The cause-effect sequences in our brains are just as determining, just as inescapable, as anywhere else in Nature.

The act of willing this or that, of choosing among various courses of conduct, is central in the realm of ethics.

Overemphasis on the sex aspect of morality has led to a neglect of its other aspects and a narrowing of its range.

I believe firmly that in making ethical decisions, man has the prerogative of true freedom of choice.

I think . . . that philosophy has the duty of pointing out the falsity of outworn religious ideas, however estimable they may be as a form of art. We cannot act as if all religion were poetry while the greater part of it still functions in its ancient guise of illicit science and backward morals. . . .

We do not ask to be born; and we do not ask to die. But born we are and die we must. We come into existence and we pass out of existence. And in neither case does high-handed fate await our ratification of its decree.

True freedom is the capacity for acting according to one's true character, to be altogether one's self, to be self-determined and not subject to outside coercion.