William James Quotes
The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.
William James
It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.
William James
We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.
William James
There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise.
William James
Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.
William James
'Pure experience' is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories.
William James
What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise although the philosophers generally call it recognition!
William James
How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.
William James
To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.
William James
Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.
William James
One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling.
William James
The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.
William James
The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.
William James
There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.
William James
There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.
William James
An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
William James
Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.
William James
The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.
William James
If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.
William James
Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
William James
Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.
William James
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
William James
Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.
William James
The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.
William James
There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self.
William James
The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.
William James
Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
William James
If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.
William James
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
William James