Quotes about Choice

there is no way that the Will can determine an act of the Will, than by willing that act of the Will, or, which is the same thing, choosing it.

Because if the Will be already inclined, before it exerts its own sovereign power on itself, then its inclination is not wholly owing to itself:

What influences, directs, or determines, the mind or will, to such a conclusion or choice as it does form?

choice.—The question is, What influences, directs, or determines the mind or Will to come to such a conclusion or choice as it does?

the Will (without any metaphysical refining) is, That by which the mind chooses any thing. The faculty of the Will, is that power, or principle of mind, by which it is capable of choosing: an act of the Will is the same as an act of choosing or choice.

Present choice cannot at present choose to be otherwise: for that would be at present to choose something diverse from what is at present chosen.

Does the mind will, in any given manner, without a motive, cause or ground, which renders the given choice, rather than a different choice, certain.

Our cleaving to them, and having their God for our God and their people for our people, depends on our resolution and choice; and that in two respects. 1. The firmness of resolution in using means in order to it, is the way to have means effectual. There are means appointed in order to our becoming some of the true Israel and having their God for our God; and the thorough use of these means is the way to have success; but not a slack or slighty use of them.

A choosing of their God and their people, with a full determination and with the whole soul, is the condition of an union with them. God gives every man his choice in this matter: as Orpah and Ruth had their choice, whether they would go with Naomi into the land of Israel, or stay in the land of Moab.

If man is nothing but a material mechanism and part of the world mechanism, then his choices of good and evil are mechanically determined, and he cannot be said to be an autonomous and responsible ethical being. Thus if materialism is to save moral responsibility and at the same time save determinism, it must represent man as partially determined (in his organic functions) and partially free (in his ethical capacity).

It must be made quite clear—terrifying though it is—that we are immediately faced with the decision: National Socialist or Christian...

He was a choice spirit, and were he living today would agree with us. I have no use for cranks who despise music, because it is a gift of God.