Quotes About Agency

Take all self-determination from a man's life, and all that is left for him to do is complain.

For some things, there is no forgiving or unforgiving. They are simply a crossroads, and a direction taken, whether I would or no. Someone else set my feet on that path. All I can control is every step I take after that.

Men it is who think they can rule others' lives, but have no bonds to them. Do you think that to bond or not to bond is for you alone to decide? My heart is my own. I give it where I will. I will not give it to one who thrusts me aside.

I know you think it slatternly, the way I am with men. But once you have been forced, it is … different. Ever after. I say to myself, well, I know that it can happen to me at any time. So this way, at least I decide with whom and when. There will never be children for me, and hence there will never be a permanent man. So why should not I take my pick of what I can have?

Women are not inherently passive or peaceful. We're not inherently anything but human.

Women are not inherently passive or peaceful. We're not inherently anything but human.

Despair is paralysis. It robs us of agency. It blinds us to our own power and the power of the earth.

It is an odd dichotomy we have set for ourselves, between loving people and loving land. We know that loving a person has agency and power—we know it can change everything. Yet we act as if loving the land is an internal affair that has no energy outside the confines of our head and heart.

It's up to you." He reached across the front seat and grabbed her hand. "It's always up to you." He drew her hand to his lips and pressed a soft kiss into her palm.

But a long time ago I made me a rule: I let people do what they want to do.

The only answer to this, and it isn't an entire answer, said Father Travis, is that God made human beings free agents. We are able to choose good over evil, but the opposite too. And in order to protect our human freedom, God doesn't often, very often at least, intervene. God can't do that without taking away our moral freedom. Do you see? No. But yeah. The only thing that God can do, and does all of the time, is to draw good from any evil situation.

In the light of this clarification of the finite/infinite distinction, we can see that 'revelatory' action, including whatever events allow us a closer conscious share in infinite agency (in the love of the Trinity, to use the conventional theological phrasing), will be, not an interruption of the finite sequence, but a particular configuration of finite agency such that it communicates more than its own immanent content.

I am not like Kagura! I'm not Naraku's tool! I am my own master!- Hakudoshi

Even as the Blue Marble was miniaturizing your conception of Earth, it was inflating your sense of importance in relation to it, endowing you a godlike perspective and agency.

How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it and why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?

Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here? What is this thing called the world? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted? And If I am compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I want to see him.

So it isn't I who am master of my life, I am just one of the threads to be woven into life's calico! Well then, even if I cannot spin, I can at least cut the thread in two.

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?

Compatibilism amounts to nothing more than an assertion of the following creed: A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.

Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making.

We do not know what we intend to do until the intention itself arises. To understand this is to realize that we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions in the way that people generally suppose.

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.

My choices matter—and there are paths towards making wiser ones—but I cannot choose what I choose. And if it ever appears that I do—for instance, after going back between two options—I do not choose to choose what I choose. There is a regress here that always ends in darkness.

The popular conception of free will seems to rest on two assumptions: (1) that each of us could have behaved differently than we did in the past, and (2) that we are the conscious source of most of our thoughts and actions in the present.