Richard Dawkins Quotes

One of the greatest gifts that God has given us is free will. Even though it's free, we don't take advantage of it as much as we could when it comes to matters of the heart.

Everything is something you decide to do, and there is nothing you have to do.

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

I think the real free person in society is one that's disciplined. It's the one that can choose; that is the free one.

He who believes in freedom of the will has never loved and never hated.

The will is not free - it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect - but there is something behind the will which is free.

I think it is important to remind people of the extent of our free will.

The intuition of free will gives us the truth.

Man is pre-eminently endowed with the power of voluntarily and consciously determining his own point of view.

If people don't want to go to the picture, nobody can stop them.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space where we choose our response.

No one makes me do anything I don't want to do.

Honestly, I cannot understand what people mean when they talk about the freedom of the human will. I have a feeling, for instance, that I will something or other; but what relation this has with freedom I cannot understand at all. I feel that I will to light my pipe and I do it; but how can I connect this up with the idea of freedom? What is behind the act of willing to light the pipe ? Another act of willing?

Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.

Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will.

Unless someone truly has the power to say no, they never truly have the power to say yes.

If I decide to be indecisive, that's my decision.

Human freedom involves our capacity to pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight.

Every man must decide for himself whether he shall master his world or be mastered by it.

I never do anything that I don't want to do.

Freedom and responsibility aren't interconnected things. They are the same thing.

Freedom is the right to choose the habits that bind you.

What, in the end, is freedom but the ability to choose?

The fact that the underlying laws of physics are deterministic and impersonal does not mean that at the human level we can't talk about ideas about reasons and goals and purposes and free will.

I don't like this terminology that you have no choice. You always have a choice.