Holbach Determinism Quotes & Sayings

If in the heat of the dispute he insists and asks, 'Am I not the master of throwing myself out of the window?' I shall answer him, no; that whilst he preserves his reason there is no probability that the desire of proving his free agency, will become a motive sufficiently powerful to make him sacrifice his life to the attempt: if, notwithstanding this, to prove he is a free agent, he should actually precipitate himself from the window, it would not be a sufficient warranty to conclude he acted freely, but rather that it was the violence of his temperament which spurred him on to this folly. Madness is a state, that depends upon the heat of the blood, not upon the will. A fanatic or a hero, braves death as necessarily as a more phlegmatic man or a coward flies from it. — Paul Henri Thiry D'Holbach

Man's life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without his ever being able to swerve from it, even for an instant. He is born without his own consent; his organization does in nowise depend upon himself; his ideas come to him involuntarily; his habits are in the power of those who cause him to contract them; he is unceasingly modified by causes, whether visible or concealed, over which he has no control, which necessarily regulate his mode of existence, give the hue to his way of thinking, and determine his manner of acting. He is good or bad, happy or miserable, wise or foolish, reasonable or irrational, without his will being for any thing in these various states. — Paul Henri Thiry D'Holbach

The merciless Macdonald
(Worthy to be a rebel, - for, to that,
The multiplying villainies of nature
Do swarm upon him) from the Western Isles
Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
Showed like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak:
For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name)
Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish'd steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valour's minion,
Carv'd out his passage. — William Shakespeare

3. The unconscious mind controls the internal dialogue. — Jay Conrad Levinson

I like to do all kinds of films. — Pam Grier

There's something so relentless and foul about Hitler and his people, and the way things progressed from year to year. It just got to me in the strangest way. — Erik Larson

Dad likes my food, but he probably thinks it's too busy. He is a wonderful cook but only uses three ingredients. My mum rips out my articles and makes my recipes. — Yotam Ottolenghi