"Free will" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him unpleasantly. "Y'u certainly can so far as I am concerned. I owe y'u one, too, Mr. McWilliams. Only if y'u come of your own free will, as y'u are surely welcome to do, don't holler if y'u're not so welcome to leave whenever y'u take ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... but ye'll have to go on faster an' faster, till yer carried off yer legs, and, mayhap, dashed to bits at the bottom. Smokin' and drinkin' are both alike. Ye can begin when you please, an', up to a certain pint, ye can stop when ye please; but after that pint, ye can't stop o' yer own free will—ye'd die first. Many an' many a poor fellow has died first, ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... hand, and hesitated. "See," she said, "I shall sign one letter of my name each week, until all my name is written! Till that last letter we shall be engaged. After the last letter, when I have signed it of my own free will, and clean, and solemn—clean and solemn, John Cowles—then we will be—Oh, take me home—take me to my father, John Cowles! This is a hard place ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... benefit; but supposing that he indulges his slave, educates him above his station, teaches him arts which free-born men learn, that is a benefit. The converse is true in the case of the slave; anything which goes beyond the rules of a slave's duty, which is done of his own free will, and not in obedience to orders, is a benefit, provided it be of sufficient importance to be called by such a name if ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... with a passionate obstinacy. He was no longer thinking of the man in the blue robe outside the prison walls, or of the chances of escape. The fear that the third feather would never be brought back to Ethne, that she would never have the opportunity to take back the fourth of her own free will, no longer troubled him. Even that great hope of "the afterwards" was for the moment banished from his mind. He thought only of Trench and the few awkward words he had spoken in the corner of the zareeba on the first night when they lay side by side under the sky. ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... quite satisfied with that leave-taking, and nearly forty years later when I had car fare, I went back to that town. I never like to go out of a place feet first, and I cleared my record this time by walking out of my native village, head up and of my own free will. ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... advances repelled, and by alluding, from time to time, to Laura's prospective nuptials, as to an event predestined and inevitable, or, at least, no less sure to come to pass than if Laura herself had engaged her hand to Mr. Hunt of her own free will and accord, and was only waiting to be asked to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... men, but in their hearts and souls, which are soft enough. He is all flexibility and grace, and his habitation is among the flowers, and he cannot do or suffer wrong; for all men serve and obey him of their own free will, and where there is love there is obedience, and where obedience, there is justice; for none can be wronged of his own free will. And he is temperate as well as just, for he is the ruler of the desires, and if he rules them he must be ...
— Symposium • Plato
... of that book I read also the book published by Democrats for Buchanan's election. Then I understood that not only the Heavenly congress who do not deprive men of their free will although they control their actions for the final triumph of the true Republican cause, but that also I was in duty bound to enlighten Citizens of Pennsylvania, who had to decide the Presidential election, that ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... imagination; the situation was so full of possibilities, so absolutely free of all wrong conditions, so ready to yield itself to many wrong conditions. Roland's days went by in a placid sameness, which did not become fretting, because he knew he should end its pleasant monotony of his own free will in a very few weeks. And Ada had never before been so happy. Why should she ask herself the reason? To question fate is not a fortunate thing, at any rate; she felt a reluctance to begin a catechism with her feelings or ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... usually contented itself with managing and superintending the community in whatever directly and ostensibly concerned the national honor; but in all other respects the people were left to work out their own free will. Amongst these nations the government often seemed to forget that there is a point at which the faults and the sufferings of private persons involve the general prosperity, and that to prevent the ruin of a private individual ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... said Egede; "I did not say that nothing can be wrong. What I do say is that whatever God does is and must be right. But God has given to man a free will, and with his free will man does wrong. It is just to save man from this wrong-doing ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... resigned honors and emoluments in the army for the sake of serving India; the other has accepted toilsome service under a man who seeks, however mistakenly, to serve the world. If you were not honest you would never have been chosen. If you had made no sacrifices of your own free will, you would not have ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... the attention of children as soon as any thing, they eagerly inquire what such a thing is, and this gives the teacher an opportunity of instructing them to great advantage; for when a child of his own free will eagerly desires to be informed, he is sure to profit by the ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... Conveyance of a Wife's Estate, that she is carried to a Judges Apartment and left alone with him, to be examined in private whether she has not been frightened or sweetned by her Spouse into the Act she is going to do, or whether it is of her own free Will. Now if this be a Method founded upon Reason and Equity, why should there not be also a proper Officer for examining such as are entring into the State of Matrimony, whether they are forced by Parents on one Side, or moved by Interest only on the other, to come together, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... will an' purpose o' nature, yet I winna, I canna leave my dear young maister; an' if he be to suffer, I will share his fate. Only, Sir Gideon, there is ae thing I hae to say, an' that is, that he is young, an' he is proud an' stubborn, like yersel', an' though he will not, o' his ain free will an' accord, nor in obedience to yer commandments, marry yer dochter—is it not possible to compel him, whether he be willing or no, an' so save