The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
William Shakespeare3 quotes
Men at some time are masters of their fates.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings. — William Shakespeare · 1599Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie
Which we ascribe to heaven. — William Shakespeare · 1616There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will. — William Shakespeare · 1616Boethius1 quote
What place can be left for random action, when God constraineth all things to order? — Boethius · 523Dante Alighieri1 quote
The greatest gift which God in His bounty
Bestowed in creating,
And the most conformed to His own goodness
And that which He most prizes, was the freedom of the will,
With which the creatures that have intelligence,
They all and they alone, were and are endowed. — Dante Alighieri · 1321Dr. Jennifer Melfi1 quote
Genetic predispositions are only that: predispositions. It’s not a destiny written in stone. People have choices. — Dr. Jennifer Melfi · 1999Fernando Pessoa1 quote
The only freedom the gods grant us
Is this: to submit
Of our own free will to their sovereignty
We should do just that,
Since only in the illusion of freedom
Does freedom exist. — Fernando Pessoa · 1914Francis Crick1 quote
"You", your joys and your sorrows, your memories and ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. — Francis Crick · 1994Joan Didion1 quote
Was there ever in anyone's life span a point free in time, devoid of memory, a point when choice was any more than sum of all the choices gone before? — Joan Didion · 1963Karl Marx1 quote
Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. — Karl Marx · 1852Marcus Aurelius1 quote
Whatever befalls you was prepared for you beforehand from eternity, and the thread of causes was spinning from everlasting both your existence and this which befalls you. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Niccolo Machiavelli1 quote
God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532Norman Cousins1 quote
Free will and determinism... Are like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism. The way you play your hand represents free will. — Norman Cousins · 1951Prison Governor1 quote
Goodness is chosen. When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man. — Prison Governor · 1971Seneca1 quote
It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable. — Seneca · 58Thomas a Kempis1 quote
For man proposes, but God disposes. — Thomas a Kempis · 1427