Authors:

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

William James Quotes - Page 10

All Quotes Acceptance Achievement Adversity Affection Age Alcohol Anxiety Apology Appreciation Art Attitude Authority Belief Business Challenges Change Character Children Choices College Common Sense Community Consciousness Courage Creativity Criticism Design Desire Destiny Doubt Earth Education Effort Encouragement Energy Ethics Evil Excellence Exercise Experience Failing Failure Faith Fate Fear Feelings Fighting Free Will Freedom Friendship Genius Giving Giving Up Glory God Happiness Hate Heart Heroism History Holiday Honesty Human Nature Imagination Impulse Individuality Inspiration Inspirational Knowledge Laughter Leadership Learning Letting Go Life Literature Logic Loss Love Lying Making A Difference Memories Military Motivation Motivational Opportunity Optimism Pain Passion Past Perception Perseverance Personality Perspective Philosophy Pleasure Politics Positive Positive Thinking Prayer Procrastination Psychology Purpose Quality Reading Reality Reflection Religion Responsibility Risk Running Science Self Esteem Self Love Society Soul Stress Struggle Study Success Suffering Teaching Today Truth Virtue Vision Wall War Weakness Wealth Wisdom Worry

The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.

The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.

Education, Philosophical, Carpe Diem

No living person is sunk so low as not to be imitated by somebody.

Failure, Lows, Persons

William James, Robert D Richardson (2010). “The Heart of William James”, p.139, Harvard University Press

Time itself comes in drops.

Philosophical

William James (1977). “A Pluralistic Universe”, p.104, Harvard University Press

How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young-or slender.

Giving Up, Age, Aging

William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.311, Courier Corporation

This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed.

Oneness, Differences, Achievement

William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.378, Library of America

We divert our attention from disease and death as much as we can; the slaughterhouses are huddled out of sight and never mentioned, so that the world we recognize officially in literature and in society is a poetic fiction far handsomer, cleaner and better than the world that really is.

Sight, Disease And Death, Attention

William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.88, Library of America

No decision is, in itself, a decision.

Decision

Everyone knows that on any given day there are energies slumbering in him which the incitement's of that day do not call forth. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. The human individual usually lives far within his limits.

Energy, Half, Limits

Events are influenced by our very great desires.

Desire, Events

Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting through becoming associated with an object in which an interest already exists. The two associated objects grow, as it were, together; the interesting portion sheds its quality over the whole; and thus things not interesting in their own right borrow an interest which becomes as real and as strong as that of any natively interesting thing.

Strong, Real, Educational

William James (2008). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.78, Nuvision Pubns

We with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground.

Islands, Sea, Roots

"Confidences of a 'Psychical Researcher'". The American Magazine, Vol. 68, 1909.

An experience, perceptual or conceptual, must conform to reality in order to be true

Truth, Reality, Order

William James (2013). “The Meaning of Truth”, p.52, Courier Corporation

Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation. There is in the living act of perception always something that glimmers and twinkles and will not be caught, and for which reflection comes too late.

Philosophy, Reflection, Perception

William James (2015). “The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature”, p.149, Xist Publishing

Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.

Mean, Thinking, Effort

1890 The Principles of Psychology, ch.6.

If an unusual necessity forces us onward, a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain point, when, gradually or suddenly, it passes away and we are fresher than before!

Perseverance, Passing Away, Unusual

William James, Robert D Richardson (2010). “The Heart of William James”, p.267, Harvard University Press

First... a new theory is attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it.

Science, Discovery, Important

Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking Lecture 6 (1907)

Don't preach too much to your pupils or abound in good talk in the abstract. Lie in wait rather for the practical opportunities, be prompt to seize those as they pass, and thus at one operation get your pupils both to think, to feel, and to do.

Lying, Opportunity, Thinking

William James (1983). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.50, Harvard University Press

A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith's usual result.

Usual, Inward, Paradise

William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.261, Library of America

Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer . . . It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

Believe, Belief, Pleasure

William James (1956). “The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality”, p.8, Courier Corporation

The exercise of prayer, in those who habitually exert it, must be regarded by us doctors as the most adequate and normal of all the pacifiers of the mind and calmers of the nerves.

Prayer, Exercise, Doctors

William James, Frederick Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers, Ignas K. Skrupskelis (1982). “Essays in Religion and Morality”, p.160, Harvard University Press

Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources.

Failure, Fire, Use

William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.1225, Library of America

We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all.

Dog, Book, Cat

William James (1977). “A Pluralistic Universe”, p.140, Harvard University Press

If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.

Feel Good, Alcohol, Feelings

Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) lecture 1, p. 16

a man does not cry because he is sad, he is sad because he cries

Men, Doe, Cry

The sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such conduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on that occasion can. So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end, and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of fear.

Fear, Brave, Cheerful

"Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals".

You May Also Like: