Unless we exercise our power to choose wisely, our actions will be determined by conditions. Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.

The last of the human freedoms: to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you become the plaything to circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity...

You can choose to be free , but it's last decision you'll ever make

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.

but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

L'homme est libre au moment qu'il veut l'être.

Human freedom involves our capacity to pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight.

The essential freedom, the ultimate and final freedom that cannot be taken from a man, is to say No. This is the basic premise in Sartre's view of human freedom: freedom is in its very essence negative, though the negativity is also creative.

La certitude qu’en dernier ressort on est maître de sa vie représente la dernière liberté » (40). Evguénia Guinzbourg, contemplant à Kolyma le corps d’une amie suicidée, trouve aussi un réconfort à penser que cette liberté-là est toujours accessible : « Si je veux, je mettrai moi-même un terme à ma vie » (II, 123). Les gardiens des camps le savent bien : choisir le moment et le moyen de sa propre mort, c’est affirmer sa liberté ; or c’est précisément la négation de cette liberté, et donc de cette dignité, qui est le but du camp. C’est pourquoi, alors même qu’ils donnent la mort avec autant de facilité, ces gardiens empêchent par tous les moyens les suicides. Filip Müller s’est introduit volontairement dans la chambre à gaz pour y trouver la mort ; mais les gardiens le découvrent et l’en retirent brutalement : « Espèce de cul, satané scélérat, apprends que c’est nous, et non toi, qui décidons si tu dois vivre ou mourir ! » (155). Plus importante que la mort est l’aliénation de la volonté : c’est elle qui permet de jouir pleinement du pouvoir sur autrui. Bettelheim explique ainsi l’irritation des surveillants devant les suicides, qui, pourtant, leur épargnent une « sale besogne » : tout acte d’autodétermination doit être sévèrement puni.

Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him — mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.

Human freedom is realised in the adoption of humanity as an end in itself, for the one thing that no-one can be compelled to do by another is to adopt a particular end.

Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. (p. 100)