--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: To believe that will has power over…" description: "\"To believe that will has power over potentiality, that the passage to actuality is the result of a decision that puts an end to the ambiguity of potent..." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8e1/giorgio-agamben-29169_actuality_to-believe-that-will-has-power-over-pote_2259714.jpg" --- # To believe that will has power over potentiality, that the… ![“To believe that will has power over potentiality, that the passage to actuality is the result of a decision that puts an end to the ambiguity of potentiality (which is always potentiality to do and not to do) — this is the perpetual illusion of morality.” quote by Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8e1/giorgio-agamben-29169_actuality_to-believe-that-will-has-power-over-pote_2259714.jpg) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8e1/giorgio-agamben-29169_actuality_to-believe-that-will-has-power-over-pote_2259714.jpg) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8e1/giorgio-agamben-29169_actuality_to-believe-that-will-has-power-over-pote_2259714.jpg) > “To believe that will has power over potentiality, that the passage to actuality is the result of a decision that puts an end to the ambiguity of potentiality (which is always potentiality to do and not to do) — this is the perpetual illusion of morality.” [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. The quote argues that morality is an illusion that treats potential actions as fixed outcomes, ignoring the inherent ambiguity of possibilities. **In simple terms:** Morality pretends to fix what could be, but possibilities stay ambiguous. Key Takeaway Recognize the fluidity of choices and avoid rigid moral judgments. Themes philosophy ethics existentialism Mood reflective critical thoughtful Type philosophical analytical When to use this quote - personal decision making - ethical debates - creative problem solving - conflict resolution Key Concepts potentiality decision theory illusion ambiguity Questions to Reflect On - How does recognizing ambiguity change your moral judgments? - Can we act responsibly without fixed moral frameworks? A Different Perspective It may overlook the role of societal norms that shape perceptions of morality. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet [Actuality](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/actuality/) [Ambiguity](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/ambiguity/) [Decision](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/decision/) [Illusion](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/illusion/) [Morality](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/morality/) [Potentiality](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/potentiality/) ## Related quotes > [Now, nothing can be brought from potentiality to actual existence except through something actually existing](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-aquinas/now-nothing-can-be-brought-from-potentiality-to-actual-existence/) [Thomas Aquinas](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-aquinas/) > [When I say that you are gods and goddesses I mean that your possibility is infinite, your potentiality is infinite.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rajneesh/when-i-say-that-you-are-gods-and-goddesses-i-mean-that-your/) [Rajneesh](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rajneesh/) > [Potentially evil. Potentially good, too, I suppose. Just this huge powerful potentiality waiting to be shaped.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/neil-gaiman/potentially-evil-potentially-good-too-i-suppose-just-this-huge/) [Neil Gaiman](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/neil-gaiman/) > [ “\[T\]he great, irreplaceable potentiality of fiction is that it makes possible the imagining of possibilities.” ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/amitav-ghosh/t-he-great-irreplaceable-potentiality-of-fiction-is-that-it-makes/) [Amitav Ghosh](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/amitav-ghosh/) > [“Procrastination is an eclipse to your true potential.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/neeraj-agnihotri/procrastination-is-an-eclipse-to-your-true-potential/) [Neeraj Agnihotri](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/neeraj-agnihotri/) > [To me it seems not unreasonable to find a re-enforcement of optimism, a renewal of courage and hope, in the modern theory that man…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/james-russell-lowell/to-me-it-seems-not-unreasonable-to-find-a-re-enforcement-of-optimism/) [James Russell Lowell](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/james-russell-lowell/) > [ Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart. \[On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning \] ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/haruki-murakami/potentiality-knocks-on-the-door-of-my-heart-on-seeing-the-100-perfect/) [Haruki Murakami](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/haruki-murakami/) > [“We have no idea what lies ahead or how God will open doors of potentiality when we consciously choose to get out of the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/luci-swindoll/we-have-no-idea-what-lies-ahead-or-how-god-will-open-doors-of/) [Luci Swindoll](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/luci-swindoll/) > [As I think about anyone or anything -- whether history or literature or my father or political organizations or a poem or a film…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/june-jordan/as-i-think-about-anyone-or-anything-whether-history-or-literature-or/) [June Jordan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/june-jordan/) > [Every individual has the potentiality to become enlightened in the course of this life or later existences](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anagarika-govinda/every-individual-has-the-potentiality-to-become-enlightened-in-the/) [Anagarika Govinda](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anagarika-govinda/) > [“Every body should be given the chance and the necessary support to unearth their full potential.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lailah-gifty-akita/every-body-should-be-given-the-chance-and-the-necessary-support-to/) [Lailah Gifty Akita](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lailah-gifty-akita/) > [The potentiality of perfection outweighs actual contradictions... Existence in itself is here to prove that it cannot be an evil.