Volition Quotes

One evening he appeared with an infant in his arms at the door of his ex-wife, Martha. Because Briony, his lovely young wife after Martha, had died. Of what? We'll get to that. I can't do this alone, Andrew said, as Martha stared at him from the open doorway. It happened to have been snowing that night, and Martha was transfixed by the soft creature-like snowflakes alighting on Andrew's NY Yankees hat brim. Martha was like that, enrapt by the peripheral things as if setting them to music. Even in ordinary times, she was slow to respond, looking at you with her large dark rolling protuberant eyes. Then the smile would come, or the nod, or the shake of the head. Meanwhile the heat from her home drifted through the open door and fogged up Andrew's eyeglasses. He stood there behind his foggy lenses like a blind man in the snowfall and was without volition when at last she reached out, gently took the swaddled infant from him, stepped back, and closed the door in his face. ~ E.L. Doctorow

The idea of Original Sin - of guilt where there is no possibility of innocence, no freedom of choice, no alternatives available - is anti-self-esteem by its very nature. The very notion of guilt without volition or responsibility is an assault on reason as well as on morality. ~ Nathaniel Branden

An action done from duty has its moral worth, not in the purpose to be attained by it, but in the maxim according with which it is decided upon; it depends therefore, not on the realization of the object of action, but solely on the principle of volition in accordance with which, irrespective of all objects of the faculty of desire, the action has been performed. ~ Immanuel Kant

To me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility; it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb. Oh vast gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death! Why was the living banished thither companionless, conscious? Why, if there is no Devil; nay, unless the Devil is your God? ~ Thomas Carlyle

The mind is still haunted with its old unconscious ways; it broods on lost authorities; and the yearning, the deep and hollowing yearning for divine volition and service is with us still. ~ Julian Jaynes

No power, no event, no circumstance, can compel a man to evil and unhappiness. He himself is his own compeller. He thinks and acts by his own volition. No being, however wise and great
not even the Supreme
can make him good and happy. He himself must choose the good, and thereby find the happy. ~ James Allen

We're trying to win business by doing a good job for the clients, as opposed to, "We think being big and universal is just a great, wonderful thing." It's not a morality thing. It's a "Does it work for the client?" thing. Everything we do is because a client uses us. Everything we do is because a client chose to use us of his own free volition. ~ Jamie Dimon

I joined the local athletics club when I was 12, that's what I did. I did it of my own volition. ~ Sebastian Coe

The Brother looked right into Xcor's eyes. "I am Hharm's son. So are you. We are brothers by blood." Xcor's heart began to pound so hard his head hurt. And then he felt his stare narrow of its own volition on Tohr's face. "It's the eyes," the Brother said. "You'll see it in the eyes. And no, I didn't really know him, either. I gather he was not a good male." "Hharm?" Wrath muttered. "No, he wasn't. And that's all I'll say about it." Xcor ~ J.R. Ward

Though Napoleon at that time, in 1812, was more convinced than ever that it depended on him, verser (ou ne pas verser) le sang de ses peuples1 - as Alexander expressed it in the last letter he wrote him - he had never been so much in the grip of inevitable laws, which compelled him, while thinking that he was acting on his own volition, to perform for the swarm-life - that is to say for history - whatever had to be performed. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Joel sat back in his chair and laughed at what seemed to be an inside joke, one in which I wanted very much to be let in on. An amiable smile stretched across his lips quoted by perfect dimples. I stared at him wanting nothing more than to indulge myself in that smile. ~ Shawn Kirsten Maravel

Power, of course. The primitive fear of being controlled. It does not matter whether it is an invasion from outer space or power wielded from a subterranean command post: some alien force is about to take control on us, to dominate - and, if necessary in the process, to terminate our existence. We never stop to think - or, at best, a secondary consideration is whether such a force might be for the good, that humanity might indeed be improved by such a takeover. Volition, to which we desperately cling, is the very definition of our mature completion as social beings. ~ Wole Soyinka