his life, as it were, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... for restoration to myself," said Redlaw. "What I abandoned, I abandoned of my own free will, and have justly lost. But for those to whom I have transferred the fatal gift; who never sought it; who unknowingly received a curse of which they had no warning, and which they had no power to ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... demands of work in guiding ourselves and others thus come to lead us also into practical ethics, with a new conception of the relation of actual and experimental determinism and of what "free will" we may want to speak of, with a new emphasis on the meaning of choice, of effort, and of new creation out of new possibilities presented by the ever-newly-created opportunities of ever-new time. We get ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... of Nab, the wife of Nadin-Merodach, the son of Iqisa-abla, the son of Nur-Sin, has taken her father-in-law, has housed him, and has been kind to him and has provided him with food, oil, and clothing. Iqisa-abla, the son of Kudurru, the son of Nur-Sin, has, therefore, of his own free will, cancelled the deed of adoption, and by a sealed deed has given Rimanni-Bel to wait upon -Saggil-ramat and Nubt, the daughter of -Saggil-ramat and Nadin-Merodach, the grandson of Nur-Sin; -Saggil-ramat and Nubt, her daughter, shall he obey. ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... recovery. He is like a lump of clay, or a statue without life or activity. In consequence of these views, he held that grace in its operation on the heart was irresistible,—sometimes through the word, at other times without it. Dr. Knapp says, "God does not act in such a way as to infringe upon the free will of man, or to interfere with the use of his powers" (Phil. ii. 12, 13). Consequently, God does not act on men immediately, producing ideas in their souls without the preaching or reading of the scriptures, or influencing their will in any other way than by ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... desirous of having and receiving a part of the rights and benefits of this worshipful Lodge, dedicated (some say erected) to God, and held forth to the holy order of St. John, as all true fellows and brothers have done, who have gone this way before him." The Junior Deacon then asks, "Is it of his own free will and accord he makes this request? Is he duly and truly prepared? Worthy and well qualified? And properly avouched for?" All of which being answered in the affirmative, the Junior Deacon says to the Senior Deacon, ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... revealed to you, suddenly or slowly, that from the first day that you came into this world, nay, before your life was an uttered fact in this world, God has been loving you, and seeking you, and planning for you, and making every effort that He could make in consistency with the free will with which He endowed you from the centre of His own life, that you might become His and therefore might become truly yourself? Through all the years in which you were obstinate and rebellious, through all the years in which you defied Him, nay, through the ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... think I don't. I've fought on your side of my own free will. How can I live that down? It's the only side for me for ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... he's the next-door to it; it's not of his own free will and pleasure he'd come here to listen to all the lies them thundhering Saxon ruffians choose to ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... miracles of modern science, so this idea of destiny seems to me an instinctive anticipation of the formulas of modern science. What we want to-day is a dramatist who shall show us the great natural silent forces, working the weal and woe of human life through the illusions of consciousness and free will." ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the mainland conclude the arrangement by which they became part and parcel of the Persian Empire than the Cyprians followed their example, and, revolting from Egypt, offered themselves of their own free will to Persia.[14260] Cambyses, it is needless to say, readily ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... to stay in the town. I rather think that, through the evidence of Seltz, I can make it slightly uncomfortable for you. Tell what story you please. I have done you no injury. You came here of your own free will—you could have escaped and you would not. As for the light—" He laughed harshly. "An ordinary arc, focused on your eyes with a powerful lens. It would probably have blinded you, in time, and if it kept you awake long enough, you would no doubt have gone mad, but so far you ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... influence; and, indeed, have endeavored to stamp an indelible stain upon your character and honor. Every man, my dear, as the proverb has it, is at liberty to do what he pleases with his own, according to his free will, and a reasonable disposition. Let me hear no more of this, then, but enjoy with gratitude that which God and your kind ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... logic of events required that annexation, heretofore offered but declined, should in the ripeness of time come about as the natural result of the strengthening ties that bind us to those Islands, and be realized by the free will ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the day on which this sentence was passed, M. de Laubardemont ordered the surgeon Francois Fourneau to be arrested at his own house and taken to Grandier's cell, although he was ready to go there of his own free will. In passing through the adjoining room he heard the voice ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Racionales, became very influential, and corresponded with the society of the Grand Reunion of America (Gran Reunion Americana) of London. This society was pledged "to recognize no government in America as legitimate unless it was elected by the free will of the people." San Martin joined this society. The London society was established by Miranda, the Spanish patriot, a friend of Bolivar, by whose inspirations San Martin became a disciple of liberty, and whose dreams he fulfilled long after ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... that any man will necessarily act in the same way to-morrow as he did yesterday, when subjected to the influence of the same threat, inducement, or temptation; because, without grappling the thorny question of free will, we realize that a man's action is never the result of only one stimulus and motive, but is the resultant of many; and we have no reason to expect that he will act in the same way when subjected to the same stimulus, unless we know that the internal and external conditions pertaining ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... superfluous laws of nature. On the other hand, an omnipotent and omniscient Creator ordains everything and foresees everything. Thus we are brought face to face with a difficulty as insoluble as is that of free will and predestination. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... an armed attack upon your city and ravaged your territory, we are guilty; but if the first men among you in estate and family, wishing to put an end to the foreign connection and to restore you to the common Boeotian country, of their own free will invited us, wherein is our crime? Where wrong is done, those who lead, as you say, are more to blame than those who follow. Not that, in our judgment, wrong was done either by them or by us. Citizens like yourselves, and with ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... employ of my own free will," responded Belle promptly, "I the same as promise to obey all the rules and regulations of your establishment, and I'll do it, too. What's more, I'll sell so many goods in dull times and all times that you can well afford to make a place for me if you have none. ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... be a long story to tell," replied the soldier, shaking his head. "As for me, I followed the career which was open to me, and took service of my own free will under the banner of our lord king, Henry II. This man, whom you rightly suppose to be my brother, was born in Biscay, and became attached to the household of the Cardinal of Burgos, and afterwards ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARTIN GUERRE • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... ordinances Let us not hold too lightly. They are weights Of priceless value, which oppressed mankind Tied to the volatile will of their oppressors. For always formidable was the league 65 And partnership of free power with free will. The way of ancient ordinance, though it winds, Is yet no devious way. Straight forward goes The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies and rapid, 70 Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... found a letter in his daughter's bedroom, a plucky letter in which she plainly said that as she had been struck again the previous day, she had had enough of it, and was going off of her own free will. Indeed, she added that she was taking Gregoire with her, and was quite big and old enough, now that she was two-and-twenty, to know what she was about. Lepailleur's fury was largely due to this letter which he did not dare to show abroad; besides which, his wife, ever ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... herself in the schoolroom, and had never found it difficult, but then she had not gone far enough, perhaps. And she went at once to get a Colenso or a Barnard Smith to see. She found them more fascinating when she attacked them of her own free will and with all her intelligence than she had done when necessity, in the shape of her governess, forced her to pay them some attention, and she went through them both in a few weeks at odd times, and then asked her father's advice about a book on ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... who hast taken my free will from me; thou creator, who hast produced within me the sensation of awakening, who hast convulsed me with a thousand electric sparks from the realm of sacred nature! Through thee I learned to love the curling of the tender ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... house.' Lots of times we slaves would take turns on helping 'em serve Sunday meals just 'cause we liked them so much. We hated to see Missie fumbling 'round in the kitchen all out 'a'her place. We didn't have to do it, we just did it on our own free will. Master sometimes gives us a little money for it too, which made it all the better. Master and Missus was so good to us we didn't mind working a little on Sundays, in the house. Master had prayer with the whole ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves - Virginia Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... myself to blame.—This morning we have grappled for and found another length of small cable which Mr. —— dropped in 100 fathoms of water. If this also gets full of kinks, we shall probably have to cut it after 10 miles or so, or, more probably still, it will part of its own free will or weight. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the star stood still, The only one in the gray of morn Yes, it stopped, it stood still of its own free will, Right over Bethlehem on the hill, The city of David where Christ ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... clear enough," he whispered. "There will be no doubt in the morning that she went of her own free will." ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... left at the Cape, and I know that now a great force is moving on Southwest Africa furnished by Boer and Briton alike. Can the history of the world tell us of any parallel case to this—that a country conquered within a dozen years should not only need no garrison, but by its own free will undertake war against the enemies of its late victor? Surely this is something of ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... reason—I will say perhaps for that reason—we have never become a very rich house. It is possible to name bankers who have made large fortunes out of Egypt. It was different with us. Lord Chaldon will tell you that of our own free will—my two brothers and I—of our own choice we consented to lose a fifth of all our possessions, rather than coin into gold by force the tears and ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... reproach me with faithlessness," she said, "you, who have dealt so treacherously by me; you, who deliberately planned my ruin, and would have effected it but for the deeper-laid scheme of one you say is my father. No thanks to you that I am a lawful wife. You did not make me so of your own free will. You did to me the greatest wrong a man can do a woman, then cruelly deserted me, and now you would chide me for respecting another more than ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... seem all very clear; and if your passengers came on board with their own free will, I can have nothing to say to you, but wish you a good voyage," he remarked; "but I should have been better pleased had you hove-to when I made a signal to you to do so, as you would have saved us ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... purpose thee to lime; The snare hast entered of thine own free will: Let him who holds the devil, hold him still! So soon he'll catch him ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... herself as better and higher than the average girl of the merchant class, than the empty and stupid girl who thinks of nothing but dresses, and who marries almost always according to the