Wills Quotes
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Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.
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More Wills Quotes
Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes, And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he Wills, Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills: He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass: Environment is but his looking-glass.
james allen— Variant: Mind is the Master Power that molds and makes, And we are mind. And ever more we take the tool of thought, and shaping what we will, bring forth a thousand joys, or a thousand ills. We think in secret, and it comes to pass, environment, is but our looking glass.
In the life of nations, what in the last resort decides questions is a kind of Judgment Court of God... Always before god and the world the stronger has the right to carry through what he Wills.
Adolf Hitler— speech in Munich, 13 April 1923
In [the Irving Kristol] era, rather than being the "stupid party," Republicans became the party of ideas. Neoconservatism's task was, he said, to "convert the Republican Party and American conservatism in general, against their respective Wills, into a new kind conservative politics suitable to governing a modern democracy."
— Jonathan Tobin, in "The power of ideas", in The Jerusalem Post (29 September 2009)
Nature that framed us of four elements, Warring within our breasts for regiment, Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds: Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend The wondrous architecture of the world, And measure every wandering planet's course, Still climbing after knowledge infinite, And always moving as the restless spheres, Wills us to wear ourselves, and never rest, Until we reach the ripest fruit of all, That perfect bliss and sole felicity, The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.
Christopher Marlowe— 1587 Tamburlaine the Great (published1590), pt.1, act 2, sc.7.
The One Unbounded, Undivided Good,By all His Creatures partly understood.If therefore Sense of its apparent PartsRaise not His Love or Worship in our Hearts,Our selfish Wills or Notions we may feast,And have no more Religion than a Beast.
john byrom— St. 5.
The kingdom of God which is within us consists in our willing whatever God Wills, always, in every thing, and without reservation; and thus His kingdom comes; for His will is then done as it is in heaven, since we will nothing but what is dictated by His sovereign pleasure.
françois fénelon— P. 269. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach Wills so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions.
jerome k. jerome— Ch. 10 (Three Men in a Boat (1889))
This death’s livery which walled its bearers from ordinary life was sign that they have sold their Wills and bodies to the State: and contracted themselves into a service not the less abject for that its beginning was voluntary.
thomas edward ("t. e.") lawrence— The Revolt in the Desert (1927) Ch. 35
There is no dealing with great sorrow as if it were under the control of our Wills. It is a terrible phenomenon, whose laws we must study, and to whose conditions we must submit, if we would mitigate it.
sheridan le fanu— Ch. 21 (Uncle Silas (1864))
The purest evil that human efforts could attain, in other words, was probably achieved by those men who made their Wills the same and who made their eyes see the world in the same way, men who went against the pattern of life's diversity, men whose spirits shattered the natural wall of the individual body, making nothing of this barrier, set up to guard against mutual corrosion, men whose spirit accomplished what flesh could never accomplish.
yukio mishima— Runaway Horses (1969), as translated by Michael Gallagher (1973)
Our Wills are ours, we know not how;Our Wills are ours, to make them thine.
— Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849), Introduction, Stanza 4.
Our Wills and fates do so contrary run That our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
william shakespeare— William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 2, line 221.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit." Blessed are they who are stripped of every thing, even of their own Wills, that they may no longer belong to themselves.
françois fénelon— p. 544. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God Wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.
— Journal entry, Gilleleie (1 August 1835) Journals 1A; this is considered to be one of the earliest statements of existentialist thought.Variant translation: My focus should be on what I do in life, not knowing everything, excluding knowledge on what you do. The is key to find a purpose, whatever it truly is that God wills me to do; it's crucial to find a truth which is true to me, to find the idea which I am willing to live and die for.Later variant: What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain knowledge must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. ... I certainly do not deny that I still recognize an imperative of knowledge and that through it one can work upon men, but it must be taken up into my life, and that is what I now recognize as the most important thing.Later expression of such thoughts in a letter to Peter Wilhelm Lund (31 August 1835)Variant translation: I must find a truth that is true for me.
There are two ways of extending life : firstly by moving the two points "born" and "died" farther away from one another... The other method is to go more slowly and leave the two points wherever God Wills they should be, and this method is for the philosophers.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg— B 22 (Notebook B (1768-1771))
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it; We are happy now because God Wills it.
james russell lowell— Prelude to Pt. I, st. 6.
Let's choose executors and talk of Wills: And yet not so, for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
william shakespeare— William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), Act III, scene 2, line 148.
Let's choose executors and talk of Wills: And yet not so, for what can we bequeath, Save our desposed bodies to the ground?
— Act III, scene 2, line 148.
The Wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death.
— The Tempest, Act I, scene 1, line 70.
Against their Wills what numbers ruin shun, Purely through want of wit to be undone! Nature has shown by making it so rare, That wit's a jewel which we need not wear.
Edward Young— Edward Young, Epistle to Mr. Pope, Epistle II, line 80.
So well to know Her own, that what she Wills to do or say Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.
john milton— John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book VIII, line 548.
I quite admit that on the question of the construction of Wills relating to real property the cases have always had greater attention given to them than in the case of personalty, because land in England passes by title, and it has always been the habit of the lawyers and Judges to look with greater strictness to the reported cases where it is a question of land than where it is a question of personalty.
— Chitty, J., In re Bright-Smith; Bright-Smith v. Bright-Smith (1886), L. R. 31 CD. 318.
Speaking for myself, I do not look upon Wills as Chinese puzzles; they no doubt do present great difficulties, but I do not feel myself the serious difficulty which other learned Judges have.
— Chitty, J., In re Roper's Estate (1889), L. J. Rep. (N. S.) 58 C. D. 442.
My distinction is, that in incorrect Wills the Court may take liberties, but that if the words are correct they have no power to make any alteration.
— Buller, J., Doe et dem. Dacre v. Dacre (1798), 2 Bos. & Pull. 260.
I do not intend to encumber myself with cases. Decisions upon other words something like those in question, in other Wills, where the whole context of those other Wills must be gone into, can afford very little assistance.
— Eyre, C.J., Doe et dem. Dacre v. Dacre (1798), 2 Bos. &. Pull., 258.
Only be steadfast, never waver, Nor seek earth's favor, But rest; Thou knowest what God Wills must be For all His creatures so for thee The best.
— Paul Fleming, p. 248. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes, And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he Wills, Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills: He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass: Environment is but his looking-glass.
james allen— James Allen, As A Man Thinketh (1902)
