Determinism Quotes - Page 2

• During the first period of a man's life the greatest danger is not to take the risk.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Inspirational, Men, Heartache

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• A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Love, Inspirational, Motivational

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• Do not accept any explanation of the world either through chance or determinism. You are not responsible for your belief. It is not even you who decides that you are not responsible - and so on to infinity. You are not obliged to believe. There is no point of departure.

  Rene Magritte

  Believe, Departure, World

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• Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.

  Viktor E. Frankl

  Men, Self, Giving

  Viktor E. Frankl (2006). “Man's Search for Meaning”, p.129, Beacon Press

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• Life calls the tune, we dance.

  John Galsworthy

  Fate, Destiny, Tunes

  John Galsworthy “Five Tales”, Lulu.com

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• Determinism is the thesis that is true at every moment that the way things then are determines a unique future, that only one of the alternative futures that may exist relative to a given moment is a physically possible continuation of the state of things at the moment. Or, if you like, we may say that determinism is the thesis that only one continuation of the state of things at a given moment is consistent with the laws of nature.

  Peter van Inwagen

  Unique, Law, Alternatives

  Peter Van Inwagen (1993). “Metaphysics”

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• The two go hand in hand like a dance: chance flirts with necessity, randomness with determinism. To be sure, it is from this interchange that novelty and creativity arise in Nature, thereby yielding unique forms and novel structures.

  Eric Chaisson

  Creativity, Flirting, Unique

  Eric Chaisson, Lola Judith Chaisson (2007). “Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos”, p.213, Columbia University Press

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• That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Happiness, Wisdom, Money

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• The idea of determinism combined with complete human responsibility struck me as very hard to reconcile with an idea of justice, let alone mercy.

  Ken MacLeod

  Responsibility, Ideas, Justice

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• History abhors determinism but cannot tolerate chance.

  Bernard DeVoto

  Art, Philosophy, History

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• Historical determinism is a recipe for political quietism.

  Terry Eagleton

  Political, Historical, Recipes

  Terry Eagleton (2011). “Why Marx Was Right”, p.46, Yale University Press

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• Man's enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Men, Enemy

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• Simple determinism, whether of the genetic or environmental kind, is a depressing prospect for those with a fondness for free will.

  Matt Ridley

  Depressing, Simple, Environmental

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• "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" in a draft of the Declaration of Independence changes it instead into an assertion of rationality. The scientific mind of Franklin drew on the scientific determinism of Isaac Newton and the analytic empiricism of David Hume and Gottfried Leibniz. In what became known as "Hume's Fork" the latters' theory distinguished between synthetic truths that describe matters of fact, and analytic truths that are self-evident by virtue of reason and definition.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Self, Independence, Mind

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• For the lost are lost by nature, all your ideas of moral regeneration will make no difference, there is AN INNATE DETERMINISM, there is an undeniable incurability in suicide, crime, idiocy, madness, there is an invincible cuckoldry in man, there is a congenital weakness of the character, a castration of the mind.

  Antonin Artaud

  Suicide, Character, Men

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• I was writing fiction steadily, but I found that the stark determinisms of code were a welcome relief from the ambiguities of literary narrative.

  Vikram Chandra

  Writing, Relief, Fiction

  Vikram Chandra (2013). “Geek Sublime: Writing Fiction, Coding Software”, p.22, Faber & Faber

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• Almost always, genes are about potentials and vulnerabilities rather than about determinism.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Genes, Vulnerability

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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• In fact, if you are faced with the prospect of running across an open field in which lightning bolts are going to be a problem, you are much better off if their timing and location are determined by something, since then they may be predictable by you, and hence avoidable. Determinism is the friend, not the foe, of those who dislike inevitability.

  Daniel Dennett

  Running, May, Fields

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• Perhaps to restore human freedom we should deny determinism ?

  Simon Blackburn

  Deny, Should, Humans

  Simon Blackburn (1999). “Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy”, p.60, Oxford University Press

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• ... what we should be looking for is fresh ideas of how we make moral decisions about our dealings with one another, economic, social, cultural. Economic determinism is an objectionable creed where men and women espouse it in its communist or capitalist form because it treats human beings as economic units and not as responsible persons.

  Davis McCaughey

  Leadership, Business, Men

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• I don't think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be out of it. Nobody could then 'smile darkly and ignore the howls.' Even if there were no Church to teach me this, writing two novels would do it. I think the more you write, the less inclined you will be to rely on theories like determinism. Mystery isn't something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Writing, Heart, Thinking

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• Obviously if any actions, even a lunatic's, can be causeless, determinism is done for. If the chain of causation can be broken for a madman, it can be broken for a man.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Broken, Done

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.11, Simon and Schuster

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• When we think about the present, we veer wildly between the belief in chance and the evidence in favour of determinism. When we think about the past, however, it seems obvious that everything happened in the way that it was intended.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Past, Thinking, Way

  Michel Houellebecq (2001). “The Elementary Particles”, p.183, Vintage

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• The very genetic determinism I posited in World's End as a way of shaking off my inherited demons is being proven in fact as we map out the human genome.

  T.C. Boyle

  World, Maps, Way

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• Too often we shape our public positions on the basis of our economic connections. That brings us dangerously close to economic determinism.

  George W. Romney

  Connections, Shapes, Economic

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