Free To Choose Quotes & Sayings

Central to Mill's approach throughout On Liberty is his 'Harm Principle', the idea that individual adults should be free to do whatever they wish up to the point where they harm another person in the process. Mill's principle is apparently straightforward: the only justification for interference with someone's freedom to live their life as they choose is if they risk harming other people. — Nigel Warburton

We have consistently supported a legalization program which is both generous to the alien and fair to the countless thousands of people throughout the world who seek legally to come to America. The legalization provisions in this act will go far to improve the lives of a class of individuals who now must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society. Very soon many of these men and women will be able to step into the sunlight and, ultimately, if they choose, they may become Americans. — Ronald Reagan

To choose a writer for a friend is like palling around with your cardiologist, who might be musing as you talk to him that you are a sinking man. A writer's love for another writer is never quite free of malice. He may enjoy discussing your failures even more than you do. He probably sees you as tragic, like his characters - or unworthy of tragedy, which is worse. — Anatole Broyard

Life is a great university for the unfolding of the mind, for developing character. In choosing our life work, when we are free to choose, we should remember this, and choose that which will call the biggest man or woman out of us and not that from which we can coin the most dollars. — Orison Swett Marden

The happiness of a people is the only rational object of government, and the only object for which a people, free to choose, can have a government at all. — Frances Wright

Fallen man is free to choose what he desires, but because his desires are only wicked he lacks the moral ability to come to Christ. As long as he remains in the flesh, unregenerate, he will never choose Christ. He cannot choose Christ precisely because he cannot act against his own will. His fall is so great that only the effectual grace of God working in his heart can bring him to faith. — R.C. Sproul

He looked at the mud. "If I pull you free, will you promise to bed me for my pains?"

"Here's what I'll promise, Logan MacKenzie. If you don't get me free, I will come back from the grave and haunt you. Relentlessly."

"For a timid English bluestocking, you can be quite fierce when you choose to be. I rather like it."

She hugged herself to keep her hands out of the creeping mud. "Logan, please. I be you, stop teasing and get me out of this. I'm cold. And I'm frightened."

"Look at me."
She looked at him.
His gaze held hers, blue and unwavering.

All teasing went out his voice. "I'm not leaving. Ten years in the British Army, and I've never left a man behind. I'm not leaving you. I'll have you out of this. Understand? — Tessa Dare

We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace. — George W. Bush

As long as you are free, you are free to select and choose alternatives, provided that you are willing to accept the responsibility for being free. And after you've tried your alternatives, and they don't work as you would wish, don't blame me. Blame your choice. Try another alternative. — Leo Buscaglia

Sure, you can choose the safety and predictability of the cage, forfeiting the adventure God has destined for you. But you won't be the only one missing out or losing out. When you lack the courage to chase the Wild Goose, the opportunity costs are staggering. Who might not hear about the love of God if you don't seize the opportunity to tell them? Who might be stuck in poverty, stuck in ignorance, stuck in pain if you're not there to help free them? Where might the advance of God's kingdom in the world stall out because you weren't there on the front lines? — Mark Batterson

People in the metros are busy making ends meet, but through my films, I like to give the reality of life a skip, and choose concepts which will give audiences a stress-free two-and-a-half hours. — Rohit Shetty

When we become response-able - that is, when we learn to choose our responses freely and consciously - we are free to build a life of continuing growth and increasing happiness. — Sue Patton Thoele

We are all free spirits. We must choose to practice freedom. — SARK

It is possible to be happy and joyful most of the time. You just have to look at little children and see their natural joy. You may say that little children are free and don't have anything to worry about, but you are free too! You are free to choose worry or to choose joy, and whatever you choose will attract exactly that. Worry attracts more worry. Joy attracts more joy! — Rhonda Byrne

Christianity is a creed embraced by billions, but rarely chosen by anyone. The same is true of Islam, whose followers now make up about one-fifth of the world's population of sex billion people. Jews are racially born into their religion. Today we have utterly forgotten that heresy derives from the Greek heraisthai, "to choose." To be heretical means to have choices and not be forced or obligated to believe what one is told to believe. A heretic is free to choose what to believe, or not to believe. — John Lamb Lash

Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, "to be free from freedom." — Eric Hoffer