calculation of her parents, and but seldom in accordance with the free will of her heart. And now she herself is about to marry merely because it was time, and also because her father needed a son-in-law to succeed him in his business. And her father evidently thought that she, by herself, was hardly capable ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... slavery is not a political institution at all, but an inherent, natural, and eternal inheritance of a large portion of the human race—to whom, the more you give of their own free will, the more slaves they will make themselves. In common parlance, we idly confuse captivity with slavery, and are always thinking of the difference between pine-trunks (Ariel in the pine), and cowslip-bells ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... and said: "My Lord Earl, I would ask grace for this one; for what she did to me she did compelled, and not of her free will, and I forgive it her. And moreover, this last time she suffered in her body for the helping of me; so if thou mightest do her asking I were ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... the King, which, if it had received the royal sanction, might have produced the best results. It was a charter of those rights which the King was willing, nay, glad, to grant, but it was Mr. Jefferson's earnest conviction that Louis should come forward with this charter of his own free will and offer it to his people, to be signed by himself and every member of the National Assembly. But the King's timidity and the machinations of Monsieur and the Comte d'Artois prevented this plan from coming to anything. Mr. Jefferson, thinking, perhaps, that his zeal had over-stepped ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... strange one, but there are reasons—strong, personal reasons of my own—which prevent me revealing to you the whole of what is a strange and ghastly story. Surely it will suffice you to know that I did not conceal all knowledge of your friend and call upon him in secret all of my own free will. No, Teddy, I loved you—and I still love you, dear—far ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... was speaking still: The monarch, of his own free will, Bade with quick zeal and joyful cheer Rama and Lakshman hasten near. Mother and sire in loving care Sped their dear son with rite and prayer; Vasishtha blessed him ere he went, O'er his loved head the father ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... it was that governed humanity. As she spoke she looked at the man she had called Bobbie, who was Sir Robert Syng, private secretary to a prominent minister, and when she stopped speaking he said he had never been able to believe in free will, though he always behaved as if ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... of chicken and her father asked her why she did that. She explained that she was saving them for her dog. Her father told her there were plenty of bones the dog could have so she consented to eat the dainty bits. Later she collected the bones and took them to the dog saying, "I meant to give a free will offering but it is only ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... inhuman to delay the meeting of the husband and wife, so long parted. Neither would have forgiven him if he had coolly kept them apart for his own convenience; but so grateful, so adoring to her hero was Mrs. James, that if "the doctor" had not been ill and needing her, I think of her own free will she would have offered to stop in Edinburgh for a few days to "see what happened." As it was, there was no question of her staying. She and Somerled arranged that she should leave for Carlisle by the first train possible in the morning. ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... toward O—— our only guide was a few white houses two or three miles away on the edge of the village. The German had not evacuated O—— of his own free will, but a certain "Fighting Division" had taken the village two days before and driven the German out, when he retired three or four hundred yards farther to his rear Hindenburg Line. The probable reason why he hung on to this village, which was really in front of his line of advance, was ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... insurrection of the Irish as a species of Crusade. Remonstrances, warm, eloquent, and passionate, were poured in upon the most influential members of the Supreme Council, from those who had either by delegation, or from their own free will, befriended them abroad. These remonstrances reached that powerful body at Waterford, at Limerick, or at Galway, whither they had gone on an official visitation, to hear complaints, settle controversies, and provide for the better collection of the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... small boys went cantering by on one bareback horse; a drove of cattle passed the end of the street two or three rods away, driven by mounted cow-boys; a collection of small children in a donkey cart halted just before her door, not of their own free will, but in obedience to a caprice of the donkey's. They did not hurt Mrs. Nancy's feelings by cudgelling the fat little beast, but sat laughing and whistling and coaxing him until, of his own accord, he put his big flapping ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... the demoralisation of womanhood!"—he said, passionately—"I cannot look on with an easy smile when I see the sex that SHOULD be the saving purity of the world, deliberately sinking itself by its own free will and choice into the mire of the vulgarest social vice, and parting with every redeeming grace, modesty and virtue that once made it sacred and beautiful! I am quite aware that there are many men who not ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... in a almost eloquent way, "I don't believe in makin' such exertions after pleasure. I don't believe in chasin' of her up." Says I, "Let her come of her own free will." Says I, "You can't catch her by chasin' of her up, no more than you can fetch a shower up, in a drewth, by goin' out doors, and running after a cloud up in the heavens above you. Sit down, and be patient; and when it gets ready, the refreshin' rain-drops will begin to fall without none ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... of those exclusive passions which master the whole being. Already he felt himself so much under the charm, subjugated, dominated, fascinated; he understood so well that he was going to cease being his own master; that his free will was about escaping from him; that he would be in Mlle. Lucienne's hands like wax under the modeler's fingers; he saw himself so thoroughly at the discretion of an energy superior to his own, that he was ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... from the cabinet, foreseeing a scene at which he was unwilling to be present, but which sometimes occurred when