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rabindranath-tagore/the-potentiality-of-perfection-outweighs-actual-contradictions/) [Rabindranath Tagore](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rabindranath-tagore/) > [“she loves the potentiality and the reality of each friend.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/dean-koontz/she-loves-the-potentiality-and-the-reality-of-each-friend/) [Dean Koontz](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/dean-koontz/) > [Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/potentiality-knocks-on-the-door-of-my-heart/) [Anonymous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anonymous/) > [Our essential nature is one of pure potentiality.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/deepak-chopra/our-essential-nature-is-one-of-pure-potentiality/) [Deepak Chopra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/deepak-chopra/) ## More by Giorgio Agamben > [One day humanity will play with law just as children play with disused objects, not in order to restore them to their canonical use…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/one-day-humanity-will-play-with-law-just-as-children-play-with/) [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) > [“The friend is not another I, but an otherness immanent in selfness, a becoming other of the self. At the point at which I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/the-friend-is-not-another-i-but-an-otherness-immanent-in-selfness-a/) [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) > [Life and death are not properly scientific concepts but rather political concepts, which as such acquire a political meaning precisely only through a decision.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/life-and-death-are-not-properly-scientific-concepts-but-rather/) [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) > [The camp is the space that is opened when the state of exception begins to become the rule.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/the-camp-is-the-space-that-is-opened-when-the-state-of-exception/) [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) > [Modern totalitarianism can be defined as the establishment, by means of the state of exception, of a legal civil war that allows for the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/modern-totalitarianism-can-be-defined-as-the-establishment-by-means/) [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) > [“Further expanding the already large class of Foucauldian apparatuses, I shall cal an apparatus literally anything that has in some way the capacity to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/further-expanding-the-already-large-class-of-foucauldian-apparatuses/) [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) > [“ ...there is no head of state in the world today who is not in virtuality a criminal . Those who shoulder the dreary…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/there-is-no-head-of-state-in-the-world-today-who-is-not-in-virtuality/) [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) > [In the eyes of authority - and maybe rightly so - nothing looks more like a terrorist than the ordinary man.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/in-the-eyes-of-authority-and-maybe-rightly-so-nothing-looks-more-like/) [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) > [Those who are truly contemporary are those who neither perfectly coincide with their time nor adapt to its demands...Contemporariness, then, is that relationship with…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/those-who-are-truly-contemporary-are-those-who-neither-perfectly/) [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) > [“As is well known, what characterizes both the Fascist and Nazi regimes is that they allowed the existing constitutions (the Albertine Statute and the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/as-is-well-known-what-characterizes-both-the-fascist-and-nazi-regimes/) [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) > [God did not die; he was transformed into money](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/god-did-not-die-he-was-transformed-into-money/) [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) > [Remembrance restores possibility to the past, making what happened incomplete and completing what never was. Remembrance is neither what happened nor what did not…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/remembrance-restores-possibility-to-the-past-making-what-happened/) [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) > [The coming being is whatever being.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/the-coming-being-is-whatever-being/) [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) > [“The fracture between theology and oikonomia, being and action, insofar as it makes the praxis free and 'anarchic', opens in fact, at the same…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/the-fracture-between-theology-and-oikonomia-being-and-action-insofar/) [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) > [“The Japanese psychiatrist Kimura Bin, director of the Psychiatric Hos- pital of Kyoto and translator of Binswanger, sought to deepen Heidegger’s anal- ysis of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/the-japanese-psychiatrist-kimura-bin-director-of-the-psychiatric-hos/) [Giorgio Agamben](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) [Explore all 16 Giorgio Agamben quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/) ## More Actuality quotes > [When indeed shall we learn that we are all related one to the other, that we are all members of one body? Until the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/helen-keller/when-indeed-shall-we-learn-that-we-are-all-related-one-to-the-other/) [Helen Keller](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/helen-keller/) > [If the theme is simple, you can include a hundred details that create the illusion of actuality better.