John Steinbeck Quotes

There is nothing good or evil save in the will.

The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.

While early childhood experiences may impel, they do not compel. In the end, evil is a matter of choice.

Morality pertains only to the sphere of man's free will - only to those actions which are open to his choice.

The Hebrew word, the word timshel - 'Thou mayest' - that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open...Why, that makes a man great...He can choose his course and fight it through and win...I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest'. ch 24

Here in St. Cloud’s,” Dr. Larch wrote, “ I have been given the choice of playing God or leaving practically everything up to chance. It is my experience that practically everything is left up to chance much of the time; men who believe in good and evil, and who believe that good should win, should watch for those moments when it is possible to play God – we should seize those moments. There won’t be may

Man is a being with free will; therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it's up to him and only him (through his reasoning mind) to decide which he wants to be.

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 lies freedom, indeed.

One might rationally argue that individual human beings should be free choose what moral behavior they approve of, and which they don't, subject to the constraints of the law.

Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will - his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals.

This means that to man God gave a degree of free will.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

What we can do should never by itself determine what we choose to do, yet this is the way technology tends to work.

Everythings a choice. Nobody's born good. Nobody's born evil. It's always a choice.

Integrity in the Moment of Choice: Quality of life depends on what happens in the space between stimulus and response.

Because one thing God gave us- and I'm afraid it's at times a little too much- is freewill. Freedom to choose. I believe he gave us everything needed to build a beautiful world, if we choose wisely.

Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose.

Eve didn't choose to eat the apple. She was tempted by the serpent." "Yes," I argue, thoughts coming out half-formed. "But...she didn't have to take a bite. She chose to.

And I must believe that man has the power to know the right, to choose between good and evil and know that his choice has made a difference.

You are to do the choosing here and now during this exciting and wonderful time on earth. Moral agency, the freedom to choose, is certainly one of God's greatest gifts next to life itself. We have the honorable right to choose; therefore, we need to choose the right. This is not always easy.

It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.

It is our choice of good or evil that determines our character, not our opinion about good or evil.

The essence of man is his freedom. Sin is committed in that freedom. Sin can therefore not be attributed to a defect in his essence. It can only be understood as a self-contradiction, made possible by the fact of his freedom but not following necessarily from it.

Free will is the liberty to choose what is right according to Gods law.