James roused himself so far as to exert his own free will, of which he boasted so much, in spite of that of his imperious favourite Steenie, as he called the Duke of Buckingham, from a supposed resemblance betwixt his very handsome countenance, and that with which the Italian artists represented ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... the household" (-pater familias-). In relation to him all in the household were destitute of legal rights—the wife and the child no less than the bullock or the slave. As the virgin became by the free choice of her husband his wedded wife, so it rested with his own free will to rear or not to rear the child which she bore to him. This maxim was not suggested by indifference to the possession of a family; on the contrary, the conviction that the founding of a house and the begetting of children were a moral necessity ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... in this, or whether they just drifted together, each to blame as much as the other, through the attraction of sex and the cruelty of ignorance. She may regret it a thousandfold—but she has done the thing of her own free will, no one forced her to wed the man; she may have done so unwillingly in some cases—and for ulterior motives, but at all events she was consenting and not dragged to church resisting, and so if she is sensible she will use the whole of ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... well and in safety, and sticketh in no want, so long he thinketh he hath a free-will which is able to do something; but, when want and need appeareth, that there is neither to eat nor to drink, neither money nor provision, where is then the free will? It is utterly lost, and cannot stand when it cometh to the pinch. But faith only standeth fast and ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... was declined. Gordon's next letter (27th June 1877) contains a passage that brings the man before us in very vivid colours. "I dare say," he observed, "you wonder how I can get on without an interpreter and not knowing Arabic. I do not believe in man's free will; and therefore believe all things are from God and pre-ordained. Such being the case, the judgments or decisions I give are fixed to be thus or thus, whether I have exactly hit off all the circumstances or not. This is my raft, and on it I manage to float along, thanks to God, more ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Christians to whom this writ shall come, John de Camoys, son and heir of Sir Ralph de Camoys, greeting: Know me to have delivered, and yielded up of my own free will, to Sir William de Paynel, Knight, my wife Margaret de Camoys, daughter and heiress of Sir John de Gatesden; and likewise to have given and granted to the said Sir William, and to have made over and quit-claimed all goods and chattels which the said Margaret has or may have, or ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 190, June 18, 1853 • Various
... understand what you say?" in a tone of blank amazement. "That you, a child, come here to a dying man to assert your claim to his property! It is incredible that you came of your own free will. Who ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... Originating from the teachings of Zoroaster in about the 9th or 10th century B.C., Zoroastrianism may be the oldest continuing creedal religion. Its key beliefs center on a transcendent creator God, Ahura Mazda, and the concept of free will. The key ethical tenets of Zoroastrianism expressed in its scripture, the Avesta, are based on a dualistic worldview where one may prevent chaos if one chooses to serve God and exercises good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. Zoroastrianism ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... who have hope fail to obtain happiness, is due to a fault of the free will in placing the obstacle of sin, but not to any deficiency in God's power or mercy, in which hope places its trust. Hence this does not prejudice the certainty of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... man, He did not make him simply a being that walks and talks, sleeps and eats, laughs and cries; He endowed him with the faculties of intelligence and free will. More than this, He intended that these faculties should be exercised in all the details of life; that the intelligence should direct, and the free will approve, every step taken, every act performed, every deed left undone. Human energy being thus ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... verb, and said that he sought to "vindicate the ways of God to Man." In Milton's day the questioning all centred in the doctrine of the "Fall of Man," and questions of God's Justice were associated with debate on fate, fore-knowledge, and free will. In Pope's day the question was not theological, but went to the root of all faith in existence of a God, by declaring that the state of Man and of the world about him met such faith with an absolute denial. Pope's argument, good or ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... seem that grace is not in the essence of the soul, as in a subject, but in one of the powers. For Augustine says (Hypognosticon iii [*Among the spurious works of St. Augustine]) that grace is related to the will or to the free will "as a rider to his horse." Now the will or the free will is a power, as stated above (I, Q. 83, A. 2). Hence grace is in a power of the soul, as ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... govern the character and destiny of nations, or, in other words, towards establishing a science of history; (2) That, while the theological dogma of predestination is a barren hypothesis beyond the province of knowledge, and the metaphysical dogma of free will rests on an erroneous belief in the infallibility of consciousness, it is proved by science, and especially by statistics, that human actions are governed by laws as fixed and regular as those which rule in the physical world; (3) That climate, soil, food, and the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... free originally, and may, through God's grace, become so again."(3) And Calvin, in his Institutes, has written a chapter to show that "man, in his present state, is despoiled of freedom of will, and subjected to a miserable slavery." He "was endowed with free will," says Calvin, "by which, if he had chosen, he might have obtained eternal life."