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

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 | 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). | Man can control what he wills, but not how he wills. | Man can indeed do what he wants, but he cannot control what it is that he wants. -->

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