God wants us to choose to love him freely, even when that choice involves pain, because we are committed to him, not to our own good feelings and rewards. He wants us to cleave to him, as Job did, even when we have every reason to deny him hotly. That, I believe, is the central message of Job. Satan had taunted God with the accusation that humans are not truly free. Was Job being faithful simply because God had allowed him a prosperous life? Job's fiery trials proved the answer beyond doubt. Job clung to God's justice when he was the best example in history of God's apparent injustice. He did not seek the Giver because of his gifts; when all gifts were removed he still sought the Giver. — Philip Yancey

All I want is you. You don't have to choose me now or ever, but when you choose, I want you free. — Michelle Hodkin

We have nothing to do, but to choose what is right, to be steady in the pursuit of it, and leave the issue to Providence. — Samuel Richardson

God gave us free will, and we may choose to exercise it in ways that end up hurting other people. — Francis Collins

Art is free, but of course you have to be alert to catch it when it comes onto the canvas. I don't choose the ideas, they choose me. I don't wait for them. They come without my permission! — Mirka Mora

God never gives up on us no matter how hard we try to get ourselves loose. God does not let go. That doesn't mean he controls everything we do. It doesn't mean he puts a bridle on us and leads us by the nose. He gives each one of us free will and common sense and a spirit that can communicate with his. When we go through afflictions, he allows us to choose our response. But no matter what our response may be, he sticks around to the bitter end. — Barbara Johnson

Meg," he whispered. "It wouldn't be real love if there weren't the possibility for another response to him. If we couldn't choose not to love him, then our love would be empty. That's why there's evil in this world, because there's free choice in this world. He allows the one to prove the other. — Laura Anderson Kurk

Three powerful life-changing words passed on from God to us: Now choose life! Right now, this moment, put away the baggage from the past, shake yourself free from the fear of the future unknown. Right now, choose life - seize your divine moment. A — Erwin Raphael McManus

And we have the tools. We have the tools to choose. They are free, and within you now! It is the tool of conscious thought. Imagine your life and how it could be better if you used the power of conscious thought effectively? — Tony Curl

The wave came again and carried them out onto the sea of pain, where he wondered again why life ever came into the world...The tide that drew them out into the troubled waters once again spent itself, and they floated slowly back, resting for a minute or so, only to be dragged out again. He held her up while she contracted and pushed inside herself, trying to open the petals of her flowering body...He lifted her, trying to free the load she was struggling with, but she was straining against the traces, getting nowhere, her eyes like those of a draft horse...Who would choose this, thought Laski, this work, this woe? Life enslaves us, makes us want children, gives us a thousand illusions about love, and all so that it can go forward. — William Kotzwinkle

What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change. — Madeleine K. Albright

I knew now what my earlier passion for Harry had hidden from me. That although I had bedded him as a free woman I was as bound as if I were the slave. For it was not a free choice. I had wanted him because he was the Squire, not for himself ... And it was no free choice, because I could not choose to say "No." My safety and security on the land meant I had to keep my special, costly hold on its owner. I paid him rent as surely as the tenants who came to my round rent table with their coins tied up in a scrap of cloth. When I lay on my back, or strode round the room threatening him with every imaginable, ridiculous torment, I was paying my dues. And the knowledge galled me. — Philippa Gregory

Look...it's not that easy. Let me tell you what you get. You get life, and breath, a world to walk and a path through the world--and the free will to wander the world as you choose. — Neil Gaiman

Those who choose to be servants know the most about being free. — Janette Oke

There is a multitude of forms of this appearing of un-freedom in the guise of its opposite: in being deprived of universal healthcare, we are told that we are being given a new freedom of choice (to choose our healthcare provider); when we can no longer rely on long-term employment and are compelled to search for a new precarious job every couple of years, we are told that we are being given the opportunity to reinvent ourselves and discover our creative potential; when we have to pay for the education of our children, we are told that we are now able to become "entrepreneurs of the self," acting like a capitalist freely choosing how to invest the resources he possesses (or has borrowed). In education, health, travel we are constantly bombarded by imposed "free choices"; forced to make decisions for which we are mostly not qualified (or do not possess enough information), we increasingly experience our freedom as a burden that causes unbearable anxiety. — Slavoj Zizek

Free will is the liberty to choose what is right according to Gods law. — Malachi Martin

Because of Calvary, I'm free to choose. And so I choose. I choose love ... No occasion justifies hatred; no injustice warrants bitterness. — Max Lucado

While we are each free to believe whatever we choose, we cannot do whatever we choose. — Hillary Clinton

