Quotes About Will

Oh how the passions, insolent and strong, Bear our weak minds their rapid course along; Make us the madness of their will obey; Then die and leave us to our griefs as prey!

By fulfilling the promise given to Abraham, Christ has ended the age of the Law and inaugurated the age of Christ, which means freedom from bondage and the end of the Law for the believer. However, it is clear that inasmuch as Paul always regards the Law as holy and just and good, he never thinks of the Law as being abolished. It remains the expression of the will of God.

This idea is extended in the contrast between the new and the old covenant. The old covenant of Law consisted of commands written on tables of stone, which could only declare the will of God but not provide the power to sinful women and men to obey God's will. Therefore, even though it was glorious, the written code condemns them as sinners and places them under the judgment of death. "The written code kills," whereas what people need is life (2 Cor. 3:6).

Therefore when Christ said, "I am the truth" (14:6), he means that he is the full revelation and embodiment of the redemptive purpose of God. The coming of Christ is the disclosure of the faithfulness of God to his own character, of his continuing purpose to make his saving will known.

John makes no effort to reconcile systematically these sayings about divine predestination and moral responsibility. He sees no contradiction that faith is the free decision of a person's will and at the same time the gift of God's grace. This makes it clear that "the decision of faith is not a human meritorious achievement like the Jewish works of the Law, but simply the fitting answer, made possible by the grace of God, to the revelation given by Jesus."20

Our deeds are like children that are born to us; they live and act apart from our own will. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never: they have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness.

Socialism, born and raised in France, is unpersuasive even to the promiscuously persuadable French.

Lacking an articulable defense of the cultural values under siege, he became a vessel of smoldering animosities.

Our hatred of government is not caused mainly by government's goals, whatever their wisdom, but by government's techniques." Philip Howard

Speaking for George Will, on whose thinking I am world's foremost authority, I say: not necessarily. The heavy hitters do have heavy responsibilities.

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will.

act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a general law of nature.

Handle so, daß die Maxime deines Willens jederzeit zugleich als Prinzip einer allgemeinen Gesetzgebung gelten könne.

Freedom is the opposite of necessity.

The will is conceived as a faculty of determining oneself to action in accordance with the conception of certain laws. And such a faculty can be found only in rational beings.

Inexperienced in the course of world affairs and incapable of being prepared for all the chances that happen in it, I ask myself only 'Can you also will that your maxim should become a universal law?' Where you cannot it is to be rejected...

Ethical laws cannot be thought of as emanating originally merely from the will of this superior being as statutes, which, had he not first commanded them, would perhaps not be binding, for then they would not be ethical laws and the duty proper to them would not be the free duty of virtue but the coercive duty of law.

It is impossible to conceive anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except a good will.

Ich kann, weil ich will, was ich muss.

You must, therefore you can. A free will and a will subject to moral laws are one and the same thing.

Obra como si la máxima de tu acción pudiera ser erigida, por tu voluntad, en ley universal de la naturaleza

For now we see that when we conceive ourselves as free we transfer ourselves into the world of understanding as members of it, and recognise the autonomy of the will with its consequence, morality; whereas, if we conceive ourselves as under obligation we consider ourselves as belonging to the world of sense, and at the same time to the world of understanding.

N]ature generally in the distribution of her capacities has adapted the means to the end... [so nature's] true destination must be to produce a will, not merely good as a means to something else, but good in itself, for which reason was... imparted to us as a practical... absolutely necessary... faculty.