"Free will" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there, if he deserve it. And whoso would reach the summit of fame and of honour, I know where he may find it. There is a Castle on a lofty mountain, and there is a maiden therein, and she is detained a prisoner there, and whoever shall set her free will attain the summit of the fame of the world." And ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... you," said the King, "of my own free will, and not in answer to any questions, that I do not know where I am going. I am a King, as you may have noticed, and I have been banished from my kingdom for a year. I am now going to look into the government of other countries in order that I may find out what it is that is wrong ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... was broken, and the spring injured, so that I was compelled to leave it; which I then did most cheerfully, as it is always easier to man to yield to necessity, than to adopt an apparently inconvenient measure by his own free will. The load was removed to pack-horses, and we proceeded with comparative ease to Mr. Campbell's station, enjoying the hospitality of the settlers as we passed on, and carrying with us ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... Balian, for that I should be sorry, nor will I suffer it, for though a Christian he is a man after my own heart. This time I said 'Let her come to me,' not 'Let her be brought.' Ay, come of her own free will, to answer to me for her sin against me, understanding that I promise her nothing, who in the old days promised her much, and kept my word. Then she was the princess of Baalbec, with all the rights belonging to that great rank, to whom I had sworn ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... uncle, smiling. "My nevvy, Peter Russet, will lend it to you, Mr. Small, of 'is own free will. He 'as offered afore he was asked, and that's the proper way to do it, ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... 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, "By what further right does he expect to obtain ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... Trench. It has probably been adopted by those who shrink from mental effort ever since the days of Adam and Eve. Minds great and small have exercised themselves since the beginning of time on this perplexing subject—God's sovereignty and man's free will—with benefit, probably, to themselves. We recommend it in passing, good reader, to your attention, and we will claim to be guiltless of presumption in thus advising, so long as the writing stands, "Prove all things, and hold ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... the war, and captured cities dream that with the help of allies they will fight again one day, but if we meet with men who are better than ourselves and whom we recognise to be so, we are ready to obey them of our own free will." [21] "You imagine then," said Cyrus, "that the bully and the tyrant cannot recognise the man of self-restraint, nor the thief the honest man, nor the liar the truth-speaker, nor the unjust man the upright? Has not your own father lied even now and broken his word with ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... aghast. "Do you imagine that I had any thought of going with him, or that I heard him with my free will?" ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... husband, whether he deceived her 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 ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... but Sarah saw the danger, and hastened to confront it. "A wife should be a husband's best friend, madam. Your son married me of his own free will, and even his mother can have nothing to say to him which it is not my duty and privilege to hear. I am not a girl as you can see, and I can ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... Castlemain, showing her teeth. "Of course you were kidnapped! I'm sure nothing would induce so modest a lady as the fair Jennings to go of her own free will. She would insist on being taken by ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... mock modesty on my part, with these and other scientific honours which have been bestowed upon me, to pretend that I have not succeeded in the career which I have followed, rather because I was driven into it than of my own free will; but I am afraid I should not count even these things as marks of success if I could not hope that I had somewhat helped that movement of opinion which has been called ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... reply. "It's pretty warm anyhow to cook over a blaze. And perhaps after all it might be better for me to drop into the village of the McGee, of my own free will, rather than be taken ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... would be useless, for he had seen Marmion in hot pursuit of a rabbit. No doubt he had driven the game into its burrow, and was engaged in digging it out. When he caught the rabbit, he would come home of his own free will. ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... 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 ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... other forest-trees were dry and hard, their hearts frozen within them; but this tree was alive, hidden behind a clump of firs. When Thule began to dig about its roots, it seemed to come out of the ground of its own free will, and to lie over his shoulders as if ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... part of her love. For myself, I no longer care anything—I have no self away from you; I have ceased to be of myself or in my own keeping. I am of you and in yours. For myself and my own fate or name I think no more; with my eyes open and of my own free will I have given everything to you, and am glad and happy to give it. But for you I still do care, and if I took any step, or allowed you to take any that could bring sorrow on you, I should never forgive ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... her relations with foreign countries, he found the Holy Alliance in full vigor. In fact, the Czar, Kaiser, and King had just met at Laybach (1821) and issued a manifesto declaring that "useful and necessary changes in legislation and in the administration of states could only emanate from the free will and from the intelligent and well-weighed convictions of those whom God has made responsible for