A man can do as he will, but not will as he will.

Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.

You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing.

Could the completed life course of such a man turn out in any respect, even the smallest, in any happening, any scene, differently from the way it did? – No! is the consistent and correct answer.

We should rather consider the events, as they happen, with the same eye as we consider the printed word which we read, knowing full well that it was there before we read it.

Spinoza says that if a stone which has been projected through the air, had consciousness, it would believe that it was moving of its own free will. I add this only, that the stone would be right. The impulse given it is for the stone what the motive is for me, and what in the case of the stone appears as cohesion, gravitation, rigidity, is in its inner nature the same as that which I recognise in myself as will, and what the stone also, if knowledge were given to it, would recognise as will.

A human being does at all times only what he wills, and yet does it necessarily. But that rests on the fact that he is what he wills: for out of what he is everything that he does at any time follows necessarily.

You can do what you will: but at each given moment of your life you can will only one determined thing and by no means anything other than this one.

Under presupposition of free will each human action would be an inexplicable miracle - an effect without cause. And if one dares the attempt to make such a liberum arbitrium indifferentiae imaginable to oneself, one will soon become aware that here the understanding quite genuinely comes to a standstill: it has no form for thinking of such a thing.