“In discourse more sweet(For Eloquence the Soul, Song charms the Sense)Others apart sat on a hill retired,In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned highOf Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate-Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.Of good and evil much they argued then,Of happiness and final misery,Passion and apathy, and glory and shame:Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy!-Yet, with a pleasing sorcery, could charmPain for a while or anguish, and exciteFallacious hope, or arm th' obdurate breastWith stubborn patience as with triple steel.”
“The struggle is always worthwhile, if the end be worthwhile and the means honorable; foreknowledge of defeat is not sufficient reason to withdraw from the contest.”
“He had never thought of himself as much of a praying man, but as he sat in the car in the growing darkness and the minutes passed, he knew what it was to pray. It was to will goodness out of evil, hope out of despair, life out of death. It was to will dreams into existence and spectres into reality. It was to will an end to anguish and a beginning to joy.”
“As part of "moral philosophy," the concept of "natural liberty" clicks easily into place. Man, as an ethical integer, is either free to choose between good and bad courses within thelimits of his circumstances, or he is not. If he is not free, if he canonly accept what is handed to him from above (by fate, or by decree of the human agents of fate), then there is not much use in talking about morality or ethics. To make any sense of the ideaof morality, it must be presumed that the human being is responsible for his actions-and responsibility cannot be understood apart from the presumption of freedom of choice.”
“This day's black fate on more days doth depend;This but begins the woe, others must end.”
“A truly scientific philosophy will be more humble, more piecemeal, more arduous, offering less glitter of outward mirage to flatter fallacious hopes, but more indifferent to fate, and more capable of accepting the world without the tyrannous imposition of our human and temporary demands.”