(4) Thus, according to both Luther and Calvin, man was by the fall despoiled of the ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... of Rys, you are among your own people once again," he said. "From everywhere in the world they have come to show their love for you. You would not have come to them of your own free will, because a madness 'got hold of you, and so they came to you. You cut yourself off from them and told yourself you had become a Gorgio. But that was only your madness; and madness can be cured. We are the Fawes, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... occasionally glancing at a volume of Jurieu's hard Calvinistic divinity, which lay upon the table beside her. Her spectacles reposed upon the open page, where she had laid them down while she meditated, as was her custom, upon knotty points of doctrine, touching free will, necessity, and election by grace; regarding works as a garment of filthy rags, in which publicans and sinners who trusted in them were damned, while in practice the good soul was as earnest in performing them as if she believed her ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... untied her apron and reached up for her book. Pierre had been waiting, hoping that of her free will she might prefer his company to the "parson feller's"—for in his ignorance those books were jealously personified—but, without a glance in his direction, she had turned as usual ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... was the easiest possible solution of all his difficulties. He had looked for it many times; but he was glad to think that on this day, at least, he had not sought it of his own free will. He thought of his mother—he could not call her otherwise in this last hour—he thought of the father and the brother who had been dear to him in this world, and would not, he believed, be less dear to him in the ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... in God. Human free will gives us power to hinder the fulfilment of His loving purposes. It also means that we may actively co-operate with Him. If it is given to us to see something of a glorious possible future, after all the desolation and ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... with ravishment The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet (For Eloquence the Soul, Song charms the Sense) Others apart sat on a hill retired, In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate— Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wandering mazes lost. Of good and evil much they argued then, Of happiness and final misery, Passion and apathy, and glory and shame: Vain wisdom all, and false ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... better take forty of the men, to act as a rearguard to these poor people, till you are within sight of La Rochelle. The fellows whom we have let free will tell, on their return to the town, that we are but a small party; and it is possible they may send ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... Cor. 2,14; but this righteousness is wrought in the heart when the Holy Ghost is received through the Word. These things are said in as many words by Augustine in his Hypognosticon, Book III: We grant that all men have a free will, free, inasmuch as it has the judgment of reason; not that it is thereby capable, without God, either to begin, or, at least, to complete aught in things pertaining to God, but only in works of this life, ...
— The Confession of Faith • Various
... to underestimate Mr. Blaine's marvelous ability, which is recognized everywhere, but even he can scarcely succeed in locating Mr. Hamilton where we, with all the resources at our command, have failed. Mark my words, my dear Anita; if Ramon Hamilton returns, it will be voluntarily, of his own free will. Until—unless he so decides, you will never see him. It is too bad to have summoned Mr. Blaine here on a useless errand, but I am sure he quite ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... and avowed. To suppose it wicked as a mere process of executing the laws would rob it of all its grandeur. It would stand for nothing. Nay, even if the power were conceded, and the sovereign should abstain from using it of his own free will and choice, this would not satisfy the wretched Turk. Blood, lawless blood—a horrid Moloch, surmounting a grim company of torturers and executioners, and on the other side revelling in a thousand unconsenting women—this hideous image of brutal power and unvarnished lust is clearly ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... my daughter loose to you—I will go join the good doctor in dame Joan's apartment. I am not unwilling that you should know that the girl hath, in all reasonable sort, the exercise of her free will." ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... advance and are seized if they attempt to desert. Then the excise officer here is a friend of the Nor'westers, and he creates {383} endless trouble rowing round and round the boats, bawling . . . bawling out . . . to know "if all who are embarking are going of their own free will," till the ship's hands, looking over decks, become so exasperated they heave a cannon ball over rails, which goes splash through the bottom of the harbor officer's rowboat and sends him cursing ashore to dispatch a challenge for a duel to Governor MacDonell. MacDonell ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... ashore and tried by court-martial. They were accused of piracy. They pleaded that they had not undertaken the voyage to Cuba of their own free will, but had been forced to do so by the passengers. They insisted that they were innocent of any intention ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 40, August 12, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... was a matter of hourly observation, affording its lesson to the brothers, and readily explained by the older and more practical men. For instance, a north or the dreaded east wind brought the herd into the valley, where it remained until the weather moderated, and then drifted out of its own free will. When a balmy south wind blew, the cattle grazed against it, and when it came from a western quarter, they turned their backs and the gregarious instinct to flock was noticeable. Under settled weather, even before dawn, by noting the quarter of the wind, it was an easy matter ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... home from school, Mrs. Royal noticed the crimson mark upon his cheek where the whip had struck him. She asked no questions, however, for she wanted Rod to tell of his own free will how it happened. It was after he was in bed, that the boy looked up inquiringly into Mrs. Royal's face, as she stood by his side ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... was he so bad as that, my poor child? Ah, then, that was why you went away, and left me word only that you went of your own free will. Well, well; if I'd known that, I shouldn't have thought you so strange and flighty. For I did say to myself, though I didn't tell anybody else, 'What was she to go away from her husband for, leaving him to mischief, only because they cut poor Bernardo's head off? She's got ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... liberty of all citizens of the State to use their political rights.... But now the Provisional Government.... declares: in this moment those elements of the Russian nation, those groups and parties who have dared to lift their hands against the free will of the Russian people, at the same time threatening to open the front to Germany, ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... of a stone cell for each of them, and for such-like other things as they might need, and might not be without for the keeping of their lives; and then, when the stone work was done, and the time was meet therefor and all things were ready, they departed their worldly fellowship of their own free will, that they might the more enjoy a holy fellowship in another world. And there they abode both in their stone cells, and lived as long as God would have it, and so ended their lives. And most men say that Thorstein Dromund and Spes his wife may be deemed to be folk of the ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... throw himself into the arms of this unknown friend; and were there not in our nature a certain helplessness which forces us to submission, and compels us to have faith in all things we are to believe, I doubt whether any man, notwithstanding all his weariness, could close his eyes of his own free will and enter into this unknown dream-land. The very consciousness of our weakness and our weariness gives us faith in a higher power, and courage to resign ourselves to the beautiful system of the All, and we feel invigorated ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... unutterable interest the despair of Alexis in his Eclectic course, his return to the teachings of external nature, his new birth, and consequent appreciation of poetry and music. But the question of Free Will,—how to reconcile its workings with necessity and compensation,—how to reconcile the life of the heart with that of the intellect,—how to listen to the whispering breeze of Spirit, while breasting, as a man should, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... to go with em ter that wigwam, and I was proud ter tell em that my husban' was not in politicks when it cum to killin colud folks ter git inter office, an that truth hit em so hard dey sneaked." Teck shuddered. During a series of revivals in the Free Will Baptist Church during the summer Teck Pervis had professed religion. A fierce struggle was going on 'neath his rugged breast. Must he tell the truth. The best whites were there even ministers of the gospel; but then preachers ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... fellow-worshippers is no longer that of blood or of common political interests, but the higher one of a common spiritual experience. All Greeks were eligible for initiation at Eleusis. A man was not born into this circle, but entered it of his own free will and by means of voluntary effort and self-denial. A community of a higher order thus makes its appearance in Greek history, in which the limits of race and of locality are overstepped, and each is connected with the rest, because all have turned of their ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... whence I pray thee, when return'd, To my fair daughter go, the parent glad Of Aragonia and Sicilia's pride; And of the truth inform her, if of me Aught else be told. When by two mortal blows My frame was shatter'd, I betook myself Weeping to him, who of free will forgives. My sins were horrible; but so wide arms Hath goodness infinite, that it receives All who turn to it. Had this text divine Been of Cosenza's shepherd better scann'd, Who then by Clement on my hunt was set, Yet at the bridge's head my bones had lain, Near Benevento, by the heavy ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... So long as man remains a social animal he cannot live in isolation. All individual hopes and aspirations depend on society. Society is reflected in the individual, and the individual in society. In spite of this, his inborn free will and love of liberty seek to break away from social ties. He is also a moral animal, and endowed with love and sympathy. He loves his fellow-beings, and would fain promote their welfare; but he must be engaged in constant struggle ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... seven sermons of Spurgeon in the hotel, and read them. I like him; he is very earnest; he says: 'I believe that not a worm is picked up by a bird without direct intervention of God, yet I believe entirely in man's free will; but I cannot and do not pretend to reconcile the two.' He says he reads the paper to see what God is doing and what are His designs. I confess I have now much the same feeling; nothing shocks me ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... more nearly the counterpart of the active intelligence in man himself. The personality of man had been viewed as standing over against nature, this last being thought of as static and permanent. On the contrary, the personality of man, with all of its intelligence and free will, is but the climax and fulfilment of a long succession of intelligible forms in nature, passing upward from the inorganic to the organic, from the unconscious to the conscious, from the non-moral to the moral, as these are at last seen in man. Of course, it was the life of organic nature ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... But now it is but a hazard whether you gain the rest by bravery or whether by your weakness and discords you are robbed of what you have by your foes. Wherefore, in prospect of such acquisitions, you should if need be spontaneously and of your own free will yield up these lands to those who will rear children for the service of the State. Do not sacrifice a great thing while striving for a small, especially as you are to receive no contemptible compensation for your expenditure on the land, in free ownership ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... remarks Paulus, "unless all parties consent."[34] Julianus writes also that the daughter must give her permission[35]; yet the statement of Ulpian which immediately follows in the Digest shows that she had not complete free will in the matter: "It is understood that she who does not oppose the wishes of her father gives consent. But a daughter is allowed to object only in case her father chooses for her a man of unworthy or disgraceful character."