Bonnie Raitt Quotes

I'm fascinated by human agency - by the process of decision, both in the individual and the mass.

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

A man can surely do what he wills to do, but cannot determine what he wills.

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

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?

I do have the freedom to choose what I want to do and I'll continue to do that.

I'm all for past influences; the question is whether they are deterministic. Freud and the behaviorists argue that what we are at any given moment is billiard balls whose past determines our future course. That doesn't take into account that we are forever generating internal representations of positive futures and choosing among them.

We are all, right now, living the life we choose.

It's up to the individual to decide when he wants to quit.

Whatever you feel is right, whether that's moving to a new club or staying to fight for a position, everyone has a right to do what they want to do.

Everybody has the right to decide their own fate.

Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives.

Fundamentally, we are a product of choice, not nature (genes) or nurture (upbringing, environment).

However stupid the choice seemed, Shay had made it with her eyes open, and had respected Tally's choice to stay.

Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. (p. 100)

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?

You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.

What work do I have to do then?" said Will, but went on at once, "No, on second thought, don't tell me. I shall decide what I do. If you say my work is fighting, or healing, or exploring, or whatever you might say, I'll always be thinking about it. And if I do end up doing that, I'll be resentful because it'll feel as if I didn't have a choice, and if I don't do it, I'll feel guilty because I should. Whatever I do, I will choose it, no one else.

You may bring a horse to the river, but he will drinke when and what he pleaseth.

the touchstone of a free act - from the decision to get out of bed in the morning or take a walk in the afternoon to the highest resolutions by which we bind ourselves for the future - is always that we know that we could also have left undone what we actually did.

In the space between stimulus (what happens) and how we respond, lies our freedom to choose. Ultimately, this power to choose is what defines us as human beings. We may have limited choices but we can always choose. We can choose our thoughts, emotions, moods, our words, our actions; we can choose our values and live by principles. It is the choice of acting or being acted upon.

Eat this sweetish segment or spit it out. You are free.

You can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.

Choice. It's the word that allows yes and the word that makes no possible. It's the word that puts the free in freedom and takes obligation out of the mix. It's the word upon which adventure, exhilaration, and authenticity depend. It's the word that the cocoon whispers to the caterpillar.

If everyting's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!" (Jonas) "It's the choosing that's imortant, isn't it?" The Giver asked him.