Obviously if any actions, even a lunatic's, can be causeless, determinism is done for. If the chain of causation can be broken for a madman, it can be broken for a man.
I have the face of an ageing choirboy and the build of an undernourished featherweight. If you can figure out my success on the screen you're a better man than I.
There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution. - Mr. Knightley
As men get on in life, they acquire a love for sincerity, and somewhat less solicitude to be lulled or amused. In the progress ofthe character, there is an increasing faith in the moral sentiment, and a decreasing faith in propositions.
Man has little needs and deeper needs. We have fallen into the mistake of living from our little needs till we have almost lost our deeper needs in a sort of madness.
Man loves the marvelous. It has an irresistible charm for him. He is always ready to leave that with which he is familiar to pursue vain inventions. He lends himself to his own deception.
'God himself cannot exist without wise men' - Luther said, and was right. But 'God can exist even less without unwise men' - that good old Luther did not say.
Man cannot live without a permanent trust in something indestructible in himself, though both the indestructible element and the trust may remain permanently hidden from him. One of the ways in which this hiddenness can express itself is through faith in a personal god.