Free Will Quotes - Page 8

• God created the law of free will, and God created the law of cause and effect. And he himself will not violate the law. We need to be thinking less in terms of what God did and more in terms of whether or not we are following those laws.

  Marianne Williamson

  Freedom, Thinking, Law

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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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• So if reality is all a spell, and you don't really want what you think you want... If you have no free will. You don't really know what you know. You don't really love who you only think you love. What do you have left to live for?

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Reality, Thinking, Want

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• I believe that we have free will. I believe we get the chance to make choices in our lives. Not everything is set in stone from the moment we're born. We choose our destiny, our ultimate fate. But I also think that we don't realize the choices we've made until after we make them. We're racing down a freeway, only to realize we've missed all the exits, and the only direction we can go is dead ahead.

  Neal Shusterman

  Believe, Fate, Destiny

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• Being Adam Parrish was a complicated thing, a wonder of muscles and organs, synapses and nerves. He was a miracle of moving parts, a study in survival. The most important thing to Adam Parrish, though, had always been free will, the ability to be his own master. This was the important thing. It had always been the important thing. This was what it was to be Adam.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Moving, Miracle, Survival

  Maggie Stiefvater (2012). “The Raven Boys”, p.315, Scholastic Inc.

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• Do we have free will, or do the mass media and our culture control us, our desires and actions, from the moment we’re born?

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Media, Desire, Culture

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• Grab reality by the balls and squeeze.

  Janet Morris

  Power, Reality, Balls

  Janet Morris (2011). “Tempus with His Right-Side Companion Niko”, p.141, Paradise Publishing

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• 

  You can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.

  Sam Harris

  Can Do

  Sam Harris (2012). “Free Will”, p.38, Simon and Schuster

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• There is no free will if to exercise it in certain ways produces punishment. That makes a mockery of free will and renders it counterfeit.

  Neale Donald Walsch

  Exercise, Punishment, Way

  Neale Donald Walsch (2011). “Conversations with God, Book 3: Embracing the Love of the Universe (Anniv)”, p.272, Hampton Roads Publishing

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• 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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• Free will is the thing you have to have if you're going to be responsible in this all-or-nothing way. That's what I mean by free will. That's what I think we haven't got and can't have.

  Galen Strawson

  Mean, Thinking, Way

  Source: www.believermag.com

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• Free will and consciousness is an illusion, and the self is a complex of memes.

  Susan Blackmore

  Self, Consciousness, Illusion

  "Humans Are Just Machines for Propagating Memes". Interview with Kim Zetter, www.wired.com. February 29, 2008.

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• Most of us assume that human beings have free will. However, . . . [we] are very much conditioned by our species, culture, family, and by the past in general. . . . It is rare for a human being to have free will. . . . (140)

  Ravi Ravindra

  Past, Culture, Assuming

  Ravi Ravindra (2009). “The Wisdom of Patañjali's Yoga Sutras: A New Translation and Guide”

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• We must wholeheartedly believe in free will. If free will is a reality, we shall have made the correct choice. If it is not, we shall still not have made an incorrect choice, becauee we shall not have made any choice at all, not having a free will to do so.

  Edward Norton Lorenz

  Believe, Reality, Choices

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• 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

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• The greatest judgment which God himself can, in the present life, inflict upon a man is to leave him in the hand of his own boasted 'free'-will.

  Augustus Toplady

  Men, Hands, Present Life

  Augustus Toplady (1825). “The works of Augustus M. Toplady”, p.283

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• I believe we've been given free will, and we can take responsibility for our own lives and for creating our own environments - which I think at times can be a little much for people to deal with.

  Alanis Morissette

  Believe, Responsibility, Thinking

  "New Again: Alanis Morissette". Interview with Elizabeth Weitzman, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 15, 2015.

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• Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has had the freewill to select his course.

  Clarence Darrow

  Punishment, Select, Courses

  "The Story of My Life".

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• To me life means the growing of a soul. I do not know why this duty is imposed upon us. I merely know that it is, and I feel that we are given much latitude of free will.

  Alice Foote MacDougall

  Life, Mean, Soul

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• I just haven't been conditioned into thinking that the right answer can't be a simple one. When I told you you'd been contaminated I meant by that attitude, which is wider-spread than the common cold and just as undermining. Did nobody ever point out to you that the only liberty implied by free will is the opportunity to be wrong?

  John Brunner

  Attitude, Opportunity, Simple

  John Brunner (2011). “Stand on Zanzibar”, p.491, Macmillan

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• Easy to keep faith. God is good. Only one mistake he made. Free will, therefore can't intervene unless we ask, but gospels show, when we ask we must believe we will be answered. Then all manner of things will be well.

  Sinead O'Connor

  Mistake, Believe, Keep The Faith

  "Sinead O'Connor on Pope Benedict and Catholic abuse scandal". Live chat, www.washingtonpost.com. March 26, 2010.

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• I must honor those who fight of their own free will, he said to himself. And I must try to imitate their courage by following my path as a pacifist, wherever it takes me.

  Christopher Isherwood

  Fighting, Honor, Trying

  "Christopher and His Kind". Book by Christopher Isherwood, p. 336, 1976.

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• There's no free will," says the philosopher; "To hang is most unjust." "There is no free will," assents the officer; "We hang because we must.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Unjust, Philosopher, Officers

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.1211, Delphi Classics

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• It is what we are forced to do that forms our character, not what we do of our own free will.

  Alberto Moravia

  Character, Form

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• No just man suffices unto himself for the winning of justification. The divine mercy must always hold out a hand to his footsteps as they falter and almost stumble, and this is so because the weakness of his free will may cause him to lose balance, and if he falls he may perish forever.

  John Cassian

  Christian, Fall, Winning

  John Cassian, Colm Luibhéid (1985). “Conferences”, p.94, Paulist Press

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