Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Will
A willing heart adds feather to the heel,
And makes the clown a winged Mercury.
Joanna Baillie—De Montfort. Act III. Sc. 2.
He that will not when he may,
When he will he shall have nay.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Also in The Loyal Garland. Song 28. “The fool that will not when he may, / He shall not when he wold.” Blow the Winds, Heigho! Northumbrian ballad.
He that complies against his will,
Is of his own opinion still,
Which he may adhere to, yet disown,
For reasons to himself best known.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. III. Canto III. L. 547.
The commander of the forces of a large State may be carried off, but the will of even a common man cannot be taken from him.
Confucius—Analects. Bk. IX. Ch. XXV.
Barkis is willin’!
Dickens—David Copperfield. Ch. I.
“When a man says he’s willin’,” said Mr. Barkis, “it’s as much as to say, that man’s a-waitin’ for a answer.”
Dickens—David Copperfield. Ch. VIII.
There is nothing good or evil save in the will.
Epictetus.
Der Mensch kann was er soll; und wean er sagt er kann nicht, so will er nicht.
A man can do what he ought to do; and when he says he cannot, it is because he will not.
Fichte—Letter. (1791).
To deny the freedom of the will is to make morality impossible.
Froude—Short Studies on Great Subjects. Calvinism.
Aber wer fest auf dem Sinne beharrt, der bildet die Welt sich.
He who is firm in will molds the world to himself.
Goethe—Hermann und Dorothea. IX. 303.
The only way of setting the will free is to deliver it from wilfulness.
J. C. and A. W. Hare—Guesses at Truth.
The readinesse of doing doth expresse
No other but the doer’s willingnesse.
Herrick—Hesperides. Readinesse.
All theory is against the freedom of the will, all experience for it.
Samuel Johnson—Boswell’s Life. (1778).
The star of the unconquered will,
He rises in my breast,
Serene, and resolute, and still,
And calm, and self-possessed.
Longfellow—The Light of Stars. St. 7.
A boy’s will is the wind’s will.
Longfellow—My Lost Youth.
Will without power is like children playing at soldiers.
Quoted by Macaulay from The Rovers. Act IV. Found in Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin.
Tu si animum vicisti potius quam animus te est quod gaudias.
If you have overcome your inclination and not been overcome by it, you have reason to rejoice.
Plautus—Trinummus. II. 9.
And binding nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will.
Pope—The Universal Prayer. St. 3.
I have known many who could not when they would, for they had not done it when they could.
Rabelais—Pantagruel. Bk. III. Ch. XXVII.
We sought therefore to amend our will, and not to suffer it through despite to languish long time in error.
Seneca—Of Benefits. Bk. V. Ch. XXV. Ep. 67.
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots ’twixt the dangerous shores
Of will and judgment.
Troilus and Cressida. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 63.
That what he will he does, and does so much
That proof is call’d impossibility.
Troilus and Cressida. Act V. Sc. 5. L. 28.
Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.
Tennyson—In Memoriam. Introduction. St. 4.
All
Life needs for life is possible to will.
Tennyson—Love and Duty. L. 82.