You're thinking I'm one of those wise-ass California vegetarians who is going to tell you that eating a few strips of bacon is bad for your health. I'm not. I say its a free country and you should be able to kill yourself at any rate you choose, as long as your cold dead body is not blocking my driveway. — Scott Adams

Let me speak plainly: The United States of America is and must remain a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. Our very unity has been strengthened by this pluralism. That's how we began; this is how we must always be. The ideals of our country leave no room whatsoever for intolerance, anti-Semitism, or bigotry of any kind
none. The unique thing about America is a wall in our Constitution separating church and state. It guarantees there will never be a state religion in this land, but at the same time it makes sure that every single American is free to choose and practice his or her religious beliefs or to choose no religion at all. Their rights shall not be questioned or violated by the state.
Remarks at the International Convention of B'nai B'rith, 6 September 1984 — Ronald Reagan

Tristan stepped away from me. No, Robbie, listen. If there were any other way to turn off her programming, I would tell you. Lisa wants to know what she really feels, free of the programming, and I think we should help her. The pills will still keep her a bit compliant until we get her weaned off of them, but at least we can turn off her compulsion to please me sexually. Then she can really choose who she loves. — A. Violet End

Part One: I do not exist to impress the world. I exist to live my life in a way that will make me happy. Part Two: Everybody else is free to do whatever they feel like doing, for a living. Part Three: Responsible is Able to Respond, able to answer for the way we choose to live. There's only one person we have to answer to, of course, and that is ourselves. — Richard Bach

The power and magic of music lie in its intangibility and its limitlessness. It suggests images, but leaves us free to choose them and to accommodate them to our pleasure. — Wanda Landowska

It is goodness that gives to a neighborhood its beauty. One who is free to choose, yet does not prefer to dwell among the good - how can he be accorded the name of wise? — Confucius

It is better to accept the inevitable with energy. Well then, if I have not chosen up till now, now I choose. That is freedom. Having chosen, I am free. Somewhere in my memory — Samuel R. Delany

We have the free will to choose how we react to those stimuli every moment of our life and what we choose creates our destiny. — Thomas Vazhakunnathu

While we are free to choose, once we have made those choices, we are tied to the consequences of those choices. — Russell M. Nelson

This is my present, also yours, free to choose. I am here at your side, alive, and no ghost. Let beauty and care forge the weapons tonight. — Janny Wurts

There is never a better measure of what a person is than what he does when he's absolutely free to choose. — William M. Bulger

choose not to buy into a negative belief system. How does this work in everyday life? Let's take a common example. The newspapers report unemployment is at a record high. The television news commentator states: "No jobs are available." At this point, we are free to refuse to buy into the negative thought form. We can say instead, "Unemployment does not apply to me." By refusing to accept the negative belief, it now has no hold over our own life. — David R. Hawkins

In the "free world" (Natopolis) the centres of ideological orthodoxy are rarely defined. The diversity of intellectual trends within the orthodoxy, the indeterminate and shifting character of its boundaries, the existence of real centres of dissent (and the licence given to even Stalinist opposition)--all these conspire to create the central illusion of "Natopolitan" culture, that there is in fact no orthodoxy but only an infinite variety of opinions among which one is free to choose. — E.P. Thompson

It is for you to choose. Choice is man's right, and for that I leave you free. — Mary Stewart

God cries for us in the same way we cry for others. His tears most often spill over for the pain and suffering caused from the mortal misuse of a gift called agency. He will not revoke the gift. It was promised to us for the duration of our time on Earth. But He will hold each one of us accountable in the end for how we applied this power of agency. — Richelle E. Goodrich

My escape route was to emphasize the
idea of "choice." If a woman had a
right to wear a miniskirt, surely I had the right to choose my headscarf. My choice was a sign of my independence
of mind. Surely, to choose to wear
what I wanted was an
assertion of my feminism. I was a feminist, wasn't I?
But I was to learn that
choosing to wear the hijab is much easier than choosing to take it off. And that lesson was an important reminder of how truly "free" choice is. — Mona Eltahawy

It was a subversive notion, the idea that she was free. Free to choose where to go and what to do with her time. — G.S. Jennsen

