33 Quotes About Determinism

Determinism and the philosophy of free will are based on conditions brought together by the laws of nature. With predicted outcomes based on the conditions that brought you there, determinism implies that individual beings have no free will and not be held morally responsible for their actions. Here is a look at some of the most notable quotes about determinism that touch on this subject.

“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.”

“A profound political question is suddenly on the table: Must the country continue to give precedence to private financial gain and market determinism over human lives and broad public values?”

“Almost always, genes are about potentials and vulnerabilities rather than about determinism.”

“An honest man is always a child.”

“As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.”

“Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.”

“During the first period of a man’s life the greatest danger is not to take the risk.”

“Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star.”

“History does not teach fatalism. There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads.”

“How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?”

“Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.”

“If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.”

“In one sense I feel that my book is a one-woman argument against determinism.”

“In the mind there is no absolute or free will.”

“It is impossible to trap modern physics into predicting anything with perfect determinism because it deals with probabilities from the outset.”

“Life calls the tune, we dance.”

“Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.”

“Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.”

“No one has ever announced that because determinism is true thermostats do not control temperature.”

“Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.”

“Only a man’s character is the real criterion of worth.”

“Science admits no exceptions; otherwise there would be no determinism in science, or rather, there would be no science.”

“Science is unflinchingly deterministic, and it has begun to force its determinism into morals.”

“That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.”

“The assumption of an absolute determinism is the essential foundation of every scientific enquiry.”

“The essence of totalitarian government, and perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to dehumanize them.”

“The eyes of the cheerful and of the melancholy man are fixed upon the same creation; but very different are the aspects which it bears to them.”

“The idea of determinism combined with complete human responsibility struck me as very hard to reconcile with an idea of justice, let alone mercy.”

“The metaphysical doctrine of determinism simply asserts that all events in this world are fixed, or unalterable, or predetermined. It does not assert that they are known to anybody, or predictable by scientific means.”

“The way out is the way through.”

“The wise man does not lay up his own treasures. The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.”

“The world changed from having the determinism of a clock to having the contingency of a pinball machine.”

“Thus far we have considered the problem of conservation of land purely as an economic issue.”

The topic of determinism can explain the results of many occurrences throughout life.