Free Will Quotes - Page 11

• Free will is a golden thread running through the frozen matrix of fixed events.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Running, Events, Frozen

  Robert A. Heinlein (2009). “The Rolling Stones”, p.154, Baen Publishing Enterprises

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• There cannot be two absolutely free beings in the universe, for sooner or later two completely free wills must collide.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Two, Collide, Sooner Or Later

  Aiden Wilson Tozer (1965). “The Knowledge of the Holy”, p.11, Fig

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• You are not bound. You have got free will. You cannot change the experiences, the results of Prarabdha but you can change your future by right thinking and right action and thus make your will pure and irresistible. You can attain Self-realisatio n with the help of a dynamic will.

  Sivananda

  Thinking, Self, Helping

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• The belief in free-will is not in the least incompatible with the belief in Providence, provided you do not restrict the Providence to fulminating nothing but fatal decrees.

  William James

  Belief, Decree, Providence

  William James (1956). “The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality”, p.180, Courier Corporation

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• Similarly, knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will. What made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to that future, including telling others what I know: those who know the future don't talk about it. Those who've read the Book of Ages never admit to it.

  Ted Chiang

  Book, Exercise, Choices

  Ted Chiang (2010). “Stories of Your Life and Others”, p.137, Knopf

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• New ideas emerge of their own free will if they are allowed to.

  David Toop

  Ideas, New Ideas, Ifs

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• The contingency of history (both for life in general and for the cultures of Homo sapiens ) and human free will (in the factual rather than theological sense) are conjoined concepts, and no better evidence can be produced than the "experimental" production of markedly different solutions in identical environments.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Different, Culture, Environment

  Stephen Jay Gould (1993). “Eight little piggies: reflections in natural history”, Vintage

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• It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions. One man's religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion, to which free will and not force should lead us.

  Tertullian

  Nature, Men, Religion

  Tertullian (2012). “The Sacred Writings of Tertullian (Annotated Edition)”, p.247, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Human character is never found "to enter into its glory," except through the ordeal of affliction. Its force cannot come forth without the offer of resistance, nor can the grandeur of its free will declare itself, except in the battle of fierce temptation.

  James Martineau

  Character, Temptation, Battle

  James Martineau (1879). “Hours of thought on sacred things, sermons”

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• Internal differences within the Nation of Islam forced me out of it. I did not leave of my own free will. But now that it has happened, I intend to make the most of it. Now that I have more independence of action, I intend to use a more flexible approach toward working with others to get a solution to this problem.

  Malcolm X

  Differences, Independence, Islam

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• The power of free will is developed and confirmed by increasing the number of worthy motives which influence conduct.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Numbers, Influence, Worthy

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• Start it at no particular time of your life; wander at your free will all over your life; talk only about the thing which interests you for the moment; drop it the moment its interest threatens to pale.

  Mark Twain

  Over You, Moments, Pale

  Mark Twain (2012). “My Autobiography: "Chapters" from the North American Review”, p.4, Courier Corporation

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• All of us prepare our own lunch. If we don't like our jobs, if we don't like the state of our relationships, if we don't like what's happening to our spiritual lives - we have no one to blame but ourselves. Because God has given us free will.

  Bo Sanchez

  Spiritual, Jobs, Lunch

  Bo Sanchez “You Have The Power To Create Love”, Shepherds Voice Publications, Inc.

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• All our wanting comes from needs, thus we continiously suffer. The intellect teaches free will, free from suffering.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Suffering, Needs, Teach

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• For when you see that the universe cannot be distinguished from how you act upon it, there is neither fate nor free will, self nor other. There is simply one all-inclusive Happening, in which your personal sensation of being alive occurs in just the same way as the river flowing and the stars shining far out in space. There is no question of submitting or accepting or going with it, for what happens in and as you is no different from what happens as it.

  Alan Watts

  Stars, Fate, Self

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• The loss of free will I find unacceptable - what most of us refer to as rights.

  Kristin Bauer van Straten

  Loss, Rights

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• I made the assumption, wrong of course, that conceptual analysis was a brief preliminary on the road to finding out about the nature of free will, consciousness, the self, the origin of values, and so forth.

  Patricia Churchland

  Self, Analysis, Assumption

  "Causal machines". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. April 10, 2012.

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• If we want to try again, then try again. The point is we have free will to act and accomplish along with the peace of knowing whatever happens is what needs to happen in order for nature to fulfill its destiny, which we are part of.

  Bryan Kest

  Destiny, Order, Knowing

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• I believe since we’ve all been given free will, let’s use our will to let others be free. Gay and lesbian couples believe in commitment, family and love.

  Mo'Nique Imes-Jackson

  Couple, Believe, Commitment

  "Mo’Nique Speaks Out In Favor Of Marriage Equality". www.huffingtonpost.com. October 26, 2011.

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• ... we disallow papistical doctrines of free will, of works of supererogation, of merits, of the necessity of auricular confession, and satisfaction to God-wards.

  Robert Ferrar

  Doctrine, Satisfaction, Merit

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• It seems to me that the term 'free will' is one of the most manipulated and exploited terms. The real explanation of free will is not that you have free will but that your will can eventually make you free, that will can liberate you, that will can release you from slavery.

  Torkom Saraydarian

  Motivational, Real, Slavery

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• We know what works: freedom works. We know what's right: freedom is right. We know how to secure a more and just and prosperous life for man on earth: through free markets, free speech, free elections and the exercise of free will unhampered by the state.

  George H. W. Bush

  Exercise, Men, Presidential

  Presidential Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1989

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• Lotus-land as it appears in 'Free Will' is simply a metaphor for an idealized background, a 'land of milk and honey.' It is sometimes also used as a pejorative name for Los Angeles, though that was not in my mind when I wrote it.

  Neil Peart

  Milk And Honey, Land, Names

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• A human best, which is very little. Its hard to accept the idea that there cannot be an order in the universe because it would offend the free will of God and His omnipotence. So the freedom of God is our condemnation, or at least the condemnation of our pride.

  Umberto Eco

  Pride, Order, Omnipotence

  Umberto Eco (2014). “The Name of the Rose”, p.528, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Consciousness is a pitiful hostage of its flesh-envelope, whose surges, circuits, and secret murmurings it cannot stay or speed. This is the chthonian drama that has no climax but only an enedless round, cycle upon cycle. Microcosm mirrors macrocosm. Free will is stillborn in the red cells of our body, for there is no free will in nature. Our choices come to us prepackaged and special delivery, molded by hands not our own.

  Camille Paglia

  Drama, Mirrors, Cells

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