Quotes About Willpower

Freedom is obedience to self-formulated rules.

Choice not chance determines your destiny [my family motto...credited to Aristotle]

For he who lives as passion directs will not hear argument that dissuades him, nor understand it if he does; and how can we persuade one in such a state to change his ways?

All that is done on compulsion is bitterness to the soul.

What then is a moral virtue, the result of such a process duly directed? It is no mere mood of feeling, no mere liability to emotion, no mere natural aptitude or endowment, it is a permanent state of the agent's self, or, as we might in modern phrase put it, of his will, it consists in a steady self-imposed obedience to a rule of action in certain situations which frequently recur in human life.

But what matters for questions of virtue and vice is whether your acts are not merely voluntary but also chosen.

Once more; it is harder, as Heraclitus says, to fight against pleasure than against anger:

desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self

desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self. ???? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ???? ????? ?? ??? ???? ???? ????? ?? ?? ???????? ??? ????? ?? ??????

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self

We are not grand because we are at the top of the food chain or because we can alter our environment - the environment will outlast us with its unfathomable forces and unyielding powers. But rather than be bound and defeated by our insignificance, we are bold because we exercise our will anyway, despite the ephemeral and delicate presence we have in this desert, on this planet, in this universe.

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

You wish to put me in the dark. I tell you that I will never be put in the dark. You wish to beat me. I tell you that you will never beat me.

We can't command our love, but we can our actions.

No dejaré que mueras sin pelear.

Åžeytanla dans etmeye kalkarsan, ÅŸark?y? genellikle ÅŸeytan seçer.

Although she would sooner have given up thinking than eating, she resented being pushed into depriving herself of either.

Das ist zu viel, dachte sie, ich leiste Verzicht auf dieses Selbst, danke ab, gebe freiwillig ab, was ich sowieso nie haben wollte; was es auch von mir will, kann es haben.

Kelly, there is magic, but you have to be the magician. You have to make the magic happen.

They had broken his legs, but he could crawl.

eÄŸer öpecek bir ÅŸeyiniz yoksa, sigara içmeniz kaç?n?lmazd?r.

She was so New York. And in her boosterism, in her energy and ambition, in her can-do, beat-whatever-the-odds spirit, in her childlike nature—and in her belief in her exceptionalism and in the power of her own will, in self-creation, and in the possibility of being reborn, the possibility of endless new chances, and of having it all—she was also the most American person I knew.

God grant,' he said, 'that he may learn to understand in time that whoso is minded to do as he himself wills will soon enough see the day when he will find he has done that which he had never willed.' 

Sclavul care se supune a ales s? se supun?.