"Free agent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sorrowful face, as the remembrance of the archdeacon came back upon our poor warden, and he reflected that he could not stir from his now hated post. He was as a man bound with iron, fettered with adamant: he was in no respect a free agent; he had no choice. "Give it up!" Oh if he only could: what an easy way that were out ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... idiotic Freddie-marriage business. Your father has forced you into that. It's all very well to say that you are a free agent and that fathers don't coerce their daughters nowadays. The trouble is that your father does. You let him do what he likes with you. He has got you hypnotized; and you won't break away from this Freddie foolishness ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... evolution when the automatic acts, the unmotivated instincts and impulses of its childhood and youth, instead of following external stimuli, will have become acts of will framed constantly in conjunction with the mind (Manas), thus making of every man on earth of that race a free agent, a fully responsible being—the Kama of our hardly adult fifth race is only slowly approaching it. As to the sixth sense of this, our race, it has hardly sprouted above the soil of its materiality. It is highly unreasonable, ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... word of Allah was created in subjecto, ergo, an accident and liable to perish, and one of their school, the Kadiriyah (having power) denies the existence of Fate and contends that Allah did not create evil but left man an absolutely free agent. On the other hand, the Jabarlyah (or Mujabbarthe compelled) is an absolute Fatalist who believes in the omnipotence of Destiny and deems that all wisdom consists in conforming with its decrees. Al-Mas'udi (chaps. cxxvii.) illustrates this by the saying ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... statement becomes of comparatively small import; and I may add that the setting furnished by nature happens on this occasion to answer all practical purposes tolerably well. Moreover, I am not altogether a free agent in the matter. The friend by whose permission I tell the tale is of opinion that no liberties ought to be taken with its form, any more than with what he is pleased to call its "physiological characteristics." The main significance of the narrative being, according to him, of a scientific ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... individual conformity to the moral law, which was a law of reason. Conduct that is determined by mere circumstance is not moral conduct. Morality is above the domain of circumstance. And the moral agent is above the defeats and compromises imposed by time and place. He is a free agent, that is, morally free. He accepts no commands, except those of reason. A man, in following impulse or being dictated to by circumstance, is a mere animal or a machine. He is only a reasonable, that is, a moral being, when he conforms to the laws which are above time ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... than they do, so long as they are moved by the same causes and possessed of the same qualities. If they lose these qualities, they will act necessarily in a different way. God Himself (admitting His existence a moment) can not be regarded as a free agent; if there existed a God, His manner of acting would necessarily be determined by the qualities inherent in His nature; nothing would be able to alter or to oppose His wishes. This considered, neither our actions ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... hand, Mrs. Krause was a free agent. She had no children. Her husband had just been killed. I, the only other white man on the island to whom she could look to for social intercourse at long intervals, was leaving the island. Her mind had been tortured, and her life ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... few of the minor sweets of life more agreeable than to awake refreshed, and to become gradually impressed with the conviction that you are a perfectly free agent,—that you may rise when you choose, or lie still if you please, or do what you ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... Prince's dominions, my dear sir, you no doubt believed yourself to be a free agent. Quite a mistake! You were a mere puppet; and the strings that moved you were pulled ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... up through the trees at the light overhead, and spoke more slowly than ever. 'I think,' he said, fumbling his watch-chain nervously, 'a man ought to wish the woman he loves to be a free agent, his equal in point of action, even as she is nobler and better than he in all spiritual matters. I think he ought to desire for her a life as high as she is capable of leading, with full scope for every faculty of ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... it was quite possible that Wylder was a free agent, and yet, for purposes of secrecy, employing another person to post his letters at various continental towns; and this blunder might just as well have happened in this case, as in any other ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... crystalline heart than Shelley's never beat in human bosom. He was incapable of an untruth or of a deceit in any ill form. Keats told me, that, in declining the invitation, his sole motive was the consciousness, which would be ever prevalent with him, of his not being, in its utter extent, a free agent,—even within such a circle as Shelley's,—himself, nevertheless, the most unrestricted of beings. Mr. Trelawney, a familiar of the family, has confirmed the unwavering testimony to Shelley's bounty of nature, where he says, "Shelley was a being absolutely without selfishness." ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... hooked loosely in each other, stared vacantly before him while his daughter spoke, as if he really were uncertain (I believe he was) whether Tackleton had done anything to deserve her thanks, or not. If he could have been a perfectly free agent, at that moment, required, on pain of death, to kick the Toy- merchant, or fall at his feet, according to his merits, I believe it would have been an even chance which course he would have taken. Yet, Caleb knew that with his own ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... was brought up in idolatry, and gives us a particular account of the steps by which God conducted him to the knowledge of his saving faith.