Seneca the Younger Quotes

To what extent is any given man morally responsible for any given act? We do not know.

There exists in our society widespread fear of judging…[B]ehind the unwillingness to judge lurks the suspicion that no one is a free agent, and hence doubt that anyone is responsible or could be expected to answer for what he has done…Who has ever maintained that by judging a wrong I presuppose that I myself would be incapable of committing it?

The mind sins, not the body; if there is no intention, there is no blame.

No action will be considered blameless, unless the will was so, for by the will the act was dictated.

Nobody becomes guilty by fate.

Kafka had the sense of guilt. I don't think I have because I don't believe in free will. Because what I have done has been done, well, for me or through me. But I haven't done it really. But I don't believe in free will, I can't feel guilty.

Morality is only moral when it is voluntary.

If everyone is to be made responsible for everything they do, you must extend responsibility beyond the level of conscious intention.

We tend to think that people are more to blame for their acts than for their omissions.

There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.

I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

There is no original sin. You don't have to pay repentance to anything or anybody.

How absurd to take the credit of doing the good act on oneself and lay the blame for the evil act on the Lord!

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

I still totally believe in individual rights and individual responsibility and in choosing to do good.

If I was going to act irresponsibly, the least I could do was be responsible for it.

God is not necessary to create culpability, or to punish. Our fellow men are enough for that, helped by ourselves.

Mankind's greatest gift... is that we have free choice.

It must always be remembered that you can never do right until you are first free to do wrong; since the doing of a thing under compulsion is evidence neither of good nor bad intent; and if under compulsion, who shall decide what would be the substituted rule of action under full freedom?

Conscience is a cudgel which all men pick up in order to thwack their neighbors instead of applying it to their own shoulders.

Men not living to what they know, cannot blame God, that they know no more.

Virtue is voluntary, vice involuntary.

Man has free choice, or otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards and punishments would be in vain.

The man who does something under orders is not unhappy; he is unhappy who does something against his will.

One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license.