Freewill Quotes & Sayings

My conclusion on Freewill and predestination- they are identical. — Winston S. Churchill

All preordained
A prisoner in chains
A victim of venomous fate
Kicked in the face
You can't pray for a place
In heaven's unearthly estate

Each of us
A cell of awareness
Imperfect and incomplete
Genetic blends
With uncertain ends
On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet — Neil Peart

Why does an apple fall when it is ripe? Is it brought down by the force of gravity? Is it because its stalk withers? Because it is dried by the sun, because it grows too heavy, or because the boy standing under the tree wants to eat it? None of these is the cause ... Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own freewill is in the historical sense not free at all but is bound up with the whole course of history and preordained from all eternity. — Leo Tolstoy

Freewill means that the Universe never judges, never interferes with your own choices - and sees you as a being of equal creative power. — Joy Page

Freewill.
Some have called it the greatest gift bestowed on humanity. It is our ability to control what happens to us and exactly how it happens. We are the masters of our fate and no one can foist their will on us unless we allow it.
Others say freewill is a crap myth. We have a preordained destiny and no matter what we do or how hard we fight it, life will happen to us exactly as it's meant to happen. We are only pawns to a higher power that our meager human brains can't even begin to understand or comprehend. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Keep being the author of your own story. Never let anyone else write it for you again. — Jennifer Donnelly

God is good, Rae. Men have free will and often do evil. God has freewill and constantly chooses to do good. That's the difference between us. God is good. Men have a bent toward evil that won't change unless we appeal to God to take us in hand and make us good again. And since only a small fraction of men ever think it worth laying down their will to ask for God's goodness instead, we end up with days like this. — Dee Henderson

I'll not do anything, though you should swear your tongue out, except what I please! — Emily Bronte

They understood freewill wasn't about physically resisting. Physical resistance isn't always possible ... it is mentally, emotionally, and spiritually withstanding the pressure to forget humanity's potential for kindness over cruelty. Choosing to accept consequences while still holding your head high, vulnerable and naked ... you are stronger for the pain. — Elyse Draper

The mother of goodwill is freewill, if untainted by evil. — Christian Hunt

The cynics are correct the sense of freewill is only that feeling which we have when we take the necessitated option that most appeals to us. — Will Self

Concerning God, freewill and destiny: Of all that earth has been or yet may be, all that vain men imagine or believe, or hope can paint or suffering may achieve, we descanted. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

The freewill you have given, we have made a mockery of. — Dolly Parton

Because one thing God gave us- and I'm afraid it's at times a little too much- is freewill. Freedom to choose. I believe he gave us everything needed to build a beautiful world, if we choose wisely. — Mitch Albom

If there really is some day discovered a formula for all our desires and caprices - that is, an explanation of what they depend upon, by what laws they arise, how they develop, what they are aiming at in one case and in another and so on, that is a real mathematical formula - then, most likely, man will at once cease to feel desire, indeed, he will be certain to. For who would want to choose by rule? Besides, he will at once be transformed from a human being into an organ-stop or something of that sort; for what is a man without desires, without freewill and without choice, if not a stop in an organ? — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Over the years of being stuck in this shit hole called life, I had debated religion and church, souls and freewill, heaven and hell.
I had come to a few conclusions. Mankind was too self-serving to understand what He had wanted from them. It wasn't a million dollar church, it wasn't perfection, it wasn't about how many times you prayed or apologized or that one day a month where you fed the homeless. And you weren't banished to hell for that one time you told someone to fuck off. You didn't end up in hell for that time you were a bitch to your fellow man.
It took a lot to end up there, and man worked at it with crazed enthusiasm. They worked harder at chiseling their way into hell, than any other action. — L.A. Kennedy

God created a system which gave us freewill. — David Gilmour

We grant evil freewill (or freewill to evil) is remaining in all natural men: we believe that freewill to good, is from grace and regeneration. — Henry Ainsworth

I suppose that the great questions of "Fate, Freewill, Foreknowledge Absolute," which used to be discussed at Concord, are still unsettled. — Henry David Thoreau

This re-appearance of the doctrine of freewill serves to support that of the pretension of the natural man to be not irremediably fallen, for this is what such doctrine tends to. All who have never been deeply convicted of sin, all persons in whom this conviction is based on gross external sins, believe more or less in freewill — John Nelson Darby

Freewill does not impune the sovereignty of God, it in fact affirms it. — R. Alan Woods

If so be that freewill were our tutor, and we had our heaven in our own keeping, then we would lose all. But because we have Christ for our tutor, and He has our heaven in His hand, therefore the covenant it must be perpetual. — Samuel Rutherford

I don't believe in fate, though, because fate isn't as much fun as freewill. But I do believe that everything is exactly as it should be. — Mel Bosworth

Catching the apple doesn't overturn the law of gravity or the formulation of a
new law. It's merely an intervention of a person with freewill who
overrides the natural causes operative in that particular circumstance.
And that is, essentially, is what God does when he causes a miracle to
occur. — William Lane Craig

Free your mind and free yourself from brand slavery. — Bryant McGill

, civilization is an ever-changing tacit agreement, culturally inherited, not chosen at birth. Civilization is the invention of man, my big friend. It is a means of ensuring order and structure; it is man's attempt to expunge all and every act of randomness from daily life. The ultimate goal of civilization is determinism, the complete absence of freewill. If everyone adhered to every rule, every demand, every decree of civilization, there would be no accidents, no arguments, no crime! Man would move through his life smoothly, like a well-oiled cog in a grandfather clock. — Peter Jelen

Do what thou wilt, the most sublimely austere ethical precept ever uttered, despite its apparent license. — Aleister Crowley

