Quotes About Free will

There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.

Our best theories of people, presented on their own terms and without reference to underlying particles and forces, leave plenty of room for human choice.

The issue that troubles us, when we get right down to it, isn't anything about the laws of physics; it's about free will.

Passivity: "A spirit's activity is measured by the degree of passivity or submissiveness which he finds in the sensitive, or medium." "Mediumship ... by diligent cultivation may be attained by anyone who deliberately yields up his body, with his free will, and sensitive and intellectual faculties, to an invading or controlling spirit.

Others are not born bad or good... and neither are people, by the way.

If someone tells you that pleasure is wrong and tolerance is weakness, and that you must follow this or that dogma blindly in obedience, and if you are told this is that only right road toward the idealized good, then most likely you are dealing with a fanatic. If you are told to kill for the sake of peace, you are dealing with someone who does not understand peace or justice. If you are told to give up your free will, you are dealing with a fanatic!

In the words of the late Francis Crick...You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. (13)

If you're in doubt choosing between two actions, remember this is an example of free will, and if you later regret your choice, it may nevertheless steer you in the right direction.

The genome is as complicated and indeterminate as ordinary life, because it is ordinary life. This should come as a relief. Simple determinism, whether of the genetics or environmental kind, is a depressing prospect for those with a fondness for free will.

Free will was not created for fun; there was a reason that evolution handed our ancestors the ability to take initiatives (...) eventually to be in a better position to reproduce and rear children than human beings who do not reproduce.

the genome contains secret messages from both the distant and the recent past – from when we were single-celled creatures and from when we took up cultural habits such as dairy farming. It also contains clues to ancient philosophical conundrums, not least the question of whether and how our actions are determined and what is this curious sensation called free will.

God does not want to control you, or stifle you, or manipulate you, or force you to do anything you don't want to do. Quite the opposite. God will let you do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it, with whomever you want to do it, and as often as you want to do it. When was the last time God stopped you from doing anything?

When we assert our reason as our authority for dominion, we must use that authority reasonably. When we assert free will as our distinctive human quality, we must use our free will not only in acts of self-interest but in acts of self-restraint.

The act of thinking is man's primary act of choice.

Trato con los hombres como lo requiere mi naturaleza y la de ellos: por medio de la razón. No busco ni deseo nada de ellos, excepto aquellas relaciones que ellos quieren iniciar por su propia y voluntaria elección.

Instinct's the iron skeleton under all our ideas of free will.

Free will, though it makes evil possible, also makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.

God loves us and believes in us and has done and will do anything he can to help us, but he will not impose on our free agency.

And this is an amazing thing: the answer is already implicit in Genesis 1: to embody the Image of God—to speak out of chaos the Being that is Good—but to do so consciously, of our own free choice.

And this is an amazing thing: the answer is already implicit in Genesis 1: to embody the Image of God—to speak out of chaos the Being that is Good—but to do so consciously, of our own free choice. Back is the way forward—as T. S. Eliot so rightly insisted—but back as awake beings, exercising the proper choice of awake beings, instead of back to sleep:

Both men and angels were given the highest gift in the universe, that of free will. We have the power of choice. Evil resides within the problem of choice. It is free will that convicts us. We are guilty of being evil because we can choose good. Free will is the very foundation of love, and the cornerstone of evil.

But if everything's already decided, then what's the point of living?

The confectio of a Sacrament, i. e. the combina tion of matter and form into the sacramental sign, is not necessarily of itself a sacramental act, but indifferent and ambiguous, inasmuch as the minister, being a free agent, may act with any one of a number of different purposes, e. g., to practice, to play a joke, to make a mockery of religious ceremonies, etc. It depends entirely on his free will whether what he does is intended as a

One of the things that all religions have is a narrative of doomsday. There has to be some kind of overarching fear of the future. If there wasn't, none of the religions could invoke this important thing - that science has no evidence of, by the way - called free will.