Free Will Quotes - Page 12

• 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 American myth is of free will in its simple, primary sense. One can choose oneself and will oneself; and this absurdly optimistic assumption so dominates the republic that it has bred all its gross social injustices.

  John Fowles

  Optimistic, Simple, Republic

  John Fowles (1977). “Daniel Martin”, Jonathan Cape

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• How do we receive the highest mystery of Divine love to us ? the mystery of the Christian faith? With our mind, heart and life; with our free will? Are all the three powers of our souls penetrated by holy faith, as were the souls of the saints? The kingdom of heaven 'is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened' (Lk. 13:21). The three measures are the three powers of the soul.

  John of Kronstadt

  Christian, Heart, Heaven

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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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• It is not our free will but 'it is the Lord who sets the captive free' (Ps. 145:7). It is not our own virtue but 'it is the Lord who lifts up those who were laid low' (Ps. 145:8). It is not application to reading but 'it is the Lord who gives light to the blind' (Ps. 145:8). It is not our cautiousness but 'it is the Lord who protects the stranger' (Ps. 145:9). It is not our endurance but 'it is the Lord who raises or gives support to the fallen' (Ps. 144:14).

  John Cassian

  Christian, Reading, Light

  John Cassian, Colm Luibhéid (1985). “Conferences”, p.95, Paulist Press

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• There is no such thing as unlimited trust. At some point, all beings with free will can, and will, betray you when you're no longer pursuing the same goals.

  Rachel Caine

  Goal, Unlimited, Betray

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• I am an artist, and I have the ability and the free will to choose the way the world will envision me.

  Lady Gaga

  Artist, World, Way

  Interview with Derek Blasberg, www.harpersbazaar.com. April 13, 2011.

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• When the Nobel Committee chose to honor me, the road I had chosen of my own free will became a less lonely path to follow.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Lonely, Honor, Path

  "Suu Kyi To Accept Nobel Peace Prize, Decades Late". "Weekend Edition Saturday" with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. June 16, 2012.

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• Sometimes in life, from out of a myriad of prosaic decisions like what to eat and where to sleep and how to dress, a true crossroads is revealed. In these moments, when the fog of relative irrelevancy lifts and fate rolls out a demand for free will, there is only left or right – no option of four-by-fouring into the underbrush between two paths, no negotiating with the choice that has been presented. You must answer the call and pick your way. And there is no reverse.

  J.R. Ward

  Sleep, Fate, Fog

  J.R. Ward (2009). “Lover Avenged: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood”, p.8, Penguin

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• Dear Sir, poor sir, brave sir." he read, "You are an experiment by the Creator of the Universe. You are the only creature in the entire Universe who has free will. You are the only one who has to figure out what to do next - and why. Everybody else is a robot, a machine. Some persons seem to like you, and others seem to hate you, and you must wonder why. They are simply liking machines and hating machines. You are pooped and demoralized, " read Dwayne. "Why wouldn't you be? Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn't meant to be reasonable.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Hate, Brave, Next

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• You don't have free will when you have lung cancer.

  Bill O'Reilly

  Cancer, Lung Cancer, Lungs

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• I think there's great potential for autonomy, but we have to remember that we live in a world where people may have free will but have not invented their circumstances.

  Thomas Frank

  Thinking, People, World

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• Free will is an empty term.

  John Calvin

  Empty, Term

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• No. I believe in free will. I think we make our own decisions and carry out our own actions. And our actions have consequences. The world is what we make it. But I think sometime we can ask God to help us and He will. Sometime I think He looks down and say, 'Wow, look what those idiots are up to now. I guess I better help them along a little'.

  Michael Grant

  Believe, Thinking, Actions Have Consequences

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• God gave us free will, and we may choose to exercise it in ways that end up hurting other people.

  Francis Collins

  Hurt, Exercise, People

  "Francis Collins: The Scientist as Believer". Interview with John Horgan, ngm.nationalgeographic.com. February, 2007.

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• On the chessboard of his godforsaken existence, the pieces were lined up, the play preordained. Man, so many times in life you didn't get to pick your path because the way you went was decided for you. Free will was such bullshit. -Vishous's thoughts

  J.R. Ward

  Men, Play, Bullshit

  J.R. Ward (2007). “Lover Unbound: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood”, p.86, Penguin

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• they go and set up free-will with the heathen philosophers and say that a man's free will is the cause why God chooseth and not another, contrary to all scriptures.

  William Tyndale

  Men, Causes, Scripture

  William Tyndale (1850). “An Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue: The Supper of the Lord After the True Meaning of John VI. and 1 Cor. XI. And Wm. Tracy's Testament Expounded”, p.191

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• I mean, they call it Stockholm Syndrome and post traumatic stress disorder. And, you know, I had no free will. I had virtually no free will until I was separated from them for about two weeks.

  Patty Hearst

  Stress, Mean, Two

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• Life is a compromise between fate and free will.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Fate, Compromise, Life Is

  Elbert Hubbard (1911). “A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard”

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• The general consent of all that sect is that God (by his foreknowledge, counsel, and wisdom) has no assured election, neither yet any certain reprobation, but that every man may elect or reprobate himself by his own free will, which he has (say they) to do good or evil ... [All these things are] forged by their own brains, and polished by the finest of their wits, when yet in very deed they are but the rotten heresies of ... Pelagius, long ago confuted by Augustine.

  John Knox

  Men, Long Ago, Evil

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• Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will. At least the ancient Greeks were being honest.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Falling In Love, Order, People

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• ... what is really inspiriting and ennobling in the doctrine of freewill, is the conviction that we have real power over the formation of our own character; that our will, by influencing some of our circumstances, can modify our future habits or capabilities of willing.

  John Stuart Mill

  Real, Character, Doctrine

  John Stuart Mill (2015). “Autobiography John Stuart Mill: Top Biography”, p.77, 谷月社

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• Animals that not only move by their own free will and share feelings with people but also possess sight and hearing qualify as deserving of names.

  Haruki Murakami

  Moving, Animal, Sight

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• To be entirely free, and at the same time entirely dominated by law, is the eternal paradox of human life.

  Oscar Wilde

  Law, Paradox, Human Life

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.62, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• The individual man, in introspecting the fact of his own consciousness, also discovers the primordial natural fact of his freedom: his freedom to choose, his freedom to use or not use his reason about any given subject. In short, the natural fact of his "free will." He also discovers the natural fact of his mind's command over his body and its actions: that is, of his natural ownership over his self.

  Murray Rothbard

  Freedom, Men, Self

  Murray N. Rothbard (2015). “The Ethics of Liberty”, p.31, NYU Press

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