Hope is one of the three great Christian virtues because Christ Himself is the master of life and therefore the master of hope. We are free to choose because we were made free from the beginning, and He honors our agency and our right and ability to choose. The choice He offers is life, and life offers hope. Any other choice is a choice of spiritual death that will bring us into the power of the devil ... Part of that hope in Christ is hope in the future, a future that includes resurrection and salvation and exaltation. — Chieko N. Okazaki

Conversation between Susan's therapist and Spenser -
"And when you find her? Then what?"
"Then she will be free again to come here and work with you until she can make the choices she wishes to make."
"And what if you are not that choice?"
"I think I will be. But I can't control that. What I can do is see that she's free to choose. — Robert B. Parker

If religion is true, one must believe. And if one chooses not to believe, one's choice is marked under the category of a refusal, and is thus never really free: it has the duress of a recoil." With literary belief, however, "one is always free to choose not to believe." This, Wood argues, is the freedom of literature; it is what constitutes its "reality. — James Wood

Find your freedom through questioning everything you hear and see. Be free to choose, from all possible perspectives and opinions, what builds love and harmony. — Raphael Zernoff

In order to be truly free, you must desire to know the truth more than you want to feel good. Because, if feeling good is your goal, then as soon as you feel better you will lose interest in what is true. This does not mean that feeling good or experiencing love and bliss is a bad thing. Given the choice, anyone would choose to feel bliss rather than sorrow. It simply means that if this desire to feel good is stronger than the yearning to see, know, and experience Truth, then this desire will always be distorting the perception of what is Real, while corrupting one's deepest integrity. — Adyashanti

Most of the food crops raised in the world today are fed to livestock destined for slaughter for us to eat, and most of the water used is used to raise the food crops that are fed to those animals. It has been estimated that, because of the extraordinary amount of grain it takes to raise food animals, if we reduced the amount of meat we eat by only ten percent, that would free up enough grain to feed all the starving humans in the world. So when we choose to eat meat instead of vegetables, we are choosing to take food away from others who are hungry. — Sharon Gannon

Plato spoke of the Sisters of Fate on the last 3 pages of his book, "The Republic" when he said: "Then the Sisters of Fate take all of our choices and weave them on their loom into the fabric of destiny. Hear the word of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality. Your genius will not be allotted to you, but you will choose your genius; and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a man honors' or dishonors her he will have more or less of her; the responsibility is with the chooser - God is justified" [Quote from Plato's Republic written 360BCE In the Public Domain] — D.M. Hoover

I don't. We each have free will. There may be higher purpose, but the actual path each of us takes to get there, and whether we choose to accept it at all, is up to us." She turns to me. "If you can't let go of that fear of making the wrong decision, you will never be able to take the chances you must take to live life fully. — Pam Jenoff

If you want to remain totally free, then don't choose. That's where the teaching of choiceless awareness comes in. Why the insistence of the great masters just to be aware and not to choose? Because the moment you choose, you have lost your total freedom, you are left with only a part. But if you remain choiceless, your freedom remains total. So there is only one thing which is totally free and that is choiceless awareness. Everything else is limited. — Rajneesh

But who you are is not a concept in the sky, and it's not a record of you accomplishments either. The most original and creative side of you can re-emerge only when you get time of your own, free time, wide-open time, uncommitted time, time in which to go after dreams or do absolutely nothing if you choose. Without it you can't have a self. — Barbara Sher

To Friedman, a free society is a more moral society, because it respects the moral primacy of the individual. It is only through their own free choices that people express their values, and therefore their individuality and their humanity. Without that freedom, we count no more than sheep. To be truly human, we must be free, and responsible for our own actions. The majority may not approve of what we choose, or may think they know what is best for us; but that gives them no right to dictate what we may drink or inject, nor to force us into military service, nor to steal our property and income for their own purposes. — Eamonn Butler

We can bury our heads in the sand and choose to ignore what is going around us, or we can look with new eyes, the eyes of the heart, upon the distortions of the past to walk again in authenticity and truth. — Barbara Meiklejohn-Free

As men's habits of mind differ, so that some more readily embrace one form of faith, some another, for what moves one to pray may move another to scoff, I conclude that everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruits. — Baruch Spinoza

I exercise my right as a free citizen to spend my own money in my own way, so that I can go on the day, the time, to the doctor I choose and get out fast. — Margaret Thatcher

We can't hide it or fake it. We'll never fit society's idea for how women should look and behave, but why is that a tragedy? We're free to live how we want. It's liberating, if you choose to see it that way. — Sarai Walker