power. Penetrated with this eternal truth, the sovereigns have not hesitated to proclaim it with frankness and vigor. They ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... and indefatigable student from his earliest youth. He had read law at Leyden, in France, at Heidelberg. Here, in the head-quarters of German Calvinism, his youthful mind had long pondered the dread themes of foreknowledge, judgment absolute, free will, and predestination: To believe it worth the while of a rational and intelligent Deity to create annually several millions of thinking beings, who were to struggle for a brief period on earth, and to consume in perpetual brimstone afterwards, while others were predestined ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... replied that he should most gladly, to the utmost of his ability, labor incessantly for his guest and relative, but must insist that he should be left to do so of his own free will, without reference to any pecuniary compensation, and out of the high regard in which he held his friend ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... last at Sir Philip's rent-day dinner a week since. My name happened to be mentioned by one of the gentlemen present, a guest like yourself. You took up the subject of your own free will, and spoke of me in ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... 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 against them for existence. He sympathizes ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... 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 ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... what you were saying that I lost the thread of my story. We were listening to an excited jabber of nonsense in the hotel—for instance, one of the negro servants said you went away of your own free will—and wondering what on earth we could do, when this genii of an Arab came to me in a mysterious way, and led me straight on your track. ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... surely better to do a thing of one's own free will than because one is forced to do it, ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... 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
... they knew that the utterance was one of terror. They needed no explanation of that cry; for at the same moment that it reached their ears, they perceived the danger that had caused Ossaroo to utter it. He was descending along the facade of the cliff—not gliding down the rope of his own free will, but as if the kite had got loose at the top, and, yielding to the weight of his body, was being dragged over ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... 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 ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... his home of his own free will, leaving his affairs in a pitiable condition. Madame de la Chanterie is, even to this day, amazed at the catastrophe, which no human foresight could have prevented. The persons she prudently consulted before the marriage had assured her that the suitor's fortune was clear and sound, and ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... three questions are: How has the living sprung from that which is without life? the sentient (and conscious) being from that which is without sensation? that which possesses reason (self-consciousness and free will) from that which is without reason?—questions equally embarrassing to thought." But even the question as to the origin of the organic and of life can not be discussed without an investigation, leading us farther back to the question as to the elements of the world ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... acted of his own free will—or whether he has been influenced by some person about him—I am not able to tell you. He has issued an order to arrest an old Frenchman, known to be a republican, and suspected of associating with one of the ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... me and hating me and all that for being the real cause of your wife's escapade," said Beverly Calhoun plaintively. "I'm awfully sorry. But, you must remember one thing, sir; I did not put her up to this ridiculous trip. She did it of her own free will and accord. Besides, I am the one who met the lion and almost got devoured, not Yetive, ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... temporal calamities are sent by God: we fall into sin only by our own malice: the devil has no power against us but by the divine permission, and all his efforts are weak, unless by our sloth we give him power over us. He draws a parallel between Adam sinning in paradise by his free will, and Job victorious by patience on his dunghill under his sufferings, of which he gives a lively description, showing them to have been far more grievous than all the calamities under which we so easily lose ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... of fact, to make them think that the Germans were brutal. They made war, and that is brutal in itself. The gentlest men, when they are engaged in a campaign, must do things that they would never attempt of their own free will. ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... to turn away; but he did not heed her, and went on unmoved into the midst of the stream. Her terror increased to an agonizing pitch as the horse bore her deeper and deeper into the water; of her own free will she threw her arms round the rider's neck; his paleness vanished, his cheeks gained a ruddy hue, his lips sought hers in a kiss; and, in the midst of the very anguish of death, she felt a thrill of rapture that she had never ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Sagas is their fatefulness. As we read we seem to hear the voice of Doom speaking continually. "Things will happen as they are fated": that is the keynote of them all. The Norse mind had little belief in free will, less even than we have to-day. Men and women were born with certain characters and tendencies, given to them in order that their lives should run in appointed channels, and their acts bring about ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... 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
