Wilhelm von Humboldt Quotes

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

Freedom in the practical sense is the independence of the power of choice from necessitation by impulses of sensibility

Choice is the essence of what I believe it is to be human.

Our ideal of the future is that she should continue to render that service of her own free will.

It is the ability to choose which makes us human.

Play is always voluntary. What might otherwise be play is work if it's forced.

Ultimately the person, even the child, must choose for himself.

It's a simple quality of human nature that people prefer to choose to do things rather than be ordered to do them. In fact, as soon as you tell me I have to do something - give a speech, attend a banquet, go to Cannes - I immediately start looking for ways to avoid doing it.

What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?

Coersion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.

To say you have no choice is to relieve yourself of responsibility.

Commitment comes as a result of choice, not conditions.

Choice, I've always believed, is all that separates us from animals.

You were born free by accident. You live free by choice. To die free is your responsibility.

Choice is a signature of our species.

Man has a choice and it's a choice that makes him a man.

Human beings seem to be far more autonomous and self-governed than modern psychological theory allows for.

Our own choices might not be as good as those that are made for us.

My free will is a paradoxical partner of the power of intention.

You can't let anybody else tell you what your choices are. Sometimes they won't give you the right choice.

Necessity may not be the opposite of freedom, and perhaps a man is most free when, instead of producing motives, he could only say, "I am what I do.

Everything you do is by choice. It may not seem so, but it is.

An artist is forced by others to paint out of his own free will.

I think that certainly my choices empower me.

You cannot of yourself move your arm or alter your position, situation, posture, do to other men good or evil, or effect the least change in the world.