We are free to choose. — Lauren Oliver

After all is said and done, you are free to choose but you are not free from the consequence of your choice. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

If you choose the liberty and pride and strength of the single soul, and the free fraternization of men, as the purpose which your life is to make manifest then do not sell it for tinsel. Think that your soul is strong and will hold its way; and slowly, through bitter struggle perhaps the strength will grow. — Voltairine De Cleyre

The rights we have as free individuals is the right to choose as we please. — Steven Redhead

We are a people united by our love for freedom, even when we differ in our personal beliefs. In America, we are free to profess any faith we choose, or no faith at all. — George W. Bush

God wants to reveal things to us through our imagination, and the enemy wants to prevent us from receiving them. The goal of the enemy is to so pollute the flow of revelation we receive through our imagination that we'll decide we don't want to see anything at all. Because the imagination is part of the soul, and the soul is controlled by our will, we can willingly choose to do whatever we want with our imagination. Because much of the imagery in this part of the mind is painful, in order to avoid the pain associated with these images, some people have exercised their free will and chosen to completely shut down the flow of revelation that comes through their imagination. — Praying Medic

I think that, generally, people of the world typify a "free and wild" person as someone who's uprooted, detached and uninhibited. But I don't believe in that kind of freedom. I think that's an infantile concept. Freedom means something when it has escaped something! Those people who escaped things - their inner cages, cages set by others around them - when those people are able to roam free and say, "This is who I am because this is who I choose to be", THAT is freedom. Freedom isn't being stupid; freedom is being so smart that you develop a strength strong enough to break free and become your own person. A better person than what your circumstances would like to define you as. — C. JoyBell C.

What about free will? . . . There's that too. I never understood why people think they're mutually exclusive. Ask me, our entire lives aren't planned out for us- just some things. Specific events along the way, crossroads we're meant to come to. Tests, maybe, to measure our progress. But we always have choices, and those choices can send us along an unplanned path . . . there are some things that are meant to happen at a certain moment and in a certain way. No matter which path you choose, which decisions you make along your own particular journey, those pivotal moments appear to be set in stone. Maybe they represent the specific lessons we're meant to learn . . . Things we have to face. Things we have to learn. Responsibilities we have to fulfill. And mistakes we have to correct. — Kay Hooper

God maintains a delicate balance between keeping his existence sufficiently evident so people will know he's there and yet hiding his presence enough so that people who want to choose to ignore him can do it. This way, their choice of destiny is really free. — J.P. Moreland

The individual man, in introspecting the fact of his own consciousness, also discovers the primordial natural fact of his freedom: his freedom to choose, his freedom to use or not use his reason about any given subject. In short, the natural fact of his "free will." He also discovers the natural fact of his mind's command over his body and its actions: that is, of his natural ownership over his self. — Murray Rothbard

OF COURSE MONEY TAKES WORRY OUT OF YOUR LIFE AND ENABLES YOU TO PROVIDE FOR YOUR FAMILY - BUT IF IT WAS PLAYING PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL FOR FREE OR CHOOSE ANOTHER LIVING, THEN I WOULD CHOOSE FOOTBALL EVERY TIME. — Lionel Messi

If you say, I'm living in America and I have freedom of speech but I choose not to use it because it's going to cost me, well, you're not living in freedom. You're not free. — Tim Robbins

By making no demands (for example, "You must give up your career"), by seeming not to interfere in crucial decisions (should she abort the child she had conceived by him before they were married?) he effectively placed the burden of all decisions on her. She was the one who had to choose - over and over again. Michael could just be himself. This is the free ride men so often enjoy in their marriages. — Carl Rollyson

I desire not to desire, for my will is without value, since I am ignorant in any case. Therefore choose Thou for me what thou knowest to be best and do not put my perdition in what my autonomy and free choice prefer. — Bayazid Bastami

Things I learned from a man called "The Nazarene"
1- Being poor does not equal being miserable.
2- People will judge you, but their judgment should not define who you are.
3- Going against what others hold as true is not necessarily a bad thing.
4- Everyone is sacred.
5- Life is sometimes a lonely and dry place, like desert, but those times are there to help us meditate on what is truly important in our lives.
6- Complaining or getting angry because there is a storm in our lives solves nothing; embrace the storm and keep calm.
7- Treasure and protect the children of the world, they hold the key of what is pure and innocent; they are the way to freedom.
8- We are free to be who we want to be, it is our choice to be slaves or kings.
9- Fear nothing.
10- The person you don't like is also your neighbor.
11- The words following "I AM" define who we are, we must choose wisely. — Martin Suarez

