Free will proverbs

Page 4

◆ I wear the chain I forged in life....I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.

- Charles Dickens99

◆ For you will certainly carry out God's purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John.

- C.S. Lewis99

◆ Every instinct that is found in any man is in all men. The strength of the emotion may not be so overpowering, the barriers against possession not so insurmountable, the urge to accomplish the desire less keen. With some, inhibitions and urges may be neutralized by other tendencies. But with every being the primal emotions are there. All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.

- Clarence Darrow99

◆ According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it.

- G.K. Chesterton99

◆ What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change.

- Madeleine Albright99

◆ But recently I have learned from discussions with a variety of scientists and other non-philosophers (e.g., the scientists participating with me in the Sean Carroll workshop on the future of naturalism) that they lean the other way: free will, in their view, is obviously incompatible with naturalism, with determinism, and very likely incoherent against any background, so they cheerfully insist that of course they don't have free will, couldn't have free will, but so what? It has nothing to do with morality or the meaning of life. Their advice to me at the symposium was simple: recast my pressing question as whether naturalism (materialism, determinism, science...) has any implications for what we may call moral competence. For instance, does neuroscience show that we cannot be responsible for our choices, cannot justifiably be praised or blamed, rewarded or punished? Abandon the term 'free will' to the libertarians and other incompatibilists, who can pursue their fantasies untroubled. Note that this is not a dismissal of the important issues; it's a proposal about which camp gets to use, and define, the term. I am beginning to appreciate the benefits of discarding the term 'free will' altogether, but that course too involves a lot of heavy lifting, if one is to avoid being misunderstood.

- Daniel C. Dennett99

◆ You say: I am not free. But I have raised and lowered my arm. Everyone understands that this illogical answer is an irrefutable proof of freedom.

- Leo Tolstoy99

◆ I think He made one law of that kind in order that there might be obedience. In all these other matters what you call obeying Him is but doing what seems good in your eyes also. Is love content with that? You do them, indeed, because they are His will, but not only because they are his will. Where can you taste the joy of obeying unless he bids you do something for which His bidding is the only reason?

- C.S. Lewis98

◆ Man must learn to live without ideologies religious, political or otherwise. When the mind is not tethered to any ideology, it is free to move to new understandings. And in that freedom flowers all that is good and all that is beautiful.

- 98

◆ A great deal of laziness of mind is called liberty of opinion.

- 98

◆ Let your mind be set free from the control of others influence.

- Jeremy Limn98

◆ Free-will doesn't include shit-happens, unless that's the goal of one's intention.

- Toba Beta98

◆ The true free-will ain't a matter of choosing one of many choices... but of creating variety of options, then deciding the best choice of all.

- Toba Beta98

◆ Free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply.

- Flannery O'Connor98

◆ A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.

- Arthur Schopenhauer98