Free Will Quotes

428 Free Will quotes by 307 unique authors

Every one knows that the heavenly bodies move in certain paths in relation to each other with seeming consistency and regularity which we call [physical]… — Clarence Darrow
...one doubts existence of free will [because] every action determined by heredity, constitution, example of others or teaching of others." "This view should teach one… — Charles Darwin
The inward persuasion that we are free to do, or not to do a thing, is but a mere illusion. If we trace the true… — Baron d'Holbach
If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it… — Albert Einstein
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… — Albert Einstein
I agree with your remark about loving your enemy as far as actions are concerned. But for me the cognitive basis is the trust in… — Albert Einstein
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
I should . . . prefer swallowing one incomprehensibility rather than two. It requires one effort only to admit the single incomprehensibility of matter endowed… — Thomas Jefferson
All theory is against free will; all experience is for it. — Samuel Johnson
The human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control. — Abraham Lincoln
When a man acts in ways that annoy us we wish to think him wicked, and we refuse to face the fact that his annoying… — Bertrand Russell
You are free to do what you want, but you are not free to want what you want. — Arthur Schopenhauer
Where are there are two desires in a man's heart he has no choice between the two but must obey the strongest, there being no… — Mark Twain
The most intellectual of men are moved quite as much by the circumstances which they are used to as by their own will. The active… — Walter Bagehot
Whereas the Greeks gave to will the boundaries of reason, we have come to put the will's impulse in the very center of reason, which… — Albert Camus
Fatalism, whose solving word in all crises of behavior is All striving is vain, will never reign supreme, for the impulse to take life strivingly… — William James
Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has… — Georg C. Lichtenberg
I'm going to kill that god of yours, next. Then we'll see what you can do, and what you can't. — Janet Morris
It can even come about that a created will cancels out, not perhaps the exertion, but the result of divine action; for in this sense,… — Joseph de Maistre
One lot apiece, one chance to undo an error or secure a fate. — Janet Morris
We are all bound to the throne of the Supreme Being by a flexible chain which restrains without enslaving us. The most wonderful aspect of… — Joseph de Maistre
Here and now was always where Tempus was, not off somewhere in the realm of Greater Good or Mortal Soul or Eternal Consequence. He'd lost… — Janet Morris
The strongest knowledge (that of the total freedom of the human will) is nonetheless the poorest in successes: for it always has the strongest opponent,… — Friedrich Nietzsche
Every woman who chooses - joyfully, thoughtfully, calmly, of their own free will and desire - not to have a child does womankind a massive… — Caitlin Moran
The conundrum of free will and destiny has always kept me dangling. — William Shatner

Who Wrote These Free Will Quotes

307 authors contributed a total of 428 Free Will Quotes, led by these top contributors: