Quotes About Free will

In my preface, I quoted an e-mail message from someone who was upset by the news that neuroscientists had shown that free will is an illusion. She was, she said, "in a lot of despair." My final moral is the title of a song: "Don't Worry, Be Happy." Scientists have not shown this. Nor has anyone shown that there are no effective intentions. This is good news for just about everyone.

there was no such thing as curses. People make and break their own fortunes -they are the masters of their own fate.

Free will is a powerful thing, Riley. Sometimes it's the only way to realize your true destiny, though it does require a fair bit if trust–in yourself, in the universe–as I'm sure you now know.

One of the greatest gifts that God has given us is free will. Even though it's free, we don't take advantage of it as much as we could when it comes to matters of the heart.

I had my own skeptic's thoughts about God and free will, but that was a discussion for another time. The idea of human beings in power acting out of anything except self-interest, however, was absurd to me. "Are you being naive?" I asked her. "No

it is absolutely vital that we acknowledge that love, grace, and humanity can be rejected. From the most subtle rolling of the eyes to the most violent degradation of another human, we are terrifyingly free to do as we please. God gives us what we want, and if that's hell, we can have it. We have that kind of freedom, that kind of choice. We are that free.

There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." Free will and predestination in one sentence and both true.

Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

Again, the traditional system works, for traditional society. A mass made of people who have intense curiosity about why Beethoven went in for string quartets after the Ninth Symphony, or whether Kant really refuted Hume satisfactorily, or what the latest quantum theories mean in relation to Determinism and Free Will, is not a mass that will easily be led into dull, dehumanizing labor at traditional jobs.

Science does not limit human behavior to either genetics or "free will." Although they may use other terminology, most current psychologists would agree in general, I think, with Dr. Tim Leary's notion that all behavior (Gay or straight, "mental" or "emotional," "crazy" or "sane") results from a synergy of (1) genes, (2) early imprinting, (3) conditioning, (4) school-and-other learning, and (5) blind circumstance.

psychopaths are rational and aware of what they are doing and why. Their behavior is the result of choice, freely exercised.

As long as mortals choose to do evil, then evil will triumph. And Lucifer will laugh when people blame it on the Heavenly Father. But even with all the suffering in the world, the Heavenly Father will not take away your free will. He wants you to choose good or evil. He will not force us to choose good

We were the pair. One too afraid to feel anything lest she lose control of her ironclad hold on her emotions, and the other so hungry to feel anything that she´d risk her free will for one night of fun....

if you program a purpose into a computer program, does that constitute its will? Does it have free will, if a programmer programmed its purpose? Is that programming any different from the way we are programmed by our genes and brains? Is a programmed will a servile will? Is human will a servile will? And is not the servile will the home and source of all feelings of defilement, infection, transgression, and rage?

if you program a purpose into a computer program, does that constitute its will? Does it have free will, if a programmer programmed its purpose?

Morality pertains only to the sphere of man's free will - only to those actions which are open to his choice.

You don't have to stop thinking and asking questions to believe in God, child. If He'd wanted a flock of eight billion sheep, He wouldn't have given us opposable thumbs, much less free will.

Some times we choose our fate, " she said. "Other times it's chosen for us." The cleft between his dark brows deepened and his jaw clenched then released. "And sometimes its what we make it.

Don't dwell on what may be. Apply yourself to the task at hand. The Hags of Fate may predict the future, but there is always free will, and that is your saving grace, my dear.

The ability to choose is at the essential core of our grandeur. Even evil exists because God respects our ability to choose.

To speak of chance is to negate the possibility of any law of cause and effect. Chance is the one final irrationality acceptable to the free will.

How we live is all that matters,not who made us,or out of what parts! Free will is what we make of it!

It turned out that our choices of everything from food to mates result not from some mysterious free will, but rather from billions of neurons calculating probabilities within a split second. Vaunted 'human intuition' is in reality 'pattern recognition'.3

For centuries humanism has been convincing us that we are the ultimate source of meaning, and that our free will is therefore the highest authority of all.