• 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 (see p. 114).
Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." in the context of "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.
• 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 (see p. 114)." to mean that wisdom is timeless.
About Arthur Schopenhauer