Aldous Huxley Quotes

We have to believe in free will. We’ve got no choice.

We must believe in free will, we have no choice.

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road

Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.

Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.

There have always been arguments showing that free will is an illusion: some based on hard physics, others based on pure logic.

We are unable to recognize the laws of necessity if we believe we are free

All theory is against freedom of the will, all experience for it.

I come down on the side of free will but I have sympathy for those who believe in fate because there is something about life which we feel we have no control over.

Unless, of course, there's no such thing as chance;...in which case, we should either-optimistically-get up and cheer, because if everything is planned in advance, then we all have a meaning and are spared the terror of knowing ourselves to be random, without a why; or else, of course, we might-as pessimists-give up right here and now, understanding the futility of thought decision action, since nothing we think makes any difference anyway, things will be as they will. Where, then, is optimism? In fate or in chaos?

In one sense I feel that my book is a one-woman argument against determinism.

Every individual acts and suffers in accordance with his peculiar teleology, which has all the inevitability of fate, so long as he does not understand it.

Do yourself a favor. Don't ever say to me, 'Everything happens for a reason.'

I often feel, and ever more deeply I realize, that fate and character are the same conception.

The intuition of free will gives us the truth.

As far as I can see, it's not important that we have free will, just as long as we have the illusion of free will to stop us going mad.

Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.

If there is such a thing as freedom, then there is no fate.

All things must; man is the only creature that wills.

Most people of action are inclined to fatalism and most of thought believe in providence.

Free will is to mind, what chance is to matter

Freedom is the recognition of necessity

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

Intellectually, I believe there's no free will.

Fatalism is a false premise. What will be is not necessarily what must be.