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/satyajit-ray/if-the-theme-is-simple-you-can-include-a-hundred-details-that-create/) [Satyajit Ray](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/satyajit-ray/) > [The superhero shows and movies are always having the spotlight on the superheroes themselves. It's never about the people who are living in that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/vanessa-hudgens/the-superhero-shows-and-movies-are-always-having-the-spotlight-on-the/) [Vanessa Hudgens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/vanessa-hudgens/) > [Man is the "ethical animal" ethical in potentiality even if, unfortunately, not in actuality. His capacity for ethical judgment like freedom, reason and the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rollo-may/man-is-the-ethical-animal-ethical-in-potentiality-even-if/) [Rollo May](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rollo-may/) > [It may look as though two chess players are sitting at the board peacefully calculating possibilities, but in actuality they are seething with a…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/shankarananda/it-may-look-as-though-two-chess-players-are-sitting-at-the-board/) Shankarananda > [The question of historicity and actuality with regard to gods and unicorns is a relatively trifling matter which may be left to antiquarians and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/odell-shepard/the-question-of-historicity-and-actuality-with-regard-to-gods-and/) [Odell Shepard](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/odell-shepard/) > [Each mental act opens up a new dimension of actuality. In a manner of speaking, your slightest thought gives birth to worlds.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jane-roberts/each-mental-act-opens-up-a-new-dimension-of-actuality-in-a-manner-of/) [Jane Roberts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jane-roberts/) > [Behavior must also be adequately assessed under appropriate circumstances. Ill-defined global measures of perceived self-efficacy or defective assessments of performance will yield discordances. Disparities…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/albert-bandura/behavior-must-also-be-adequately-assessed-under-appropriate/) [Albert Bandura](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/albert-bandura/) > [I don't want to manipulate actuality; I want to record it.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/janet-malcolm/i-don-t-want-to-manipulate-actuality-i-want-to-record-it/) [Janet Malcolm](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/janet-malcolm/) > [During the reign of Rameses III (the Twentieth Dynasty) Egypt saw a flowering of its civilization and the harp became the royal instrument of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/corinne-heline/during-the-reign-of-rameses-iii-the-twentieth-dynasty-egypt-saw-a/) [Corinne Heline](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/corinne-heline/) > [The problems of philosophy and the systems designed to solve them are formulated in terms which tend to refer, not to the realm of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/roger-scruton/the-problems-of-philosophy-and-the-systems-designed-to-solve-them-are/) [Roger Scruton](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/roger-scruton/) > [I am not especially good at remembering the actualities of the world I inhabit, but I have pretty strong associative memories of how it…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/scott-bradfield/i-am-not-especially-good-at-remembering-the-actualities-of-the-world/) [Scott Bradfield](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/scott-bradfield/) > [If only the sense of actuality can be lulled-and it sleeps for ever in most historians-there is no passion that cannot be gratified in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/e-m-forster/if-only-the-sense-of-actuality-can-be-lulled-and-it-sleeps-for-ever/) [E. M. Forster](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/e-m-forster/) > [I recognise a distinction between dream life and real life, between appearances and actualities. I confess to an over-powering desire to know whether I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-p-lovecraft/i-recognise-a-distinction-between-dream-life-and-real-life-between/) [H. P. Lovecraft](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-p-lovecraft/) > [If tone is granted to be subjected to control, why not line also, which has equal emotional significance? And if line, why not shapes…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/william-mortensen/if-tone-is-granted-to-be-subjected-to-control-why-not-line-also-which/) [William Mortensen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/william-mortensen/) [Browse all 142 Actuality quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/actuality/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "To believe that will has power over potentiality, that the passage to actuality is the result of a decision that puts an end to the ambiguity of potentiality (which is always potentiality to do and not to do) — this is the perpetual illusion of morality.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Giorgio Agamben" }, "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/to-believe-that-will-has-power-over-potentiality-that-the-passage-to/", "about": { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Actuality" }, "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/to-believe-that-will-has-power-over-potentiality-that-the-passage-to/#quotation", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8e1/giorgio-agamben-29169_actuality_to-believe-that-will-has-power-over-pote_2259714.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8e1/giorgio-agamben-29169_actuality_to-believe-that-will-has-power-over-pote_2259714.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8e1/giorgio-agamben-29169_actuality_to-believe-that-will-has-power-over-pote_2259714.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“To believe that will has power over potentiality, that the passage to actuality is the result of a decision…” — Giorgio Agamben", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } }, { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Quotes", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Giorgio Agamben", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/giorgio-agamben/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "To believe that will has power...", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/to-believe-that-will-has-power-over-potentiality-that-the-passage-to/" } ], "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/giorgio-agamben/to-believe-that-will-has-power-over-potentiality-that-the-passage-to/#breadcrumb" }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website", "name": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/", "publisher": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } }, { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization", "name": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/themes/sq/assets/icons/icon-512.png", "width": 512, "height": 512 } } ] } ```