[36] The son ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... position to which the paramount Power in South Africa, the Power which of its own free will had conceded a limited independence to the Transvaal, found itself reduced. And yet it was possible for the Boer Government to maintain that there was nothing in all this legislation which was inconsistent with the terms of the convention ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... with hunger, sought the protection of those Munis themselves. Afflicted with hunger, the Rakshasas, with joined hands, repeatedly said unto those ascetics filled with compassion, these words, 'All of us are hungry! We have swerved from eternal virtue! That we are sinful in behaviour is not of our free will! Through the absence of your grace and through our own evil acts, as also through the sexual sins of our women, our demerits increase and we have become Brahma-Rakshasas! So amongst Vaisyas and Sudras, and Kshatriyas, those that hate and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... as an independent preacher at the Frederik's church were among the happiest in his life. He rejoiced to know that the large, diversified audience crowding the sanctuary each Sunday came wholly of its own free will. It also pleased the now gray-haired pastor to see an increasing number of students become constant attendants at his services. Even so, his position had its drawbacks. He was permitted neither to administer the sacraments nor to instruct the young people, and the authorities even denied ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... degree of spirituality and spiritual impulse than the normal, it does at any rate make this possible. The conditions are provided for finer work than is open to the majority, but so long as man has a measure of free will he is able to turn the use of his gifts upward or down. The freedom of the artist may of course degenerate into license, and the spiritual impulse may be turned to perverted ends. There is a distinct difference between the truly ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... and arms are free will cry less than one bound fast in swaddling clothes. He who feels only physical wants cries only when he suffers, and this is a great advantage. For then we know exactly when he requires help, and we ought not to delay one moment in ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... was the old, old strife, the insoluble mystery; and the minister's wife, far from making light of it, allowed its full weight to press in upon the members of her class, and wisely left the question as the apostle leaves it, with a statement of the two great truths of Sovereignty and Free Will without attempting the impossible task of harmonizing these into a perfect system. After a half-hour of discussion, she brought the lesson to a close with a very short and very simple presentation ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... to look out of the window at a passing carriage. Then he went on. "The moon came out, and I saw what had happened. The mule, either of her own free will, or obeying some movement I had given the reins in my sleep, had swerved from the trail, got on top of the flume, and was actually walking across the valley on the narrow string-piece, a foot wide, half a mile long, and sixty feet from the ground. I knew," he continued, ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... rough stone, as bare as washed granite well could be. We slid down this in regular schoolboy fashion, and had reached another restricted neck in the fissure, when a sliding crash above warned us that the avalanches had decided to move of their own free will. Only a fraction of a moment had we to find footing along the yellow cliff, when, with a cracking roar, the mass struck the slippery granite. If we had been on that slope, our lives would not have been worth a grain of the dust flying in clouds above us. Huge stones, that had formed ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... possible consequences, and especially of the constant obstructions which an equivocal majority must ever expect to meet, they will still prefer the assumption of this power rather than its acceptance from the free will of their constituents; and to preserve peace in the mean while, we proceed to make it the duty of our citizens, until the legislature shall otherwise and ultimately decide, to acquiesce under those acts of the federal branch of our government which ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... dogmas which have, more than any others, agitated the public mind—are discussed at length. Of course he accepts the latter theory, but under a different name. Free Will, he contends, inevitably leads to aristocracy, and Predestination to democracy; and the British and Scottish churches are cited as examples of the effect of the two doctrines on ecclesiastical organizations. The former is an aristocracy, the latter ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... state of mind when the pleasantness of a contemplated object excludes any inquiry whether it is true or false, good or evil; and, in spite of Paul's fatalism, she was satisfied that it was with Walter's own free will that he had done what he had done, and said what he had said. The changed inscription on the locket, and the delivery of that pledge to her, would complete the vowing of the troth whereby she was to become his wife. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... Whether his conduct pleased all the other ambassadors as well, you will know presently; for as yet I allege nothing about any of them, and make no accusation: no one of them need appear an honest man to-day because I oblige him to do so, but only of his own free will, and because he was no partner in Aeschines' crimes. That the conduct in question was disgraceful, atrocious, venal, you have all seen. Who were the partners in it, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... their followers in every age; and, until a very recent period, all who wished to "point a moral or adorn a tale," about unreasoning ambition, extravagant pride, and the formidable frenzies of free will when leagued with free power, have never failed to blazon forth the so-called madman of Macedonia as one of the most glaring examples. Without doubt, many of these writers adopted with implicit credence traditional ideas, and supposed, with uninquiring ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... forgetting him, receive his own regard instead of that of the young mountaineer, as he would have her do voluntarily; for he felt, as much as he coveted her favor, that he could never claim her for a wife unless it was with her own consent and free will. If he had not love her, he would have felt differently, and would have commanded that favor which now would lose its charms ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... to prove that Rosemary and her father had come to him of their own free will. He would say that they had asked him for protection from the Rangars. He had evidence that his brother Howrah had been in communication with the Rangars. So, should the Company survive and retain power enough to ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... tear them to pieces, and would not be quieted till they had exacted a promise that the prisoners should be forcibly compelled to make the trial of fire which they had refused to make of their own free will. ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere |
