“Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.”

—  Arthur Schopenhauer

Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.
Einstein paraphrasing Schopenhauer. Reportedly from On The Freedom Of The Will (1839), as translated in The Philosophy of American History: The Historical Field Theory (1945) by Morris Zucker, p. 531
Variant translations:
Man can do what he wants but he cannot want what he wants.
As quoted in The Motivated Brain: A Neurophysiological Analysis of Human Behavior (1991) by Pavel Vasilʹevich Simonov, p. 198
We can do what we wish, but we can only wish what we must.
As quoted by Einstein in "What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck" The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929) p. 17. A scan of the article is available online here http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/what_life_means_to_einstein.pdf (see p. 114).
Attributed
Source: Essays and Aphorisms

Original

Der Mensch kann wohl tun was er will, aber er kann nicht wollen was er will.

Variant: Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.
Source: Essays and Aphorisms

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Arthur Schopenhauer 261
German philosopher 1788–1860

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