Martin Seligman Quotes

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

I am very comfortable with the idea that we can override biology with free will.

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

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

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

You're not a product of your nature. That is your genetic makeup or your nurture, the things that have happened to you. Of course those things affect you powerfully, but they do not determine you.

When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual.

We can choose, you know, we ain't no amoeba.

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

A human being is a deciding being.

The key to your universe is that you can choose.

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

Obedience is detachment from the self. This is the most radical detachment of all. But what is the self? The self is the principle of reason and responsibility in us. It is the root of freedom, it is what makes us men.

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.

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.

Your life is yours to live, no matter how you choose to live it. When you do not think about how you intend to live it, it lives you. When you occupy it, step into it consciously, you live it.

Freedom begins as we become conscious of it.

The greatest power that a person possesses is the power to choose.

I've never had anything but the freedom to do what I wanted just as long as it made me happy.

The intuition of free will gives us the truth.

There is a great suspicion of saying that anyone, especially a child, is 'the product of destiny,' or 'formed by fate,' or 'predestined for a certain life.' I am suspicious, too, of efforts to cage children or adults in preconceived ideas of who they are or should be.

We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.

Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune?

In a very slow way, I found my path. Even now, I think, 'If I can't do it my way, I'd rather not do it.'

You always do what you want to do. This is true with every act. You may say that you had to do something, or that you were forced to, but actually, whatever you do, you do by choice. Only you have the power to choose for yourself.