... usual zeal he had gathered facts concerning the scene, which put my fictions all to flight. The heroine of my romance was neither young nor handsome; she had no lover; she had entered the convent of her own free will, as a respectable asylum, and was one of the most cheerful ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... theory of atavism were stretched so far, it would soon do away with free will altogether. That heredity has something to do with our moral character, no one would deny who knows the influence of our national, nay even of racial character. We are Aryan by heredity; we might be Negroes or Chinese, and share in their tendencies. Animals also have their instincts. Only ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... exactly so!" said the vicar; "but having chosen the Church of his own free will, I am very anxious he should get on well and ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... 3: That some 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 ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... real basis of punishment, however? The notion of a free will, the idea that man is at all times a free agent for good or evil; if he chooses the latter, he must be made to pay the price. Although this theory has long been exploded, and thrown upon the dustheap, it continues to be applied daily by the entire machinery of government, turning it into the most ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... that James, in a book called The true Laws of free Monarchies, which he published a little before his accession to the crown of England, affirmed, "That a good king, although he be above the law, will subject and frame his actions thereto, for example's sake to his subjects, and of his own free will, but not as subject or bound thereto." In another passage, "According to the fundamental law already alleged, we daily see, that in the parliament, (which is nothing else but the head court of the king and his vassals,) the laws are but craved ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... to his 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
... have it 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 ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... effaced myself; now, though I was keen for news of Di, I didn't care to get it from him, especially after that look. Never since the episode of the photograph in camp at El Paso had I of my own free will begun a conversation with Major Vandyke, and it was now my intention to wait until he was out of the way before going to Kitty or Diana. But when I would quietly have slid past the bridegroom in the corridor, ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... which I am connected did anything to save the people, F—— O'B——. He asked no rent for two years, and he never afterwards insisted on the rent of those two years; although I must say he was paid it by many of his tenants, of their own free will; but, for the rest, he cancelled those two years' rent and opened a new account with them, as with men owing him nothing." And what, I further asked, were the feelings of the landlords with regard to their tenants dying of starvation? He answered with solemn ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... before that month had closed it was agreed that they should look forward to the late summer or early autumn as the time of their departure to Italy. Not until March would Miss Barrett permit Browning to fetter his free will by any engagement; then, to satisfy his urgent desire, she declared that she was willing to chain him, rivet him—"Do you feel how the little fine chain twists round and round you? do you hear the stroke of the riveting?" But the links were of a kind ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... behaved far more generously than the Christian armies. A German chronicler, Albert von Stade, tells us that A.D. 1221 "the Sultan of Egypt of his own free will restored the Lord's Cross, permitted the Christians to leave Egypt with all their belongings, and commanded all prisoners to be set free, so that at that time 30,000 captives were released. He also commanded his subjects to sell food to the rich and give alms to the poor and the sick." Occasionally ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... front of the Samana, with a concentrated soul, he captured the old man's glance with his glances, deprived him of his power, made him mute, took away his free will, subdued him under his own will, commanded him, to do silently, whatever he demanded him to do. The old man became mute, his eyes became motionless, his will was paralysed, his arms were hanging down; without power, he had fallen victim to Siddhartha's spell. But Siddhartha's thoughts ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... only will I take service with you,' said Glam, 'that I have my own free will, for I am ill-tempered if anything does ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... to herself, "The time is propitious, and now, of my own free will, and under the operation of my individual judgment, I will lay a nestful of eggs and batch a brood of children." But it is unconscious that it is moved by a physical necessity, which has constrained all its ancestors from the beginning ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... separation from those she loved, knew that throughout the sixteen mouths of her child's life she had never left him for more than a few hours except to go to Chumba, and then not without remonstrance. Yet she was leaving him now of her own free will, for an indefinite time, and in the full knowledge of the grim possibilities ahead. It is in such rare moments of revelation that a man realises dimly what it may mean for a woman dowered with the ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... before has the sound of a Russian spirit been heard here; and now a Russian spirit comes to sight!" Then she asked Prince Astrach: "Wherefore, good youngling, Prince Astrach, art thou come hither—of thine own free will or not? Hither no bird flies, no wild beast wanders, no knight ever passes my hut. And how has God brought ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... be thankful," observed Mr Willoughby; "for it is a long time since I made a journey to London, and, of my own free will, I ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... 