Albert Einstein Quotes About Free Will

• 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 was traveling its way of its own accord on the strength of a resolution taken once and for all. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man's illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.

  Albert Einstein

  Taken, Moon, Men

• 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 all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper.

  Albert Einstein

  Believe, Men, Acting

• 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

  Stars, Thinking, Feelings

• So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man's illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.

  Albert Einstein

  Men, Perfect, Acting

• 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 an unrestricted causality. 'I cannot hate him, because he must do what he does.' That means for me more Spinoza than the prophets.

  Albert Einstein

  Hate, Mean, Loving You

  Letter to Michele Besso, January 6, 1948.

• I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will...Practically, I am, nevertheless, compelled to act as if freedom of the will existed. If I wish to live in a civilized community, I must act as if man is a responsible being.

  Albert Einstein

  Believe, Men, Community

  Source: jonrappoport.wordpress.com

• I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will. The Jews believe in free will. They believe that man shapes his own life. I reject that doctrine philosophically. In that respect I am not a Jew.

  Albert Einstein

  Believe, Men, Doctrine

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.205, Princeton University Press

• In living through this great epoch, it is difficult to reconcile oneself to the fact that one belongs to that mad, degenerate species that boasts of its free will. How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will. In such a place even I should be an ardent patriot!

  Albert Einstein

  Wise, Islands, Mad

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.4, Princeton University Press

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