We must affirm freedom and responsibility without denying that we are the product of circumstance, and must affirm that we are the product of circumstance without denying that we have the freedom to transcend that causality to become something which could not even have been provisioned from the circumstances which shaped us. Allen Wheelis
About This Quote

This quote is a great way of looking at the world and seeing that we don’t have to be slaves to circumstance. It’s okay to acknowledge that we are the product of circumstance, but we also have the ability to transcend it through our actions.

Source: How People Change

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More Quotes By Allen Wheelis
  1. A free man is not a slave who has escaped his master; such a man is but a runaway slave who may be caught and returned to servitude. A free man, though he may be overpowered, may be killed, cannot be reduced to servitude; something...
  2. We must affirm freedom and responsibility without denying that we are the product of circumstance, and must affirm that we are the product of circumstance without denying that we have the freedom to transcend that causality to become something which could not even have been...
  3. A man in chains need not be a slave. If he has pride and self-respect he is a free man though a prisoner, and a constant danger to his jailers. Conversely, a slave who escapes is not a free man, but a runaway slave who...
  4. The sequence is suffering, insight, will, action, change.
  5. People may indeed be treated as objects and may be profoundly affected thereby. Kick a dog often enough and he will become cowardly or vicious. People who are kicked undergo similar changes; their view of the world and of themselves is transformed. <span style="margin:15px; display:block"></span>People...
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