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 more at stake than you, they opened ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... is enslav'd. Can we attain such enfranchisement—the true Democracy, and the height of it? While we are from birth to death the subjects of irresistible law, enclosing every movement and minute, we yet escape, by a paradox, into true free will. Strange as it may seem, we only attain to freedom by a knowledge of, and implicit obedience to, Law. Great—unspeakably great—is the Will! the free Soul of man! At its greatest, understanding and obeying ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... known, there are two opposing views upon this subject—held by opposite schools—the theory of Determinism, on the one hand, and of Free Will on the other. The Libertarians assert that our wills are free—we having power of choice in all our actions. The Determinists, on the other hand, contend that our thoughts and actions are determined by definite, ascertainable causes. They contend that the feeling ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... while I said to her: 'Thank God; now,' says I, 'you'll be a married woman again.' But says she: 'I'm not going to live with him.' 'Why, isn't he your husband?' said I. 'Is it an easy thing?... I never loved him and I married him not of my own free will. My mother made me.' 'Don't try to get out of it, silly,' said I, 'but tell me this: were you married to him in church or not?' 'I was married,' she said, 'but it's you that I love, and I will stay with you to the day of my ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... is that some of those who are determined to be free and cannot otherwise get free will not hesitate to destroy innocent persons who may ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... according to the character of the person and the nature of the transaction. On account of the great distance, [to Manila] [39] it is fitting to make this provision, that whenever any person who shall incur excommunication for having disclosed a secret shall come, of his own free will, to ask for absolution, therefore with the confession of his guilt the commissary shall absolve him, and impose upon him some secret spiritual penance, such as will entail no stigma or infamy. The commissary shall submit his own denunciation to the Holy Office, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... would. You would have looked as if you thought it so impossible, that I should have been strengthened up to do something they could not have taken for consent. I'll tell you all about it, Marian, from the beginning, and you will see how little free will I had in it, and how distracted ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... 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 that Jesus came ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... anew as he thought of those cutting sentences he had overheard, taunting her own sister about the clothes she wore. Boasting that he still belonged to her! She, a married woman! A woman who had of her own free will left him at the last moment and gone away with another! His whole nature recoiled against her. She had sinned against her womanhood, and might no longer demand from man the homage that a true woman ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... to him certain, and that was that the United States could not help annexing by force the people who would be too slow to come to them of their own free will. ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... this from our own experience. For if we reflect on our past life, is it not a wonder that we thought, desired, did and said that which we were not able to foresee? How far different our course would have been, had we been left to our own free will! Now only do we understand it, and see how constantly God's present care and providence were over us, so that we could neither think nor speak nor will anything except as He gave us leave. As it is said in Wisdom vii, "In His hands are both we and our words"; [Wisd. 7:16] and by ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... remember fuming over the bludgeoning of Ireland, or the matrimonial suits of women trying to be free of men they loathed. Parsons would have it that freedom of soul and body were quite different things! Pernicious doctrine! Body and soul could not thus be separated. Free will was the strength of any tie, and not its weakness. 'I ought to have told Soames,' he thought, 'that I think him comic. Ah! but he's tragic, too!' Was there anything, indeed, more tragic in the world ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "this whole discourse seems to have grown out of the subject of Necessity and Free Will. Now, when a boy, I recollect hearing a sage say, that these things ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... up my quarters here, thought I; it is an excellent spot for me to commence my new profession in; I was quite right to trust myself to the guidance of the pony. Unharnessing the animal without delay, I permitted him to browse at free will on the grass, convinced that he would not wander far from a place to which he was so much attached; I then pitched the little tent close beside the ash tree to which I have alluded, and conveyed two or three articles into it, and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Colony.—Besides those Puritans whom the Massachusetts people drove from their colony there were other settlers who left Massachusetts of their own free will. Among these were the founders of Connecticut. The Massachusetts people would gladly have had them remain, but they were discontented and insisted on going away. They settled the towns of Hartford, ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... shock, and gradually 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 unless ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... a definition of Fatalism, and a description of its difference from the scientific doctrine of Determinism, see Chapter XXXIII, "Fatalism, 'Freewill' and Determinism." For a vigorous defense of "Freewill" (which is not, in my opinion, free will at all, in the common acceptation of the word) see Professor James's Essay on "The Dilemma of the Determinist," in his volume, "The Will ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... have endeavored to harmonize necessity and free will, the existence of evil, and the infinite power and goodness of God, they have succeeded only in producing learned and ingenious failures. Immense efforts have been made to reconcile ideas utterly inconsistent with the facts by which we are surrounded, and all persons who have ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... impelled by the word of their leader, not by their own free will. Protect your homes! And to save those who are most dear to you, be ready to follow my example, and ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... moon, the evening star, the clatter of the fern-owl, the beetle's hum. He was born on the earth in the tent, and he has lived like a species of human wild animal ever since. Of his own free will he will have nothing to do with rites or litanies: he may perhaps be married in a place of worship—to make it legal, that is all. At the end, were it not for the law, he would for choice be buried ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... Empress of the French, the Queen of Italy, the Regent of a vast empire, was in her father's presence merely a humble and docile daughter, who told him everything, obeyed him in everything, who abdicated her own free will, and promised, even swore, to entertain no other ideas or wishes than ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... principle with it, rather to risk all the confusion of anarchy, than to destroy the independence and privileges of its individual constituents,—place, verse, characters, even single thoughts, conceits, and allusions, each turning on the pivot of its own free will. ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... to Dr. Vince about it first," replied Samuel. "And he wouldn't do anything about it. He said that if I came to you, I must make it clear that he did not approve of it. I have come of my own free will, sir." ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... of such action," declared the Empress, "but I dislike to take it. It would bring me in conflict with the Church, and then there is always the chance that the Emperor is indeed within the cloisters, and that, of his own free will, he refuses to sign the documents I have sent to him. In such case what excuse could we give for our interference? It might precipitate the very crisis we are so anxious ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... men above these,—and creatures in glory surpassing them again,—are within the compass of the boundless power and omnipotency of God. But yet for all this it might have fallen out that nothing should actually and really have been, unless his majesty had of his own free will decreed what is, or hath been, or is to be. His will determines his power, and, as it were, puts it in the nearest capacity to act and exercise itself. Here, then, we must look for the first beginning of all things that are. They are conceived in the womb of the Lord's ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... intended to forgive them, and have given the Queen the grace of obtaining their pardon, so as to excuse himself from the fulfillment of some over-hasty threat. But, however this may have been, nothing can lessen the glory of the six grave and patient men who went forth, by their own free will, to meet what might be a cruel and disgraceful death, in order to obtain the safety of ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... base, as recalling to her the dependent position into which she had carelessly rushed, relying on the family feeling that had hitherto made all things as one. 'Henceforth,' said she, 'I take my share of all that we spend. I will not sell my free will.' ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to the general acknowledgment, by thoughtful minds, of the subjection of historical facts to scientific laws, the most fundamental continues to be that which is grounded on the doctrine of Free Will, or, in other words, on the denial that the law of invariable Causation holds true of human volitions; for if it does not, the course of history, being the result of human volitions, can not be a subject of scientific laws, since the volitions on which it depends can neither be foreseen, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... as liberty was denied to him, Adam was in no way subjected to that strict surveillance to which those who had broken the law were supposed to be submitted. It was of his own free will that he disregarded the various privileges which lay open to him: others in his place would have frequented the passages, hung about the yards and grown familiar with the tap, where spirits were openly bought and sold. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... fighter," and feel the glow, the stern joy of the fight. But she!—let her leave the human brute and his unsavoury struggle alone! It cannot be borne—it was never meant—that she should dip her delicate wings, of her own free will at least, in such a mire of blood and tears. It was the feeling that had possessed him when Mrs. Boyce told him of the visit to the prison, the ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... anxieties, he would sit down with his sisters and be quite cheerful and good-humoured. Such a disposition, it was observed, was a happy gift of nature. JOHNSON. 'I do not think so; a man has from nature a certain portion of mind; the use he makes of it depends upon his own free will. That a man has always the same firmness of mind I do not say; because every man feels his mind less firm at one time than another; but I think a man's being in a good or bad humour depends upon his will.' I, however, could not help thinking that a man's humour ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... them, and have given the queen the grace of obtaining their pardon, so as to excuse himself from the fulfillment of some over-hasty threat. But, however this may have been, nothing can lessen the glory of the six grave and patient men who went forth, by their own free will to meet what might be a cruel and disgraceful death, in order to obtain the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... male infants and unmarried females under eighteen years, may, of their own free will, bind themselves, in writing, to serve as apprentices and servants, in any trade or employment; males until the age of twenty-one, and females until the age of eighteen years, or for a shorter time. But the minor must have the consent of the ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Mercury, Mars, Vulcan, Apollo, Diana, Minerva, Juno, Ceres and Vesta. Besides these there were other lesser gods, Bacchus, Isis, Hebe, the Muses and the Fates, etc.; also Sleep, Dreams and Death; and there