[5] He considered by the glimmering or faint light of reason, that man, who is created a moral and free agent, is placed in this world for the exercise of patience, temperance, and other virtues, which he saw must receive from God a recompense after this life. He ardently set about learning what God is; and after some researches into the nature of the Supreme Being, quickly discovered the absurdity ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... curious fascination Major Keene appears to exercise over his friends! I suppose you would think it quite wrong to be amused any where unless he were present to sanction it. Do you become a free agent again when you are given up entirely to your own devices? And do all subalterns keep up that veneration for their senior officers after they have left the service? It seems to be carrying the esprit du corps ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... a free agent—not free to take the things life offers," he answered steadily. "He's seen 'the far Moon' with the Dreamer's eyes, and that's probably all he'll ever see of it. His 'empty hands' may not ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... a person, and puts him at the head of its Government, either with the title of King, or any other distinction, acts on its own choice, be it wise or foolish, as a free agent for itself The person so set up is not hereditary, but selected and appointed; and the generation who sets him up, does not live under a hereditary government, but under a government of its own choice and establishment. Were the generation who sets him up, and the person so set up, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... as if unable to support Dale's friendly regard. "Apart from these annuities for old folk being rather a dog-in-the-manger trick, I—well, one has one's private difficulties, William. One is not always a free agent." ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... self-evident—the next question is, What is to be done about it?" He paused for a moment as if in thought, and then resumed: "In the position in which I now stand, forming one of Dr. Mildman's household, and placed by my father under his control, I scarcely consider myself a free agent. It seems to me, therefore, that my course is clear; it is evidently my duty to inform him of the whole affair, and afterwards to act as he may advise, Do you agree with ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... provided for, but rather doubtful. A man had very little chance to develop real, personal responsibilities, in that there was always some one over him who was watching him, who disciplined him and corrected him, who handed in the reports for him, with the result that he was in a very slight sense a free agent. Only men higher up, the foremen and the superintendents could obtain real development from personal responsibilities. Neither was there much development of responsibility for others, in the sense of being responsible for personal ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... you can stomach this sort of existence. What is there in it? Where is the profit or satisfaction in this kind of thing, for you? Will the man in the ranks get credit for taming the Northwest when his work is done? Why the devil don't you quit the job? Cut loose and be a free agent again." ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... without entangling ourselves vainly in those wildernesses that no created intellect can range or measure—even one sole attribute of God, His holiness, makes it as impossible for Him to proceed except by certain steps as it would be impossible for a man, though a free agent, and apparently master, as he feels and thinks, of his own life, to cut his throat while in a state of pleasurable health ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... may say that he is conscious of acting freely, but this is a mere delusion, if the doctrine we are considering be true. By the very logic which reconciles it with free agency in man, I will undertake to prove that every steamboat and every railroad-engine is a free agent. Calvinistic free agency must be something analogous to Bishop Hughes's freedom of conscience, indestructible and inviolable, in its very nature and essence; so that a man may be denied the privilege of reading the Bible, or of propagating or entertaining any opinions ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... given a very ingenious common-law scheme. 'Valeat quantum valere potest'! It would make a figure before the Benchers of the Middle Temple. For myself, I prefer the belief that man was made to know that a finite free agent could not stand but by the coincidence, and independent harmony, of a separate will with the will of God. For only by the will of God can he obey God's will. Man fell as a soul to rise a spirit. The first Adam was a living soul; ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... best he could in the circumstances; a solution obviously liable to the same objection as that respecting Natural Evil. There are three ways, says the Archbishop, in which undue elections might have been prevented; not creating a free agent—constant interference with his free-will—removing him to another state where he would not be tempted to go astray in his choice. A fourth mode may, however, be suggested—creating a free-agent without any inclination to evil, or any temptation from external objects. When our author disposes ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... "made the sun, and lightning, and thunder, and of these the sun was worshipped by the Incas". Garcilasso denies that the moon was worshipped. The reflections of the sceptical or monotheistic Inca, who declared that the sun, far from being a free agent, "seems like a thing held to its task," are reported by Garcilasso, and appear to prove that solar worship was giving way, in the minds of educated Peruvians, a hundred years before the arrival of Pizarro and Valverde with ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... sympathy, toiling in the confinement of these rooms to supply their bodily needs. Never had a destiny seemed so appalling. And yet Janet resented that pity. The effect of it was to fetter and inhibit; from the moment of its