The poet discovers that what men value as substances have a higher value as symbols; that Nature is the immense shadow of man. A man's action is only a picture-book of his creed. He does after what he believes. Your condition, your employment, is the fable of you. The world is thoroughly anthropomorphized, as if it had passed through the body and mind of man, and taken his mould and form. Indeed, good poetry is always personification, and heightens every species of force in nature by giving it a human volition. We are advertised that there is nothing to which man is not related; that everything is convertible into every other. The staff in his hand is the radius vector of the sun. The chemistry of this is the chemistry of that. Whatever one act we do, whatever one thing we learn, we are doing and learning all things, - marching in the direction of universal power. Every healthy mind is a true Alexander or Sesostris, building a universal monarchy. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Creation,' in the ordinary sense of the word, is perfectly conceivable. I find no difficulty in conceiving that, at some former period, this universe was not in existence, and that it made its appearance in six days (or instantaneously, if that is preferred), in consequence of the volition of some preexisting Being. ~ Thomas Huxley

This kind of internal "telepathic" intercourse, which was to serve me in all my wanderings, was at first difficult, innefective, and painful. But in time I came to be able to live through the experiences of my host with vividness and accuracy, while yet preserving my own individuality, my own critical intelligence, my own desires and fears. Only when the other had come to realize my presence within him could he, by a special act of volition, keep particular thoughts secret from me. ~ Olaf Stapledon

Hadn't the actors acted of their own volition? ~ Anthony Doerr

And this we should believe: that hope and volition can bring us closer to our ultimate goal: justice for all, injustice for no-one. ~ Eyvind Johnson

The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking. ~ Charles Sanders Peirce

Liberty is not an Idea belonging to Volition, or preferring; but to the Person having the Power of doing, or forbearing to do, according as the Mind shall chuse or direct. ~ John Locke

I have a choice. That's why I'm still here. ~ Amy Neftzger

His punch knocked her back a meter into the wall. His fist had moved of his own volition, carrying a rage and frustration all its own.

To his dismay, she didn't fall. People so small as her always fell.

No tears pooled in her eyes; instead they flared golden amber as she rubbed her jaw and pushed off the wall to stand rigid straight. A peculiar smile danced across her lips as blood trickled from the corner of her mouth and down her chin. ~ G.S. Jennsen

You're a stubborn, ill-trained horse." she said
The horse snorted and walked towards the North Road of his own volition.
"Hey!" Karigan pulled back on the reins. "Whoa. Who do you think is in charge here? ~ Kristen Britain

He remarked as much to Charlotte on his return, and she was inclined to agree with him. 'As life draws us along,' she replied, 'we think we are acting of our own volition, ourselves choosing what we shall do and what we shall enjoy; but when we look more closely we see they are only the intentions and inclinations of the age which we are being compelled to comply with. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

To say that the frozen silence contracted itself into a yet higher globe of ice were to under-rate the exquisite tension and to shroud it in words. The atmosphere had become a physical sensation. As when, before a masterpiece, the acid throat contracts, and words are millstones, so when the supernaturally outlandish happens and a masterpiece is launched through the medium of human gesture, then all human volition is withered at the source and the heart of action stops beating.
Such a moment was this. Irma, a stalagmite of crimson stone, knew, for all the riot of her veins that a page had turned over. At chapter forty? O no! At chapter one, for she had never lived before save in a pulseless preface.
How long did they remain thus? How many times had the earth moved round the sun? How many times had the great blue whales of the northern waters risen to spurt their fountains at the sky? How many reed-bucks had fallen to the claws of how many leopards, while that sublime unit of two-figure statuary remained motionless? It is fruitless to ask. The clocks of the world stood still or should have done. ~ Mervyn Peake

She lay down and never stirred. To move hand or foot, or even so much as one finger, would have been an exertion beyond the powers of either volition or motion. She was so tired, so stunned, that she thought she never slept at all; her feverish thoughts passed and repassed the boundary between sleeping and waking, and kept their own miserable identity. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