Nevertheless, that our freewill may not be altogether extinguished, I think it may be true that fortune is the ruler of half our actions, but that she allows the other half or a little less to be governed by us. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in faces - though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment. — Herman Melville

If there be a single law governing the actions of men, freewill cannot exist, for man's will would be subject to that law. — Leo Tolstoy

And this is the origin of freewill, that Adam wished to be independent, [124] and dared to try what he was able to do. — John Calvin

There's a reason why people find each other, and this reason is found in their emotional motives before they meet. They both attracted one another by their needs, desires and dreams. And so, only their fears, ignorance and misused freewill can set them apart before they have a chance to discover that they were blessed and not condemned to one another. This truth is asleep in their heart, waiting to be unlocked with faith, a leap into the unknown, kind words and gestures that unmask their soul. — Robin Sacredfire

Oh, as Dean says, nobody is free - never, except just for a few brief moments now and then, when the flash comes, or when as on my haystack night, the soul slips over into eternity for a little space. All the rest of our years we are slaves to something - traditions - conventions - ambitions - relations. — L.M. Montgomery

Liberty will never yield equality. Freewill produces a mess that you either accept or reject in favor of slavery. — A.E. Samaan

I will sacrifice a freewill offering to you; I will praise your name, O Lord, for it is good. (Ps. 54:6) — Beth Moore

What is really inspiriting and ennobling in the doctrine of freewill, is the conviction that we have real power over the formation of our own character; that our will, by influencing some of our circumstances, can modify our future habits or capabilities of willing. — John Stuart Mill

Happiness is a choice, To make a choice is utilizing your freewill to choose. Courage is getting out of your own way to let Happiness happen in your life in Abundance! — Sereda Aleta Dailey

Verily has man freewill to control his actions. That my Father-Mother has given to man as his inheritance. But the control of the ractions to those actions man has never had. This my Father-Mother holds inviolate. These cannot become man's except through modifying his actions until the reactions are their exact equal and opposite in equilibrium. — Walter Russell

Revive me, O LORD, according to Your word. 108Accept, I pray, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O LORD, And teach me Your judgments. 109My life is continually in my hand, Yet I do not forget Your law. 110The wicked have laid a snare for me, Yet I have not strayed from Your precepts. 111Your testimonies I have taken as a heritage forever, For they are the rejoicing of my heart. 112I have inclined my heart to perform Your statutes Forever, to the very end. — Anonymous

Vigilance enables wisdom and is the key to freewill — Michael J. Cooper

What does it mean that thirty thousand men, not athletes but rather weak and ordinary people, have subdued two hundred million vigorous, clever, capable, and freedom-loving people? Do not the figures make it clear that it is not the English who have enslaved the Indians, but the Indians who have enslaved themselves? — Leo Tolstoy

There is a limit where the intellect fails and breaks down, and this limit is where the questions concerning God and freewill and immortality arise. — Immanuel Kant

Freewill is also the thing that makes love real. — Sarah Fine

Ragging at its most harmless is embarrassing and silly, but at its worst, it attempts to prevent individual students from independent thinking, attempts, in fact, to eradicate freewill — Debalina Haldar

The word "freewill" (as also "self-determining power" [autexousiou] used by the Greek Fathers) does not occur in Scripture ... I Cor 7:37 does not mean freedom of the will. — Francis Turretin

In vain people busy themselves with finding any good of man's own in his will. For any mixture of the power of freewill that men strive to mingle with God's grace is nothing but a corruption of grace. It is just as if one were to dilute wine with muddy, bitter water. — John Calvin

Our own freewill, to choose the paths we take, no greater deed could ever be done than for another's sake. — Dolly Parton

Every one knows that the heavenly bodies move in certain paths in relation to each other with seeming consistency and regularity which we call [physical] law ... No one attributes freewill or motive to the material world. Is the conduct of man or the other animals any more subject to whim or choice than the action of the planets? ... We know that man's every act is induced by motives that led or urged him here or there; that the sequence of cause and effect runs through the whole universe, and is nowhere more compelling than with man. — Clarence Darrow

True freedom and power only comes when one is free of attachments. — Bryant McGill

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill. I will choose a path thats clear. I will choose Freewill. — Neil Peart

She loved him, and she was going to do everything she could to get him back. She hadn't come this far just to walk away. He was the love of her life, dammit. The man she wanted to marry. The world had reversed its orbit to bring them back together, for Pete's sake, and she wasn't going down without a fight. Fate could only do so much; the rest was up to her. — Andrea Lochen

Almost two hundred sixty-six years ago on my home world, Earth, my forefathers did the same thing. They declared their independence and free agency from an enemy that oppressed them. No one at that time expected this rebellion force to win the war. They were severely outnumbered, and they were extremely inexperienced compared to their enemy. Despite those odds, they succeeded in winning the war, giving them their independence and freewill to choose. (Adrian Palmer, Worlds Without End: The Mission) — Shaun Messick

The ability to make a decision doesn't require the absence of doubt or fear. Both vanish in the presence of responsibility, which emerges naturally in the presence of will. When we know what we truly want, the doubts that blur our decisions, the fears that make us succumb to luck and fate, all become secondary in the face of reason. That's when we understand that our freewill and our options weren't really there. We have created both by desire. The decision is basically conscience asking us to act on our subconscious desires. — Robin Sacredfire

That's the thing about freewill: Every decision we make is a choice against something as much as it is for something else. — Rebecca Serle

It is only work that is done as freewill offering to humanity and to nature that does not bring with it any binding attachment. — Swami Vivekananda

True freewill must and should never be predetermined and thus no one should have the ability to know beforehand the choice that a person would make. — Abaha Saagar