“Unskilled in sophistry and new to the darker ways of national politics, Grover Cleveland faced his accusers, his slanderers, and his judges, the sovereign people, conscious of the general rectitude of his life, and courageously determined to bear the burdens of his sins in so far as guilt was his.” PeopleWaySinJudgingBearsConsciousGuiltBurdenDeterminedSovereignClevelandGroverAccusersRectitudeSophistry Author:Grover Cleveland
“Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.” MenBelieveActionCausesConsciousDeterminedUnconscious Book:Ethics Source: Ethics
“Conscious experience as such is an exclusively internal affair: Once all functional properties of your brain are fixed, the character of subjective experience is determined as well.” WellsCharacterBrainConsciousPropertyAffairDeterminedFixedInternalsSubjectiveInternal Affairs Author:Thomas Metzinger
“As far as inner action is concerned, we are only rarely truly self-determined persons, for the major part of our conscious mental activity rather is an automatic, unintentional form of behavior on the subpersonal level.” PersonsSelfActionFormLevelsActivityBehaviorMajorsConsciousConcernedDetermined Author:Thomas Metzinger
“There's a lot of sub-conscious stuff you may write but you don't then suddenly sit down and take out your analytical books and say: I'm determined to find out where this came from. You'd probably be wrong anyway.” WritingMayBookStuffConsciousDown AndDetermined Author:Van Morrison
“Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavoring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavor and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.” ThinkingMenShouldBelieveHumansHas BeensFactsMovingDesireWishCausesKnowingCapableConsciousStonesDeterminedIgnorantEndeavorContinuingIndifferentBoastHuman Freedom Author:Baruch Spinoza