"Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will."

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Aphorists19th-century philosophersAcademics from GermanyGerman atheistsAntinatalists
Original Language: English

Sources

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 (see p. 114).