Orson Scott Card Quotes

I wonder whether being a scientist's daughter makes you so conflicted about free will and fate.

I don't believe in luck. I believe everything happens for a reason.

Men do not shape destiny, Destiny produces the man for the hour.

There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.

All is foreseen, but freedom of choice is given.

Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.

Fact I know; and Law I know; but what is this Necessity, save an empty shadow of my own mind's throwing?

Intellectually, I believe there's no free will.

I believe in fate.

If something were brought about without an antecedent cause, it would be untrue that all things come about through fate. But if it is plausible that all events have an antecedent cause, what ground can be offered for not conceding that all things come about through fate?

For me, the single most important question is how to construct a society that is just, safe, peaceful - all those good things - when people finally accept that there is no free will.

Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.

If you could stand back far enough and watch the whole process you'd see you are a totally determined being.

There's no free will," says the philosopher; "To hang is most unjust." "There is no free will," assents the officer; "We hang because we must.

Two times two will be four even without my will. Is that what you call man's free will?

Sometimes, what you do you have no control over because it's predestined. It's gonna happen in spite of you. There's nothing you can do about it.

I'm a very big believer in fate.

In philosophy, they talk a lot about humans being actual organic machines, and the idea of free will is something that we've made up. We actually don't have free will. We're acting according to our programming as organic mechanisms.

I assert that nothing ever comes to pass without a cause.

There seems to be a law that governs all our actions so I never make plans.

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

I think some things are just meant to happen; you can't change your fate. Maybe we have a small amount of control.

Character and fate are two words for the same thing.

Free will is an illusion. People always choose the perceived path of greatest pleasure.

Everything that has been will be, everything that will be is, everything that will be has been.