a responsible being.

  Albert Einstein

  Believe, Men, Community

  Source: jonrappoport.wordpress.com

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• Human beings, in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free agents but are as causally bound as the stars in their motion.

  Albert Einstein

  Stars, Thinking, Feelings

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• My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.

  William James

  Believe, Firsts

  Diary, 30 Apr. 1870

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• Free will is an illusion. People always choose the perceived path of greatest pleasure.

  Scott Adams

  People, Path, Illusion

  14 Copy quote

• If there really is a complete unified theory that governs everything, it presumably also determines your actions. But it does so in a way that is impossible to calculate for an organism that is as complicated as a human being. The reason we say that humans have free will is because we can't predict what they will do.

  Stephen Hawking

  Doe, Way, Action

  5 Copy quote

• Evil comes from the ABUSE of free will

  C. S. Lewis

  Evil, Abuse

  36 Copy quote

• Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated
  are confident they are acting on their own free will.

  Joseph Goebbels

  Acting, Propaganda

  4556 Copy quote

• Life calls the tune, we dance.

  John Galsworthy

  Fate, Destiny, Tunes

  John Galsworthy “Five Tales”, Lulu.com

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• There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow.

  William Shakespeare

  Fall, Special, Hamlet And Ophelia

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 5, sc. 2, l. [232]

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• And I will go as far as Martin Luther, in that strong assertion of his, where he says, "If any man ascribes any of salvation, even the very least, to the free-will of man, he knows nothing of grace, and he has not learned Jesus Christ aright."

  Charles Spurgeon

  Jesus, Men, Grace

  "God's Will, Man's Will and Free Will".

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• The greatest gift God gave us is also our greatest curse, which is the free will. We are made in God's image, the Bible says, which means we have the ability to love him or not love him, to reject him or not reject him.

  Rick Warren

  Mean, Ability To Love, Made

  7 Copy quote

• I have free will, but not of my own choice. I have never freely chosen to have free will. I have to have free will, whether I like it or not!

  Raymond Smullyan

  Choices, Chosen, My Own

  Raymond M. Smullyan, Jason Rosenhouse (2014). “Four Lives: A Celebration of Raymond Smullyan”, p.305, Courier Corporation

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• You can't have it both ways. You can't have both free will and a benevolent higher power who protects you from yourself.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Way, Protect You, Higher Power

  Arthur C. Clarke, Gentry Lee (2012). “Rama Revealed”, p.529, RosettaBooks

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• The initial configuration of the universe may have been chosen by God, or it may itself have been determined by the laws of science. In either case, it would seem that everything in the universe would then be determined by evolution according to the laws of science, so it is difficult to see how we can be masters of our fate.

  Stephen Hawking

  Fate, Law, May

  8 Copy quote

• But man is freer than all the animals, on account of his free-will, with which he is endowed above all other animals.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Animal, Men, Accounts

  St Thomas Aquinas (2013). “Summa Theologica, Volume 2 (Part II, First Section)”, p.996, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Free will without fate is no more conceivable than spirit without matter, good without evil.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Fate, Evil, Matter

  "Fatum und Geschichte" by Friedrich Nietzsche, April 1862.

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