cannot choose but

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cannot choose but

Can only do; cannot do otherwise: We cannot choose but to observe the rules.

References in classic literature ?

And yet I have one text which I cannot choose but remember.

Then Robin Hood said no more but gave the money to Little John to put away in the treasury, for he had shrewdness enough to know that nought breeds ill will and heart bitterness like gifts forced upon one that cannot choose but take them.

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One man fastens an eye on him and the graves of the memory render up their dead; the secrets that make him wretched either to keep or to betray must be yielded;--another, and he cannot speak, and the bones of his body seem to lose their cartilages; the entrance of a friend adds grace, boldness, and eloquence to him; and there are persons he cannot choose but remember, who gave a transcendent expansion to his thought, and kindled another life in his bosom.

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