“The will is not free to strive toward whatever is declared good.”

— Martin Luther

Thesis 10
Disputation against Scholastic Theology (1517)

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Martin Luther 214

seminal figure in Protestant Reformation 1483–1546

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“The good is the everlasting, the pinnacle of our life. … life is striving towards the good, toward God. The good is the most basic idea … an idea not definable by reason … yet is the postulate from which all else follows.”

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What is Art? (1897)
Context: The good is the everlasting, the pinnacle of our life. … life is striving towards the good, toward God. The good is the most basic idea … an idea not definable by reason … yet is the postulate from which all else follows. But the beautiful … is just that which is pleasing. The idea of beauty is not an alignment to the good, but is its opposite, because for most part, the good aids in our victory over our predilections, while beauty is the motive of our predilections. The more we succumb to beauty, the further we are displaced from the good.... the usual response is that there exists a moral and spiritual beauty … we mean simply the good. Spiritual beauty or the good, generally not only does not coincide with the typical meaning of beauty, it is its opposite.

“We must strive to become good ancestors.”

Ralph Nader (1934) American consumer rights activist and corporate critic

The Good Fight (2004)

“Whatever good deeds have been done by me, those the people accept and those they follow. Therefore they have progressed and will continue to progress by being respectful to mother and father, respectful to elders, by courtesy to the aged and proper behavior towards Brahmans and ascetics, towards the poor and distressed, and even towards servants and employees.”

Ashoka (-304–-232 BC) Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty

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“Women ought to be free - as free as we are,' he declared, making a discovery of which he was too irritated to measure the terrific consequences.”

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Source: The Age of Innocence

“I will begin with this confession: whatever I have done in the course of my life, whether it be good or evil, has been done freely; I am a free agent.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

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“How few of us have made our individual declaration of independence, and until we do that, we are not free.”

Edwin Manners (1855–1913) American lawyer

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“Let the guarantee of free speech be in every man's determination to use it, and we shall have no need of paper declarations.”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

Anarchism & American Traditions (1908)
Context: What has Anarchism to say to all this, this bankruptcy of republicanism, this modern empire that has grown up on the ruins of our early freedom? We say this, that the sin our fathers sinned was that they did not trust liberty wholly. They thought it possible to compromise between liberty and government, believing the latter to be "a necessary evil," and the moment the compromise was made, the whole misbegotten monster of our present tyranny began to grow. Instruments which are set up to safeguard rights become the very whip with which the free are struck.
Anarchism says, Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free; so soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you will have a hundred lawyers proving that "freedom does not mean abuse, nor liberty license"; and they will define and define freedom out of existence. Let the guarantee of free speech be in every man's determination to use it, and we shall have no need of paper declarations. On the other hand, so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

“Whatever you are, be a good one.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

“Where'er ye sojourn, and whatever names
Ye are or shall be called; fairies, or sylphs,
Nymphs of the wood or mountain, flood or field:
Live ye in peace, and long may ye be free
To follow your good minds.”

Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849) British poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher

Prometheus
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“This we do know: a world that begins to witness the rebirth of trust among nations can find its way to a peace that is neither partial nor punitive. With all who will work in good faith toward such a peace, we are ready, with renewed resolve, to strive to redeem the near-lost hopes of our day.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1950s, The Chance for Peace (1953)

“The will is not free to strive toward whatever is declared good.”

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Martin Luther 214

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