Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." - Meaning and context.">
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).
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Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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.

Source: Wikiquote: "Arthur Schopenhauer" (Attributed) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 26, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

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#Arthur Schopenhauer#kann#mensch#wollen#nicht#aber#der#tun
Arthur Schopenhauer

About Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher, most famous for his work The World as Will and Representation (1819).