intrusion she was no longer a free agent, to leave Hampton and Ditmar when she chose. Without her, this family was helpless. She rose, and picked up some of the dishes. Hannah snatched them from ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... country a tremendous waste, the inns log houses, and the journey one that would play the very devil with Kate. I am staggered, but not deterred. If I find it possible to be done in the time, I mean to do it; being quite satisfied that without some such dash I can never be a free agent, or see anything ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... dear," said Doggie, "was based on the understanding that you would not be uprooted from the place in which are all your life's associations. If I broke that understanding it would leave you a free agent to determine the contract, as the lawyers say. So perhaps, Peggy dear, we might dismiss—well—other considerations, ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... except in the instance of those who have not the means of choosing between the two countries. If a person only possess the power of removing to that which is the more contiguous, eligibility is out of the question: he is no longer a free agent. But the difference in the cost of emigrating is far from being so considerable as might be imagined on a mere view of their comparative distances from this country. I understand that a gentleman of great experience ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... Diversity in Monotony is the presentment of the truth that identity does not exclude difference. The law is binding, yet the will is free: all men are brothers united by the ties of brotherhood, yet each is unique, a free agent, and never so free as when most bound by the Good Law. This truth nature beautifully proclaims, and art also. In architecture it is admirably exemplified in the metopes of the Parthenon frieze: seen at a distance these must have presented ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... must, to a large extent, be accepted by faith. And I claim that it is more reasonable to accept them by faith than to reject them on the ground that you cannot understand them. This may seem ridiculous to you, but wait until I explain myself further. Take eternal punishment. You say that man is a free agent, and that through his free agency he is able to bring evil and punishment upon himself. You say that God has so ordained because it is best for man that he should be left free, even though he becomes ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... always do. Mourners can't help seeing the bright side, after a time. Think of that and quit your foolishness. You have made a trade with me. Till your part of that trade is carried out you ain't a free agent to do what you want to do in ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... Miss Rushford," he said. "I release you from any engagement with either me or Collins to keep our secret. Let me tell you, I've protested more than once, but I'm no longer a free agent in regard to this thing, and I have to see it through. The very worst moment of all was when Markeld came up to my rooms and apologised for suspecting me. I tell you, I felt like a worm, and a particularly nasty one, at that. It ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... free agent, he would have allowed no one to leave the room on any pretence, except himself. As it was, however, he was obliged to look cheerful when ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... hotel this half-savage indifference which had taken the place of his former incertitude had not changed. It seemed to him that he had reached the crisis of his life where he was no longer a free agent, and could wait, superior alike to effort or expectation. And it was with a merely dispassionate curiosity that he found a note the next morning from the President's private secretary, informing him that the President would see ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... tree, grows from within or without, is a mere product of organization; living bodies being subject to the natural law governing the lifeless and the inorganic. Whilst the religionist assures us that man is not a mere toy of fate, but a free agent responsible to himself, with work to do and duties to perform, the Haji, with many modern schools, holds Mind to be a word describing a special operation of matter; the faculties generally to be manifestations of movements in the ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... valued most a sympathy which would have abstained from all expression till after that trial should be over. It should have been for him to act and for him to speak during this terrible period. But his mother who was a free agent had ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... that way disposed. I only wished to see that the boy had come to no harm and was a free agent. As thou knowest, he and I were old friends in the first days of ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... is a free agent to do what he pleaseth, and may, if he please, refuse to give anything, or if he gives something, why may he not give what he pleases also? He may give special grace to one, and that which is not so to another: he may open Balaam's eyes, (Num. 24:3) and open Lydia'a heart; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... They were partners no longer, she told herself bitterly. That farce was ended. Perhaps it was her own fault. Everything seemed to be her fault nowadays. She had not played her cards well during Guy's illness. Somehow she had not felt a free agent. It was Kieff who had played the cards, had involved her in such difficulties as she had never before encountered, and then had left her perforce to extricate herself alone; to extricate herself—or to pay the price. She seemed to have been struggling against overwhelming odds ever since. She had ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... about this muddle of motives, but I do know that my ship and yourself are my two vital interests, Miss Sheldon. I will go immediately if you will prove to me that you are really at liberty; that you are a free agent and can leave this ship if you really want to. If that is so, I have no further concern ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... could be called distinctly revolutionary. To consent to it was to establish a power permanently co-ordinate with the Crown. But Charles signed the bill without protest. He had ceased to look on his acts as those of a free agent; and he was already planning the means of breaking the Parliament. What had hitherto held him down was the revolt of Scotland and the pressure of the Scotch army across the border. But its payment and ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... what would you? It is necessary to break eggs in order to make an omelette. All is fair, you say, in love and war, and this was both. Moreover, you must understand, I do not dictate his movements to the parrot. He is free agent. I do but open the cage-door. Should he 'op out and proceed to the floor where is the cat, that is his affair. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... freedom of man's will in spiritual matters may be summarized as follows: Man, having a will, is a free agent, hence always able to decide for or against. This ability is the "mode of action" essential to man as long as he really is a man and in possession of a will. Even in matters pertaining to grace this freedom was not entirely lost in the Fall. It was impeded and weakened ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... a free agent, practically. Isn't it time we heard of your own happiness,—your own vine and fig-tree, ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... the camp of Saladin?" said Sir Kenneth, repeating the words of the Emir; "alas! am I a free agent, and rather must I NOT go ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... into a Ring—the Nibelung's Ring—gives absolute power to its possessor. It is accursed; the curse being what I have just mentioned—that the power cannot be exercised without its possessor doing violence to his nature, thereby destroying that nature. Wotan thinks if an absolutely free agent, a hero owing nothing to any one, bound by no conditions, could gain this Ring, his power might be preserved: he might defy even Fate, since no conditions were attached to the possession of it. He makes ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... listeth,'" Wertheimer affirmed. "How do I know whither you'll blow, now you're a free agent again, entirely on your own? I've got no control over ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... bounty, and from their frequent social intercourse he had full faith in the sincerity of his proposal.... Keats said that, in declining the invitation, his sole motive was the consciousness, which would be ever prevalent with him, of his being, in its utter extent, not a free agent, even within such a circle as Shelley's—he himself nevertheless being the most unrestricted of beings.' Mr. Clarke seems to mean in this passage that Shelley, before starting for Italy, invited Keats to accompany him thither—a fact, if such it ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... possible reason for hostilities; and the challenge given to France was soon publicly withdrawn. It was withdrawn when Louis XVI., by accepting the Constitution made by the National Assembly, placed himself, in the sight of Europe, in the position of a free agent. On the 14th September, 1791, the King, by a solemn public oath, identified his will with that of the nation. It was known in Paris that he had been urged by the emigrants to refuse his assent, and to plunge the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... mind the servant of me. An unruly servant, but a servant—and possibly getting less unruly every day! Often have I said to that restive brain: "Now, O mind, sole means of communication between the divine me and all external phenomena, you are not a free agent; you are a subordinate; you are nothing but a piece of machinery; and obey me ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... for your letter of the 10th instant, and am of opinion that you may be able to make good use of Bhurut Sing under judicious management, and strict surveillance; but you do not mention who and what he is—whether he is a prisoner under sentence, or a free agent, or of what caste and profession. Some men make these offers in order to have opportunities of escape, while engaged in the pretended search after associates in crime; others to extort money from those whom they may denounce, or have the authority ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... could be placed on such language as this. Lucilla was not a free agent. Both Oscar and the rector were now obliged to acknowledge that my view of the case had been the correct one. If it was impossible for me to be received into the house, how doubly impossible would it be for the men to gain admission! Oscar, after reading the note, withdrew to the further end ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... will not be popular "above." A man is either a free agent or he isn't. If a man is a free agent, this prisoner is responsible for what he has done; but if a man is not a free agent, if the deed was ordained from above, there is no rational way of making this prisoner even partially responsible for it, and the German ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... purposes to construct the entire work, than to stop anywhere between the two extremes, my duty was luckily, on this occasion, in exact accordance with my opinions; and, as a matter of course, I voted, this time, in a way of which I could approve. Noah, finding himself a free agent, now made his push for character, and took sides with us. Very fortunately we prevailed, all the beaten interests joining themselves, at the last moment, to the weakest side, or, in other words, to that which was right; and Leaplow presented the singular spectacle of having a just enactment ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and changing be justified? What further occasion for the law? Its author might fairly say to you, sir: If your son was vicious and deserved to be disinherited, what were you about to recall him? Why have him home again? Why suspend the law's operation? You were a free agent; you need not have done it. The laws are not your play-ground; you are not to put the courts in motion every time your mood varies; the laws are not to be suspended to- day and enforced to-morrow, with juries to look on at the proceedings, or rather to be the ministers of your ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata |
