Free Will Quotes - Page 9

• This error of free will is a special doctrine of the Antichrist.

  Martin Luther

  Errors, Special, Doctrine

  "Grund und Ursach aller Artikel D. Martin Luthers so durch römische Bulle unrechtlich verdammt sind" Article 36 in "D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe" by Martin Luther, Volume 7, (p. 451), 1897.

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• And these great natural rights may be reduced to three principal or primary articles: the right of personal security; the right of personal liberty; and the right of private property; because as there is no other known method of compulsion, or of abridging man's natural free will, but by an infringement or diminution of one or other of these important rights, the preservation of these, inviolate, may justly be said to include the preservation of our civil immunities in their largest and most extensive sense.

  William Blackstone

  Wisdom, Men, Rights

  Sir William BLACKSTONE, Samuel Warren (1856). “Blackstone's Commentaries systematically abridged and adapted to the existing state of the law and constitution, with great additions. By Samuel Warren”, p.101

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• I've only ever met one woman who actually was a prostitute of her own free will. She didn't have a pimp. She could pick and choose her customers. That's so rare.

  Gloria Steinem

  Pimp, Mets, One Woman

  "The Humanist Interview with Gloria Steinem" by Jennifer Bardi, thehumanist.com. August 14, 2012.

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• The problem of vindicating an omnipotent and omniscient God in the face of evil is insurmountable. Those who claim to have surmounted it, by recourse to notions of free will and other incoherencies, have merely heaped bad philosophy onto bad ethics.

  Sam Harris

  Philosophy, Evil, Faces

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.173, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Britain makes it absolutely, blindingly clear that it is liberal social welfare policies. And they have turned a good chunk of their native population into animals. They are absolute animals. They are not humans with free will. They eat, they screw, they drink.

  Ann Coulter

  Animal, Population, Drink

  "Ann Coulter: Liberal Policies Led to U.K. Riots". "The O'Reilly Factor" with Bill O'Reilly, www.foxnews.com. August 11, 2011.

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• The choices we’re working with here are a block universe, where past, present and future all coexist simultaneously and everything has already happened; chaos, where anything can happen and nothing can be predicted because we can’t know all the variables; and a Christian universe in which God made everything and it’s all here for a purpose but we have free will anyway.

  Audrey Niffenegger

  Christian, Block, Past

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• If any man doth ascribe of salvation, even the very least, to the free will of man, he knoweth nothing of grace, and he hath not learnt Jesus Christ aright.

  Martin Luther

  Jesus, Men, Grace

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• Athos liked every one to exercise his own free-will. He never gave his advice before it was demanded and even then it must be demanded twice. "In general, people only ask for advice," he said "that they may not follow it or if they should follow it that they may have somebody to blame for having given it".

  Alexandre Dumas

  Exercise, People, Advice

  Alexandre Dumas (1993). “The Three Musketeers”, p.303, Wordsworth Editions

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• And if you believe that we really have free will, then you know that God can't really control us. And since God can't control us, all God does is watch and change channels when He gets bored.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Believe, Bored, Doe

  Chuck Palahniuk (2011). “Invisible Monsters: A Novel”, p.80, W. W. Norton & Company

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  How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware? We can’t.

  Sam Harris

  Brain, Events, Agents

  Sam Harris (2012). “Free Will”, p.25, Simon and Schuster

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• At twenty your choices are almost unlimited. At fifty you're a prisoner of past decisions. At seventy you have no free will left at all.

  Helen McCloy

  Past, Choices, Decision

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• Satyagraha means insistence on what one knows to be the truth. The insistence implies the exercise of free will as the need of social obligation. If one is content to know the truth himself, he does not become a votary of Satyagraha. A Satyagrahi should not only know the truth but should insist upon it in social relations. So Satyagraha is activation of truthfulness.

  Goparaju Ramachandra Rao

  Mean, Exercise, Atheism

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• Sadness came into the world with Satan - that world our Saviour never prayed for, the world you say I do not know. Oh, it is not so difficult to recognize: it is the world that prefers cold to warmth! What can God find to say to those who, of their own free will, of their own weight incline towards sadness and turn instinctively towards the night?

  Georges Bernanos

  Sadness, Night, World

  "Joy". Book by Georges Bernanos, 1929.

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• With free will, we can modify, to a certain extent the chain of karma that has been set in motion by the karma of the previous moment. That is what free will really is, the ability to alter the sequence of karmic fate.

  Frederick Lenz

  Karma, Fate, Moments

  Frederick Lenz (1994). “Surfing the Himalayas: conversations and travels with Master Fwap”, Interglobal Seminars

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• Feminism means having a choice. And feminism doesn't care which choices you make, either. Just that you have them. The point has never been to establish some principled refusal to give yourself to another human being. The point is to make sure you can give yourself--or not give yourself--of your free will.

  Rachel Kadish

  Mean, Giving, Choices

  Rachel Kadish (2007). “Tolstoy Lied: A Love Story”, p.317, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• If you choose to draw from the inner well of free will, then you can make choices that are outside your current karmic patterns.

  Frederick Lenz

  Karma, Choices, Patterns

  Frederick Lenz (1994). “Surfing the Himalayas: conversations and travels with Master Fwap”, Interglobal Seminars

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• Free will exists and operates outside causality. It is not hooked to karma. Free will is like a well that is on your property. You can choose to draw water from the well or not.

  Frederick Lenz

  Karma, Water, Causality

  Frederick Lenz (1994). “Surfing the Himalayas: conversations and travels with Master Fwap”, Interglobal Seminars

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• He is not guilty who is not guilty of his own free will.

  Seneca the Younger

  Guilt, Guilty, Not Guilty

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 345-46, Hercules Oetaeus, 886, 1922.

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• A man's free will cannot cure him even of the toothache, or a sore finger; and yet he madly thinks it is in its power to cure his soul.

  Augustus Toplady

  Thinking, Power, Men

  Augustus Montague TOPLADY (1837). “The Works of Augustus Toplady ... A New Edition, Complete in One Volume. Printed Verbatim from the First Edition of His Works, 1794”, p.546

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• It seems to me that the term 'free will' is one of the most manipulated and exploited terms. The real explanation of free will is not that you have free will but that your will can eventually make you free, that will can liberate you, that will can release you from slavery.

  Torkom Saraydarian

  Motivational, Real, Slavery

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• Lotus-land as it appears in 'Free Will' is simply a metaphor for an idealized background, a 'land of milk and honey.' It is sometimes also used as a pejorative name for Los Angeles, though that was not in my mind when I wrote it.

  Neil Peart

  Milk And Honey, Land, Names

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• The belief in free-will is not in the least incompatible with the belief in Providence, provided you do not restrict the Providence to fulminating nothing but fatal decrees.

  William James

  Belief, Decree, Providence

  William James (1956). “The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality”, p.180, Courier Corporation

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• A human best, which is very little. Its hard to accept the idea that there cannot be an order in the universe because it would offend the free will of God and His omnipotence. So the freedom of God is our condemnation, or at least the condemnation of our pride.

  Umberto Eco

  Pride, Order, Omnipotence

  Umberto Eco (2014). “The Name of the Rose”, p.528, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• ... we disallow papistical doctrines of free will, of works of supererogation, of merits, of the necessity of auricular confession, and satisfaction to God-wards.

  Robert Ferrar

  Doctrine, Satisfaction, Merit

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• I believe since we’ve all been given free will, let’s use our will to let others be free. Gay and lesbian couples believe in commitment, family and love.

  Mo'Nique Imes-Jackson

  Couple, Believe, Commitment

  "Mo’Nique Speaks Out In Favor Of Marriage Equality". www.huffingtonpost.com. October 26, 2011.

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