Every being without exception acts with strict necessity, but it exists and is what it is by virtue of its freedom.
 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (1819). copy citation

add
Author Arthur Schopenhauer
Source The World as Will and Representation
Topic freedom virtue
Date 1819
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40868/40868-h/40868-h.html

Context

“Thereby a riddle is solved which is as old as the world, simply because it has hitherto always been held upside down and the freedom persistently sought in the Operari, the necessity in the Esse. I, on the contrary, say: Every being without exception acts with strict necessity, but it exists and is what it is by virtue of its freedom. Thus with me freedom and necessity are to be met with neither more nor less than in any earlier system; although now one and now the other must be conspicuous according as one takes offence that will is attributed to processes” source