were still others who had free will and intelligence, and having mixed forms, such as the Pegasus, or winged horse, the Centaur, half man ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... guess was correct, Gloria Vanderman was about equally distracted between the alternative ignominy of submitting her free will to Armenians or else to us. Compassion for the women in their predicament weighed one way—knowledge that our friend Monty was in durance vile contingent on her actions pulled heavily another Fred was frankly enjoying himself, which influenced her ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... intent of over-riding and enslaving it?" I answer, such a Will could not create, could not be God, for it involves the false and contrarious. That would be to make a will in order that it might be no will. To create in order to uncreate is something else than divine. But a free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse. There ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... entrance of the side street Neal had a clear view of them over the heads of the crowd. In a moment they had passed out of sight again, but the moment was enough. Running with the soldiers, his arm gripped by a dragoon, but running with his own free will, was James Finlay. Neal was stung to fury by the sight of this man. He had no doubt at all now that he had to do with a traitor. He drove his heels against his horse's side, lashed at the creature's flanks with his rod, and fairly forced his way through the cursing, ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... of reason or instinct I know not, but there she chose me for her master; for when some of my men at dusk came searching, and found me, and, laying me on a stretcher, started toward our lines, the mare, uncompelled, of her own free will, followed at my side; and all through that stormy night of wind and rain, as my men struggled along through the mud and mire toward Harrison's Landing, the mare followed, and ever after, until she died, was with me, ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... it was ordained that thereafter the soldiers should have pay from the public treasury. And now it was resolved, none opposing, that war should be declared against Veii, for which war a great army was levied forthwith, the greater part of the soldiers offering themselves of their own free will. Thus it came to pass that in the three hundred and fiftieth year after the building of the city, ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... dear is led, Or journeys of his own free will, I too must go, though darkness spread Across my path, portending ill, 'Tis thus my duty I have read! If I am wrong, oh! with me bear; But do not bid me backward tread My way forlorn,—for I can dare All things but that; ah! pity me, A woman frail, too sorely tried! ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... from observation and experience. By experience every one knows that he has the power to choose what he likes and to reject what he does not like. Even beasts, and birds, and reptiles do the same. They choose and appropriate the foods they like. They mate together according to the same free will, which is their love. Birds select their roosting places, and construct their nests where and how they will. "Foxes have holes;" but this is so because God first made the caverns in the rocks, and the foxes afterward chose them for their habitations. Every unit in the whole animate ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... had been the consequence of his foolish boasts about the money-letters, and that he, being in charge, ought to defend them to the last gasp, he was sure he deserved the very contrary from a reward, and never thought of the money belonging to any one but Paul, who had by his own free will come to the rescue, and saved the bag from robbery, ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... me, too? Yes, ma'am! I have stood with the doings of this place as long as I can stand them. Artie has told me some other things. Are you here of your free will, ma'am?" he ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... little doubt of its being true. I have now seen your rival; and I think it altogether improbable she would, of her own free will, have preferred ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... over his attitude towards those two great difficulties in the formation of a philosophy of history on which I have touched above. I mean the assertion of extra-natural interference with the normal development of the world and of the incalculable influence exercised by the power of free will. ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... thus placed upon the throne, and every act performed of his own free will showed his gentleness and desire for his people's good. At the request of Edith, he abolished the Danegeld, or money raised first to bribe the Danes, and then as their tribute; indeed, it was said that he had seen a vision of an evil spirit dancing on the gold thus collected. He made new laws in ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... dean, "before I finished my sentence. Certainly, both soldiers and sailors are people, but they engage to die by their own free will ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... deprived of all meaning. Beauty expresses the object of the perceptions of the soul. Truth denotes the quality of the judgments of intelligences. Goodness (I speak of moral goodness) expresses a certain direction of the free will. There exists no means of causing to proceed from nature, or from matter, the attributes of the spiritual being. This is only done by imaginary transformations, by a course of arrant juggling. The flame does not feel its own heat, light does not see itself, the planets know nothing of the laws of ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... Pleasure of God Almighty, and that the more we please him, the greater Blessings we may receive from him. Let it be considered, How acceptable an Offering it would be to the most High, when by so pious an Act of Our Gracious King and Parliament, together with the free Will Offrings of all able godly disposed people, so many Thousands, yea Thousands of Thousands, in process of time, may be restrained, and prevented from living in that broad way of Idleness and Lewdness, in which is all manner of Debauchery. And now by this Reformation, ...