All beings begin their lives with hope and aspirations. Among these aspirations is the desire that there will be a straight path to those goals. It is seldom so. Perhaps never.
Sometimes the turns are of one's own volition, as one's thoughts and goals change over time. But more often the turns are mandated by outside forces.
It was so with me. The memory is vivid, unsullied by age: the five admirals rising from their chairs as I am escorted into the chamber. The decision of the Ascendancy has been made, and they are here to deliver it.
None of them is happy with the decision. I can read that in their faces. But they are officers and servants of the Chiss, and they will carry out their orders. Protocol alone demands that.
The word is as I expected.
Exile.
The planet has already been chosen. The Aristocra will assemble the equipment necessary to endure that solitude does not quickly become Death from predators or the elements.
I am led away. Once again, my path has turned.
Where it will lead, I cannot say. ~ Timothy Zahn

My case is a species of madness, only that it is a derangement of the Volition, and not of the intellectual faculties. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

As far as you are concerned the present is your point of action, focus and power, and from that point of volition you form both your future and past. Realizing this, you will understand that you are not at the mercy of a past over which you have no control. ~ Seth

We write or we are written upon. The whole of our lives is the clumsy attempt to wield the pen with grace. ~ Vincent Louis Carrella

If someone suffers enough pain and abuse, his volitional capacities will diminish to nothing. ~ David L. Conroy

Adrienne Rich once wrote that Virginia Woolf's style - that detachment and banked rage, that light, calculated charm - revealed a woman who never forgot she was being overheard, and evaluated, by men. Reading the flood of public writing about #MeToo in recent years - the op-eds and testimonies - I'd occasionally experience a prickly feeling of recognition. Here again, I'd think, was writing that stemmed from outrage, and often shame, but remained impeccably well-mannered and sure of itself, almost legalistic in structure and presentation. Necessarily, perhaps - women must constantly perform credibility. "The whole long arc of justice now crashing down that we call #MeToo has been about whether women may be in possession of facts, and whether anyone will bother to hear out those facts or believe them or, having believed them, allow those facts to have consequences," Rebecca Solnit has written. These pieces often felt preoccupied with their imagined reception - straining to appease, convince, console - conscious of being overheard, in Rich's phrase, but this time by women as well as men.

Not these novels. They occupy the backwaters where the writer need not pander or persuade, and can instead seek to understand, or merely complicate, something for herself. They are stories about inconsistencies and incoherence, stories that thicken the mysteries of memory and volition. ~ Parul Sehgal

I'm using my own person in pieces, but I'm trying to turn my person into a nonperson in the sense of a person without will, without volition. I'm subjecting myself to a scheme. ~ Vito Acconci

The Heart of Gold fled on silently through the night of space, now on conventional photon drive. Its crew of four were ill as ease knowing that they had been brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious perversion of physics- as if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that governed the relationships between atoms and molecules ~ Douglas Adams

Freedom of Will" - that is the expression for the complex state of delight of the person exercising volition, who commands and at the same time identifies himself with the executor of the order - who, as such, enjoys also the triumph over obstacles, but thinks within himself that it was really his own will that overcame them. In this way the person exercising volition adds the feelings of delight of his successful executive instruments, the useful "underwills" or under-souls - indeed, our body is but a social structure composed of many souls - to his feelings of delight as commander. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Meditation is not words, a mantram, or self hypnosis, the drug of illusions. It must happen without your volition. It must take place in the quiet stillness of the night, when you are suddenly awake and see that the brain is quiet and there is a peculiar quality of meditation going on. It must take place as silently as a snake among the tall grass, green in the fresh morning light. It must take place in the deep recesses of the brain. Meditation is not an achievement. There is no method, system or practice. Meditation begins with the ending of comparison, the ending of the becoming or not becoming. As the bee whispers among the leaves so the whispering of meditation is action. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Unto each one hath been prescribed a preordained measure, as decreed in God's mighty and guarded Tablets. All that which ye potentially possess can, however, be manifested only as a result of your own volition. ~ Bahaullah

Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the "vox populi" now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, van guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V. ~ Alan Moore

And suddenly, without the slightest volition on my part, there was the most crashing discharge of wind, like the report of a mortar. My horse started; Cardigan jumped in his saddle, glaring at me ... Be Silent! snaps he, and he must have been in a highly nervous condition himself, otherwise he would never have added, in a hoarse whipser: Can you not contain yourself, you disgusting fellow?
Flashman at the start of the Charge of the Light Brigade. ~ George MacDonald Fraser

You see," I explained to Joshua, "what Joy is doing is ironic, yet that's not her intent. That's the difference between irony and sarcasm. Irony can be spontaneous, while sarcasm requires volition. You have to create sarcasm."
"No kidding?" said Josh.
"Why do I waste my time with you? ~ Christopher Moore

To suggest, as Shine does, that my father was in some way mean-spirited is totally unfair. Holding back David's career was not in the least my father's aim. He was extremely proud of his son and nurtured his talent in every way. He was David's strongest advocate. But allowing any boy who had just turned fourteen to live by himself so far away without proper provisions being made for him would have been irresponsible, to say the least.
In David's case, it would have been particularly inappropriate. He had never been abroad before; he was completely hopeless in practical matters; and he needed to be looked after, cooked for, and cared for. He was also by that time behaving rather erratically, although of course we did not know then that these may have been the first signs of a serious mental illness. My father's attitude was proved correct: when David did go to London of his own volition four years later, he fell ill and ended up receiving psychiatric care.
In any case there simply wasn't enough money available to finance the trip to America. Contrary to what is related in Shine, where my father and Mr. Rosen decide that David should have a bar mitzvah as a method of raising money for this trip, David had already had his bar mitzvah almost a year earlier, when he turned thirteen, the usual age for this ceremony. His bar mitzvah had nothing to do with "digging for gold," as Mr. Rosen puts it in Shine, in one of several offensive references in the film to Jews or Ju ~ Margaret Helfgott

A world in which deliberate practice is a normal part of life would be one in which people had more volition and satisfaction. ~ Anders Ericsson

Reason, in a strict sense, as meaning the judgment of truth and falsehood, can never, of itself, be any motive to the will, and can have no influence but so far as it touches some passion or affection. Abstract relations of ideas are the object of curiosity, not of volition. And matters of fact, where they are neither good nor evil, where they neither excite desire nor aversion, are totally indifferent, and whether known or unknown, whether mistaken or rightly apprehended, cannot be regarded as any motive to action. ~ David Hume

I was investing more and more of myself into an outcome I couldn't predict and would very likely be disappointed by. But for me there was no other option. ~ Shawn Kirsten Maravel

It is only because a person has volitions of the second order that he is capable both of enjoying and of lacking freedom of the will. ~ Harry Frankfurt

But if it were true that his life had somehow been molded by acts of power of which he was unaware - then it would follow that he had never acted of his own volition; never had a moment of true self-consciousness. Everything he had ever assumed about himself was a lie, an illusion. And if this were so, how was he to find himself now? ~ Amitav Ghosh

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. ~ Barbara L. Christou

But support will always have a special and vividly erotic set of image/meanings for me now, one of which is floating upon a sea within a ring of women like warm bubbles keeping me afloat upon the surface of that sea. I can feel the texture of inviting water just beneath their eyes, and do not fear it. It is the sweet smell of their breath and laughter and voices calling my name that gives me volition, helps me remember I want to turn away from looking down. These images flow quickly, the tangible floods of energy rolling off these women toward me that I converted into power to heal myself. ~ Audre Lorde

Innate directs its vital energy through the nervous system to specialize the coordination and sensation and volition through the cumulative and vegetative functions. ~ Daniel D. Palmer

The man of wisdom is devoid of ego even though he may appear to use it. His vacant or fasting mind is neither doing anything nor not doing anything. He is outside of volition, neither this nor that. He is everything and nothing. ~ Ramesh S Balsekar

Literature remains an indispensable human activity, in which the reader and the writer are engaged of their own volition. Hence, literature has no duty to the masses or society, and ethical or moral pronouncements added by busybody critics are of no concern to the writer. ~ Gao Xingjian

All I knew was that I couldn't have him right now. It was impossible. Could I have him in a year? Two years? Five years? Ten years? I didn't know. All I knew was that although the universe was pushing us together, it was also pushing us apart. ~ Lily Paradis

This is from "Marabou Stork Nightmares".
Bernard's Poem:

Did you see her on the telly the other day
good family entertainment the tabloids say

But when you're backstage
at your new faeces audition
you hear the same old shite of your own selfish volition

She was never a singer
a comic or a dancer
I cant say I was sad
when I found out she had cancer

Great Britain's earthy northern
comedy queen
takes the rand, understand
from the racist Boer regime

So now her cells are fucked
and thats just tough titty
I remember her act
that I caught back in Sun City

She went on and on about
'them from the trees
with different skull shapes
from the likes of you and me'

Her Neo-Nazi spell
it left me fucking numb
the Boers lapped it up with zeal
so did the British ex-pat scum

But what goes round
comes round they say
so welcome to another dose
of chemotherapy

And for my part
it's time to be upfront
so fuck off and die
you carcinogenic cunt. ~ Irvine Welsh

Anyone who has that weird volition to become an actor probably has a weird volition to do lots of other creative things - to write, to play music, to paint, to cook. ~ Minnie Driver

What would you ask for if you were given the freedom to chose something of your own volition (marjiyaat)? There is nothing in [all] mandatory (tasks) in which one can remain still. One after another, the needs will continue. It is only in the state of own's own Self [the Soul], that one can remain burden-free. ~ Dada Bhagwan

My experience to date has been that change, particularly relative to business, rarely happens in a revolutionary way. That isn't to say there are not times when major change happens, but my experience is that particularly when you're encouraging businesses to change of their own volition, the change is more slow over time. I don't think global trade is going to go away. I think it's unlikely that global trade and multinationals are not going to be around. ~ Jeffrey Hollender

Warmth flooded her body and she felt her skin flush, sweat prickling her hairline. Pain dissipated to nothing but a numb, hollow feeling. Some combination of drugs seeped into her, promoting pain relief and relaxation. She felt her taut muscles yielding, even as a network of filamentous webs encased her and tugged her lower into the gel. Her arms grew heavy and sank into the gel of their own volition. Or had they been pulled there? ~ Jennifer Foehner Wells

The ocean, under the pulsation of lighthouses and noise of bell
buoys,
advances as usual, looking as if it were not that ocean in which
dropped things are bound to sink
in which if they turn and twist, it is neither with volition nor
consciousness. ~ Marianne Moore

The individual does actually carry on a double existence: one designed to serve his own purposes and another as a link in a chain, in which he serves against, or at any rate without, any volition of his own. ~ Sigmund Freud

Our mental conditions are simply the symbols in consciousness of the changes which take place automatically in the organism; ... to take an extreme illustration, the feeling we call volition is not the cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of the brain which is the immediate cause of that act. We are conscious automata. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley

An icon didn't do anything of its own volition. A symbol didn't act of its own accord. Both cities projected what they wanted onto me, and wanted me to stay still as they did it. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

[Some people] think that sex is a physical capacity which functions independently of
one's mind, choice, or code of values. They think that your body creates a
desire and makes a choice for you–just about in some such way as if iron
ore transformed itself into railroad rails of its own volition. Love is blind,
they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers.
But, in fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental
convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you
his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell
you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption he's taught about the
virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act
which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment -- just try to think
of performing it as an act of selfless charity! – an act which is not possible
in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in the confidence of being desired
and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit,
as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as his standard of value. He will
always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself,
the woman whose surrender permits him to experience–or to fake–
a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his ~ Ayn Rand

Here was the astounding fact: the race did go forward; the race did achieve; and in every way the race grew better. Progress through irrational and astounding blunders, whose outrageousness bedwarfed the wildest cliches of romance, was what Kennaston found everywhere. All this, then, also was foreplanned, just as all happenings at Storisende had been, in his puny romance; and the puppets, here to, moved as they thought of their own volition, but really in order to serve a denouement in which many of them had not any personal part or interest ... ~ James Branch Cabell

I've always been accused by my detractors of some sort of moral failure, cowardice, or even lack of humanity by not portraying the human form. I respond that I do better by portraying traces of character and intentions of human volition that no mug or body shot can ever exude. ~ Robert Polidori

That suggested two possibilities. It was either too unintelligent to understand him - or it was very intelligent indeed, with its own powers of choice and volition. In that case, he must treat it as an equal. Even then he might underestimate it - but it would bear him no resentment, for conceit was not a vice from which robots often suffered. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

Most philosophers do not want intellectual matters to reduce to a question of morality (obedience or rebellion to God's Word). They want to hold the intellect or reason to be above matters of moral volition. They hold that truth is obtainable and testable no matter what ethical condition the thinker is in.
Hence, they maintain that all disputes must be rationally resolvable, and a rational case for a philosophic position relies on a valid chain of discursive argumentation that takes us back to incontestable first principles or facts. ~ Greg L. Bahnsen

I believe in art the way other people believe in god. I say that because books and paintings and music and photography gave me an alternate world to inhabit when the one I was born into was a dead zone. I say it because if you, even inside whatever terror itches your skin, pick up a pen or a paintbrush, a camera or clay or a guitar, you already have what you are afraid to choose. Volition. It was already in you. ~ Lidia Yuknavitch

They think that your body creates a desire and makes a choice for you just about in some such way as if iron ore transformed itself into railroad rails of its own volition. Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. ~ Ayn Rand

Man's only hope lies in "final redemption from the misery of volition and existence into the painlessness of non-being and non-willing." No mortal may quit the task of life, but each must do his part to hasten the time when in the major portion of the human race the activity of the unconscious shall be ruled by intelligence, and this stage reached, in the simultaneous action of many persons volition will resolve upon its own non-continuance, and thus idea and will be once more reunited in the Absolute. ~ Karl Robert Eduard Von Hartmann

When we watch a play under the standard circumstances, we've lost volition and time is passing. A still play feels like an existential threat. ~ Richard Greenberg

A disobedient child is one who blinks of his own volition, without being told to or even looked at. That's usually when I get out the Behavior Cloth (a blindfold). ~ Jarod Kintz

The humble sinner will sometimes be interpreted as one of the filthiest in the eyes of man yet immersed in the eyes of God, and this is due to the volition of honesty regarding his own corruption. ~ Criss Jami

He wanted this to show the raw power of volition. The man and woman he carved were his refuge against his despair over his captivity. They embodied freedom of spirit. They embodied reason rising up to triumph. ~ Terry Goodkind

The life of faith can be called the life of the will since faith is impervious to how one feels but chooses through volition to obey God's mind. ~ Watchman Nee

Are you a person - with volition and maybe some stubborness and at least the capacity if not the actual determination to do something surprising - or are you a tool? A tool just serves its user. It's only as good as the skill of its user, and its not good for anything else. So if you want to accomplish something special - something more than you can do for yourself - you can't use a tool. You have to use a person and hope the surprises will work in your favor. You have to use something that's free to not be what you had in mind. ~ Stephen R. Donaldson

Botha swimmer and a drowned man are in the water; the latter is borne by the water and controlled by it, while the swimmer is borne along by his own power and of his own volition. Every movement made by the drowned man - indeed, every act and word that issue from him - comes from the water, not from him ... The saints are like this. They have died before death. ~ Rumi

...advancing through my schedule without volition, feeling more and more like the graphical lozenge on a media player's progress bar. ~ Jonathan Franzen

The idea of original sin
of guilt with no possibility of innocence, no freedom of choice, no alternatives
inherently militates against self-esteem. The very notion of guilt without volition or responsibility is an assault on reason as well as on morality. Sin is not original, it is originated
like virtue. ~ Nathaniel Branden

Our coherent extrapolated volition is our wish if we knew more, thought faster, were more the people we wished we were, had grown up farther together; where the extrapolation converges rather than diverges, where our wishes cohere rather than interfere; extrapolated as we wish that extrapolated, interpreted as we wish that interpreted. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

She whimpered, the sound lost in Mike's mouth. She was entirely his, completely without willpower or volition. His mouth ate at hers, his shoulders curved in to her like some powerful wall of flesh. He moved his hips against her in short, stabbing movements, hands lifting her hips against his. ~ Lisa Marie Rice

The very idea of penalizing based on propensities is nauseating. To accuse a person of some possible future behavior is to negate the very foundation of justice: that one must have done something before we can hold him accountable for it. After all, thinking bad things is not illegal, doing them is. It is a fundamental tenet of our society that individual responsibility is tied to individual choice of action. [ ... ] Were perfect predictions possible, they would deny human volition, our ability to live our lives freely. Also, ironically, by depriving us of choice they would exculpate us from any responsibility. ~ Viktor Mayer-Schonberger

He put his hands down slowly, saying something to Leigha in a language she didn't understand. His eyes glassed over. "My little angel," he repeated in English.
Her nerves came undone at the sight before her. Was this the him her father warned her about? She tried to mask her fear. "How can I help you?" Her soft voice didn't carry far in the empty space.
He stretched out his hand, motioning her to two chairs. "Please, come. Sit down. We have much to talk about. I mean you no harm."
"Who are you?" The words forced out of her mouth of their own volition. She started to freak out. Her hands shook as she smoothed them over the top of her head. ~ Kenzie Macallan

The other thing I like, in fact, several months ago I introduced a bill to end the absurd catch and release policy where our government has been giving tickets, essentially, to people who enter illegally and then letting them go and show up of their own volition. ~ John Doolittle

Earlier in the day, while killing some hours by circling in blue ballpoint ink every uppercase M in the front section of a month-old New York Times, Chip had concluded that he was behaving like a depressed person. Now, as his telephone began to ring, it occurred to him that a depressed person ought to continue staring at the TV and ignore the ringing - ought to light another cigarette and, with no trace of emotional affect, watch another cartoon while his machine took whoever's message. That his impulse, instead, was to jump to his feet and answer the phone - that he could so casually betray the arduous wasting of a day - cast doubt on the authenticity of his suffering. He felt as if he lacked the ability to lose all volition and connection with reality the way depressed people did in books and movies. It seemed to him, as he silenced the TV and hurried into his kitchen, that he was failing even at the miserable task of falling properly apart. ~ Jonathan Franzen

Good and evil are essential differences of the act of the will. For good and evil pertain essentially to the will; just as truth and falsehood pertain to the reason, the act of which is distinguished essentially by the difference of truth and falsehood (according as we say that an opinion is true or false.) Consequently, good and evil volition are acts differing in species. ~ Thomas Aquinas

In some respects, a society in which the members reach a universal level in which they are anonymous drones by choice is even more frightening than one in which they are forced to be so against their will. When human beings relinquish their individuality and identity of their own volition, they are also relinquishing their claim to being human. ~ J. Paul Getty

We see that every external motion, act, gesture, whether voluntary or mechanical, organic or mental, is produced and preceded by internal feeling or emotion, will or volition, and thought or mind. ~ Helena Blavatsky

Fictional characters are made of words, not flesh; they do not have free will, they do not exercise volition. They are easily born, and as easily killed off. ~ John Banville

I know of no actor who is so pure onstage that he thinks only what his character thinks. If he did, he would presumably become the character: a form of madness. This may be of course what happens to Hamlet--he puts on an antic disposition, and gets stuck with it.
[...]
Acting is mostly a twin-track mental activity. In one track runs the role, requiring thoughts ranging from, say, gentle amusement to towering rage. Then there is the second track, which monitors the performance: executing the right moves, body language, and voice level; taking note of audience reaction and keeping an eye on fellow actors; coping with emergencies such as a missing prop or a faulty lighting cue. These two tracks run parallel, night by night. If one should go wrong, then it is likely that the other will misbehave too.
[...]
But there is a third and wholly subversive track that intrudes itself at intervals, full of phantom thoughts and feelings that come and go of their own volition. This ghost train of random musings is, of course, to be discouraged, but it can never be entirely denied. As Bohr and his wife, Margrethe, say in the play: "So many things we think about at the same time. Our lives and our physics...All the things that come into our heads out of nowhere. ~ David Burke

When we dare to speak in a liberatory voice, we threaten even those who may initially claim to want our words. In the act of overcoming our fear of speech, of being seen as threatening, in the process of learning to speak as subjects, we participate in the global struggle to end domination. When we end our silence, when we speak in a liberated voice, our words connect us with anyone, anywhere who lives in silence. Feminist focus on women finding a voice, on the silence of black women, of women of color, has led to increased interest in our words. This is an important historical moment. We are both speaking of our own volition, out of our commitment to justice, to revolutionary struggle to end domination, and simultaneously called to speak, "invited" to share our words. It is important that we speak. What we speak about is more important. It is our responsibility collectively and individually to distinguish between mere speaking that is about self-aggrandizement, exploitation of the exotic "other," and that coming to voice which is a gesture of resistance, an affirmation of struggle. ~ Bell Hooks

Empirical debunking cannot reach the deepest fear of the reactionary mind, which is that the state - that devouring leviathan - will soon swallow up all traces of human volition and dignity. The conclusion is based on conservative moral convictions that reason can't shake. ~ Rick Perlstein

The wild gods live with the wild plants. Once, all of our gods were plants and animals. The allies are the ancient gods, their wisdom is the ancient substrate of our volition; they are the maternal transmitters of our vision and dreams. Anthropomorphic gods were the children of the plant gods. That is why destroying wild habitat is parricide, because the gods cannot live without their habitat, and it was the gods that made us, and gave us our culture. ~ Dale Pendell

But what is there in man older and deeper than the religious sentiment?
There is man himself; that is, volition and conscience, free-will and law, eternally antagonistic. Man is at war with himself: why?
"Man," say the theologians, "transgressed in the beginning; our race is guilty of an ancient offence. For this transgression humanity has fallen; error and ignorance have become its sustenance. Read history, you will find universal proof of this necessity for evil in the permanent misery of nations. Man suffers and always will suffer; his disease is hereditary and constitutional. Use palliatives, employ emollients; there is no remedy. ~ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast. ~ William James

Volition ... takes place only when there are a number of conflicting systems of ideas, and depends on our having a complex field of consciousness. ~ William James

Liberty is not about class war, income war, race war, national war, a war between the sexes, or any other conflict apart from the core conflict between individuals and those who would seek power and control over the human spirit. Liberty is the dream that we can all work together, in ways of our choosing and of our own human volition, to realize a better life. ~ Jeffrey Tucker

Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion,' ~ Robin Cook

It's the deep, fundamental bedrock of hypocrisy upon which religion is founded. Consider: no creature can be said to worship if it does not possess free will. Free will, however, is FREE. And just by virtue of being free, is intractable and incalculable, a truly Godlike gift, the faculty that makes a state of freedom possible. To exist in a state of freedom is a wild, strange thing, and was clearly intended as such. But what to the religions do with this? They say, "Very well, you possess free will; but now you must use your free will to enslave yourself to God and to us." The effrontery of it! God, who would not coerce a fly, is painted as a supreme slavemaster! In the fact of this, any creature with spirit must rebel, must serve God entirely of his own will and volition, or must not serve him at all, thus remaining true to himself and to the faculties God has given him. ~ Robert Sheckley

One's own free and unfettered volition, one's own caprice, however wild, one's own fancy, inflamed sometimes to the point of madness - that is the one best and greatest good, which is never taken into consideration because it cannot fit into any classification and the omission of which sends all systems and theories to the devil. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Some comfort it would have been, could I, like a Faust, have fancied myself tempted and tormented of the Devil; for a Hell, as I imagine, without Life, though only Diabolic Life, were more frightful: but in our age of Downpulling and Disbelief, the very Devil has been pulled down, you cannot so much as believe in a Devil. To me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility: it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb. ~ Thomas Carlyle

To me, songs come of their own volition - and with an open-ended philosophy. ~ Rufus Wainwright