Free Will Quotes - Page 17

• Free will is to mind what chance is to matter.

  Charles Darwin

  Science, Mind, Matter

  Charles Darwin, Thomas F. Glick, David Kohn (1996). “On Evolution: The Development of the Theory of Natural Selection”, p.78, Hackett Publishing

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• I'm convinced that we can write and live our own scripts more than most people will acknowledge. I also know the price that must be paid. It's a real struggle to do it. It requires visualization and affirmation. It involves living a life of integrity, starting with making and keeping promises, until the whole human personality the senses, the thinking, the feeling, and the intuition are ultimately integrated and harmonized.

  Stephen Covey

  Integrity, Real, Struggle

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• The Now is as it is because it cannot be otherwise. What Buddhists have always known, physicists now confirm: there are no isolated things or events. Underneath the surface appearance, all things are interconnected, are part of the totality of the cosmos that has brought about the form that this moment takes.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Buddhist, Cosmos, Events

  Eckhart Tolle (2003). “Stillness Speaks”, p.43, New World Library

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• Nothing perceivable is real.Your attachment is your bondage. You cannot control the future.There is no such thing as free will. Will is bondage.You identify yourself with your desires and become their slave.

  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  Real, Attachment, Desire

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• Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. . Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Choices, Awareness, Found

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• You know, it’s the same thing as the question of free will and destiny, the question of creativity - you, the artist, you’re not the puppet of the piano, you’re not the puppet of the muse, but you’re not its master, either. It’s a relationship, it’s a conversation, and all it wants is to be treated with respect and dignity - and it will return ten thousand times over.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Creativity, Artist, Destiny

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• What is a human-like droid that operates from a place of free will and has been designed to have a soul? That's fascinating stuff that you just can't quite comprehend quickly. It's not like playing a fireman with a wife and kid. You can gauge where that's going to go and what's going to happen, and you can talk to other people who have done it.

  Michael Ealy

  Kids, Wife, People

  "Michael Ealy Talks ALMOST HUMAN, Connection to His Character, Finding His Performance, Approaching the Humor, and More". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. December 8, 2013.

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• For if good were not praised more than ill,
  None would chuse goodness of his own free will.

  Edmund Spenser

  Praise, Goodness, Ifs

  Edmund Spenser, John Aikin (1810). “Hymns. Visions. Elegiac poems”, p.266

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• Who would ever care to do brave deed,
  Or strive in virtue others to excel,
  If none should yield him his deserved meed
  Due praise, that is the spur of doing well?
  For if good were not praised more than ill,
  None would choose goodness of his own free will.

  Edmund Spenser

  Yield, Brave, Spurs

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• The good we have enjoyed from Heaven's free will, and shall we murmur to endure the ill?

  John Dryden

  Heaven, Endure, Resignation

  John Dryden (1808). “Dramatic works”, p.162

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• Much serious thought has been devoted to the subject of chocolate: What does chocolate mean? Is the pursuit of chocolate a right or a privilege? Does the notion of chocolate preclude the concept of free will?

  Sandra Boynton

  Mean, Chocolate, Doe

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• You have the illusion of free will, but, in fact, that illusion comes about because you don't know the future. Because you are a prisoner of the present, forever locked in transition, between the past and the future.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Past, Forever, Facts

  Source: abcnews.go.com

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• Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Integrity, Lying, Mean

  Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.115, Macmillan

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• If you do not assume the law of non-contradiction, you have nothing to argue about. If you do not assume the principles of sound reason, you have nothing to argue with. If you do not assume libertarian free will, you have no one to argue against. If you do not assume morality to be an objective commodity, you have no reason to argue in the first place.

  William J. Murray

  Law, Sound, Principles

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• Once various forms were signed, I was separated from my free will, led down the corridors into a room which was now to be the boundary of my existence, told to surrender my clothes, handed that comic invention, the hospital gown, and sent to bed in broad daylight like a child being stripped of her privileges.

  Dorothy West

  Children, Clothes, Bed

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• The only way God could impose peace on the world would be to robotize our wills and rob every human being of the power of choice. He has not chosen to do that. He has given every person a free will.

  John Haggai

  God, Choices, Would Be

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• I was very fierce and very driven at eighteen. But my basic philosophy I think has stayed the same, I'm still an atheist, I still believe strongly in the power of free will (despite the mysticism in my prose). I don't believe in the notion of a pre-ordained destiny, and I think because of the sudden death of my father at sixteen I learnt then that it is essential to live life to the fullest as it could be snatched away at any second.

  Tobsha Learner

  Atheist, Father, Philosophy

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• Hence, at the moment of the creation of the universe, God could also have activated evolution, with full knowledge of how it would turn out, perhaps even including our having this conversation. The idea that he could both foresee the future and also give us spirit and free will to carry out our own desires becomes entirely acceptable.

  Richard Dawkins

  Ideas, Giving, Desire

  Source: inters.org

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• adolescence is a sort of underworld we have to live through. Everything is in us, even vice and crime. At the same time we discover free will. I wonder that it doesn't tear us off our bases for good and all.

  Grace Zaring Stone

  Tears, Vices, Wonder

  Ethel Vance, Grace Zaring Stone (1942). “Reprisal”

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• I know that I have still before me a difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Zero, Humility, Men

  Mahatma Gandhi (1980). “All Men are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections”, p.35, A&C Black

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• Never forget that we are more than the genetic code. We can be more than labels applied to us. We can be more than what others whisper behind our backs. Free will exists. We need to choose to be the best we can be and we need to help others do the same. Believe in yourself.

  Sophie Jordan

  Believe, Helping Others, Needs

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• I wonder whether being a scientists daughter makes you so conflicted about free will and fate.

  Lucy Hawking

  Daughter, Fate, Wonder

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• Camping has become one of my most beloved pastimes. I take a fierce delight in swinging a pak o my back or into a canoe and heading for the hills or lakes. In my opinion, camping can be the greatest expression of free will, personal independence, innate ability, and resourcefulness possible today in our industrialized, urbanized existence. Regardless of how miserable or how splendid the circumstances, the sheer experience of camping seems a total justification for doing it.

  Anne LaBastille

  Lakes, Expression, Independence

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• According to Buddhism, individuals are masters of their own destiny. And all living beings are believed to possess the nature of the Primordial Buddha Samantabhadra, the potential or seed of enlightenment, within them. So our future is in our own hands. What greater free will do we need?

  Dalai Lama

  Buddhism, Destiny, Hands

  Dalai Lama (2004). “Dzogchen: The Heart Essence of the Great Perfection”, Snow Lion Publication

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• If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined; it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined.

  Mark Helprin

  Simple, Answers, Determined

  Mark Helprin (1983). “Winter's Tale”, p.414, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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