Today, as never before - the information media having become to enlightenment as the cereal aisle is to the supermarket - if you choose not to access the past, you are de facto free to rule it out of existence, at least so far as you might be concerned. — Jack Womack

Freedom may come not from being in control of life but rather from a willingness to move with the events of life, to hold on to our memories but let go of the past, to choose, when necessary, the inevitable. We can become free at any time. — Rachel Naomi Remen

Freedom includes the freedom to be foolish, to be sick. Free choice includes the freedom to choose badly. — Peter Huber

We have choice," she insisted. "This is it. We don't get to choose our choices, Gwain, we just get to make the ones we're given ... — Dianna Hardy

Those small moments of pleasure men get from sin, from defying God, are perhaps grace - His final gift still to those who hard-heartedly choose to deny Him. Godless men may blatantly enjoy offending God not because they are free-spirited, but on the whole because He moves them to enjoy it. Sin is, in a sense, still touching God: for a strike involves a touch. Perhaps this is His divine kindness. Faithful men find everlasting fulfillment in His good company; but godless men who strike at the Author of Joy, who are completely ignorant of the greater, for them - and by God's love for His enemies - there is yet this small recoil known as 'pleasure' before the fall. — Criss Jami

But purpose is personal. It can't be right or wrong. It can't be true or false. It can't not be about you. It's how you decide to live your own life. If someone else tells you how to live, you are not free. If you don't choose your own purpose, you are a slave. — Dan Barker

A people free to choose will always choose peace. — Ronald Reagan

Unless we choose to decentralize and to use applied science, not as the end to which human beings are to be made the means, but as the means to producing a race of free individuals, we have only two alternatives to choose from: either a number of national — Aldous Huxley

God gave us our agency. He taught us a way. He showed us what to do. But he gave us our agency and left us free to act as we choose to do. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Properly understood, then, the desire to act justly derives in part from the desire to express most fully what we are or can be, namely free and equal rational beings with the liberty to choose. — John Rawls

The beauty is that you are always free to choose a better future as well as a better past! — Anuranjita Kumar

Make no mistake,' He says, 'if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect - until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less. — C.S. Lewis

We live in a democracy, and people are free to sometimes choose the wrong leader. — Rand Paul

To A Young Beauty
Dear fellow-artist, why so free
With every sort of company,
With every Jack and Jill?
Choose your companions from the best;
Who draws a bucket with the rest
Soon topples down the hill.
You may, that mirror for a school,
Be passionate, not bountiful
As common beauties may,
Who were not born to keep in trim
With old Ezekiel's cherubim
But those of Beauvarlet.
I know what wages beauty gives,
How hard a life her servant lives,
Yet praise the winters gone:
There is not a fool can call me friend,
And I may dine at journey's end
With Landor and with Donne. — W.B.Yeats

Our right brain hemisphere (transcendent mind) supports us in acknowledging our infinite potential when we understand our true nature and origins, and the importance of our free will. The latter gives us the ability to choose to live like an interdependent whole, within which, we are as musical notes inside a great symphony or the various shades of color in a painting, where our role is as important as that of every component but not better than any other — Ivan Figueroa-Otero

The young women of today, free to study, to speak, to write, to choose their occupation, should remember that every inch of this freedom was bought for them at a great price. It is for them to show their gratitude by helping onward the reforms of their own times, by spreading the light of freedom and of truth still wider. The debt that each generation owes to the past it must pay to the future. — Abigail Scott Duniway

I am an artist, and I have the ability and the free will to choose the way the world will envision me. — Lady Gaga

When you have done the spiritual growing up you realize that every human being is of equal importance, has work to do in this world, and has equal potential. We are in many varied stages of growth; this is true because we have free will. You have free will as to whether you will finish the mental and emotional growing up. Many choose not to. — Peace Pilgrim

Within me is the potential to commit every evil act I see being committed by other men, and unless I feel this potential, I can at any moment be controlled by these same urges. I am free from these urges only if I recognize when I am feeling them, and while feeling them and acknowledging them to be me, choose not to follow them. Only in this way can I begin to regain the disowned parts of me. And only in this way can I know what it is I am criticizing in others. — Hugh Prather