Quotes on Volition
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482. Sin; Volition
"...no evil is insupportable but that which is accompanied with consciousness of wrong."
Johnson: Rasselas [Princess Nekayah]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from Rasselas.
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607. Choice; Memory; Volition
"It is ... the faculty of remembrance which may be said to place us in the class of moral agents. If we were to act only in consequence of some immediate impulse, and receive no direction from internal motives of choice, we should be pushed forward by an invincible fatality, without power or reason for the most part to prefer one thing to another, because we could make no comparison but of objects which might both happen to be present."
Johnson: Rambler #41 (August 7, 1750)
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680. Choice; Volition
"A very small part of the year is spent by choice."
Johnson: Idler #14 (July 15, 1758)
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1,736. Choice; Volition
"Choice is more often determined by accident than by reason."
Johnson: Idler #55 (May 5, 1759)
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