— Proposals For Building, In Every County, A Working-Alms-House or Hospital • Richard Haines
... good fays; and a thirteenth, who works the evil spell. Once, in German folk-lore, we meet with but two Sisters of Fate—one of them called Kann, the other Muss. Perhaps these are representatives of man's measure of free will (that which he "can"), and of that which is his inevitable fate—or, that which he ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... to be able to prove that it was fraudulent?" questioned Edith with increasing anxiety. "Apparently I went to the altar with that man of my own free will; with all the semblance of sincerity I took those marriage vows upon me and then received the congratulations of all those guests as if I were a real wife. Oh, it was terrible! terrible! terrible!" and her voice arose almost to a shriek ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... achievements wrought by other hands, then thou wilt see the life die out of his eyes, and his heart will become cold as stone, and thou wilt lose his love. A great thing will it be for thee if he come not to hate thee in the end. But if, of thy own free will, thou send him from thee, then shalt thou ever keep his love. Thy image will ride before his eyes in the van of battles; for very lack of thee he will move from endeavour to endeavour; and so thy life will be enshrined in his ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... night. Your friend Miss Rose McLean was there, too—by her own confession. When she came to Jack and me with her story, we respected it. We did not insist on knowing why she was there, and it was of her own free will she told us. Yet you go to our friend and distress her by implications that must shock and wound her. Was that ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... why my wits all Were so overcome with pleasance and delight, Only through letting of mine eyes down fall, That suddenly my heart became her thrall, For ever of free will." ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... house, indeed, was a strong inducement to me to proceed, for it was impossible to believe that a young lady, a kinswoman of the gay and vivacious Turenne, and already introduced to the pleasures of the Court, would elect of her own free will to spend the winter ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... my station in life, and disgrace would kill me. My blood will be on your head, sir—it will, indeed—if you drive me to despair. If you cannot keep me after what has passed, then for God's sake let me give you notice and leave in a month, as if of my own free will. I could stand that, Mr. Musgrave, but not to be cast out before all the folk that I know ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the hut, and if they ask for me, say that thou hast seen me and will bring me before their eyes."—So he went up to the hut, and they said to him, "O Tsarevich, we hear thee with our ears and see thee with our eyes, but hast thou come hither of thine own free will or by the will of another?"—And the archer answered, "I have come hither of my own free will!"—Then they asked him, "Hast thou seen our son? Lo, these four years we have not had news of him. He ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... so little! I care nothing for such formalities. Such outer things matter nothing, I think. What I want is that we should, of our own free will, release each other. ...
— The Lady From The Sea • Henrik Ibsen
... and he turned to the girl very gentle. 'Are you doing this of your own free will, and not because ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... rather to bee expected of the richer sort, that they will spare and defalk, not onely the pride and superfluity, both of apparel and diet, but also a part of their lawful allowance in these things, to contribute the same as a free will offering, beside what they are obliged to, by Law or publick Order, after the example of godly Nehemiah, who for the space of twelve years, while the walls of Jerusalem were a building, did not eat the bread ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... been shaping in the years which have been reviewed. The splendid response of the whole Empire to the call of need proved that it was not the weak and crumbling structure that enemies had hoped and zealous friends had feared. Of their own free will the Dominions and even India poured out their treasures of men and money in measure far beyond what any central authority could have ordained. Freedom was justified of her children, and the British Empire proved its right to exist by its very difference ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... capture of Saint-Quentin, France was in a most deplorable state; the enemy was believed to be beneath the walls of Paris; everybody was fleeing; the king had gone to Compiegne to muster a new army. Catherine was alone in Paris "and of her own free will went to the Parliament in full state, accompanied by the cardinals, princes, and princesses; and there, in the most impressive language, she set forth the urgent state of affairs at the moment.... With so much sentiment and eloquence that she touched the heart of everybody, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme |
