Will Quotes

The greatest intellectual capacities are only found in connection with a vehement and passionate will.

What strength belongs to every plant and animal in nature. The tree or the brook has no duplicity, no pretentiousness, no show. It is, with all its might and main, what it is, and makes one and the same impression and effect at all times. All the thoughts of a turtle are turtle's, and of a rabbit, rabbit's. But a man is broken and dissipated by the giddiness of his will; he does not throw himself into his judgments; his genius leads him one way but 't is likely his trade or politics in quite another.

Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will. (One can choose what to do, but not what to want.)

The happiness of man is: I will. The happiness of woman is: he wills.

There is no love where there is no will

That every will must consider every other will its equal would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness.

Life is but a sleep disturbed by dreaming, prompted by the will; the saddened soul with sadness hides it's secrets, and the gay, with thrill.

Reverence for life, veneratio vitæ, is the most direct and at the same time the profoundest achievement of my will-to-live.

Upon the decease [of] my wife, it is my Will and desire th[at] all the Slaves which I hold in [my] own right, shall receive their free[dom] . . . . The Negroes thus bound, are (by their Masters or Mistresses) to be taught to read and write; and to be brought up to some useful occupation, agreeably to the Laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, providing for the support of Orphan and other poor Children. And I do hereby expressly forbid the Sale, or transportation out of the said Commonwealth, of any Slave I may die possessed of, under any pretence whatsoever.

What is the city in which we sit here, but an aggregate of incongruous materials, which have obeyed the will of some man?

Here, everything is tragic through and through, and the will, that fain would shape a world according to its wish, at last can reach no greater satisfaction than the breaking of itself in dignified annulment.

She will never submit to any thing requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding.

more and more I come to loathe any dominion of one over another; any leadership, any imposition of the will.

The happiness of man is: I will. The happiness of woman is: he wills. 'Behold , just now the world ... entire love. And woman must obey and find a depth for her surface. Surface is the disposition of woman: a mobile, stormy film over shallow water. Man's disposition, however, is deep; his river roars in subterranean caves: woman feels his strength but does not comprehend it.

Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel in himself the force and will to inflict great pain?

Morality is the struggle of the bound will to get free and is the proof that we have come from perfection. . . .

An act of love always tends towards two things; to the good that one wills, and to the person for whom one wills it.

Loving and perishing: it's been a rhyme all these eternities. The will to love: that is, also being willing to die.

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

Call me whatever you like; I am who I must be.

I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

Thought is like a bubble rising to the surface. When thought is joined to will, we call it power. That which strikes the sick person whom you are trying to help is not thought, but power.

The promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise to never have a headache or always to feel hungry.

if we possess a why of life we can put up with almost any how.

Man may have the most excellent judgment in all other matters, and yet go wrong in those which concern himself; because here the will comes in and deranges the intellect at once. Therefore let a man take counsel of a friend. A doctor can cure everyone but himself; if he falls ill, he sends for a colleague.

Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man's own will.

You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters — all that matters, really is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever present consciousness. The rest - women , art, success — is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries.

For a decision-the freest of my actions just happens like hiccups inside me or like a bird singing outside me.

Whoever possesses the will to suffering within himself has a different attitude towards cruelty: he does not regard it as inherently harmful and bad.

We do not yet trust the unknown powers of thought. Whence came all these tools, inventions, book laws, parties, kingdoms? Out of the invisible world, through a few brains. The arts and institutions of men are created out of thought. The powers that make the capitalist are metaphysical, the force of method and force of will makes trade, and builds towns.

The will of man is by his reason sway'd.

My God, but what do I care about the laws of nature and arithmatic if for some reason these laws and two times two is four are not to my liking?

So long as we perceive this world in motion, we have to conceive will behind it.

Acknowledge your will and speak to us all, "This alone is what I will to be!" Hang your own penal code up above you: we want to be its enforcers!

The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going

Determination is the wake-up call to the human will.

If I bind the future I bind my will. If I bind my will I strangle creation.

The mind naturally makes progress, and the will naturally clings to objects; so that for want of right objects, it will attach itself to wrong ones.

We can decide to let our trials crush us, or we can convert them to new forces of good.

Before we can be cured, we must want to be cured.

Under my plan, the state will be there to carry out the will of the people, not to dictate to them or to force them to do its will.

Will without intellect is the most vulgar and common thing in the world, possessed by every blockhead, who, in the gratification of his passions, shows the stuff of which he is made.

The grand style follows suit with all great passion. It disdains to please, it forgets to persuade. It commands. It wills.

Suffer love; a good epithet! I do suffer love, indeed, for I love thee against my will.

Follow in the footsteps of your fathers' virtue! How could you hope to climb high unless your fathers' will climbs with you?

If I had a humble spirit in my service who, when I asked for a glass of water, brought me the world's costliest wines blended in a chalice, I should dismiss him, in order to teach him that my pleasure consists, not in what I enjoy, but in having my own way.

To have and to want more that is life.

To love is to will the good of the other.

To the good warrior soundeth "thou shalt" pleasanter than "I will." And all that is dear unto you, ye shall first have it commanded unto you.

Perfect clarity would profit the intellect but damage the will.

Will is wish, and liberty is power.

There is no such thing as compulsion in the scheme of nonviolence.

We take a fancy to something: and scarcely have we thoroughly taken a fancy to it when that tyrant in us calls out: "Give me thatin sacrifice"--and we give it.

Active, successful natures act, not according to the maxim, "know thyself," but as if prompted by the commandment: will a self, and so become a self.

...even the richest personality is nothing before he has chosen himself, and on the other hand even what one might call the poorest personality is everything when he has chosen himself; for the great thing is not to be this or that but to be oneself, and this everyone can be if he wills it.

Each country, if it so desires, will make its own revolution. And if no such desire exists, no revolution will occur.

I would not come in. I meant not even if asked, And I hadn't been.

Whenever there is a challenge, there is also an opportunity to face it, to demonstrate and develop our will and determination.

When self control is lacking in small things, the ability to apply it to matters of importance withers away. Every day in which one does not at least deny himself some trifle is badly spent and a threat to the day following.

What is Genius?- To aspire to a lofty aim and to will the means to that aim.