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William James Quotes - Page 18

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If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these

If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed.

Moving, Risk, Trying

William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.325, Library of America

When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.

Children, Men, Thinking

William James (1985). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.293, Harvard University Press

The work that leads to a doctor's degree is a constant temptation to sacrifice one's growth as a man to one's growth as a specialist.

Sacrifice, Men, Doctors

The God of many men is little more than their court of appeal against the damnatory judgment passed on their failures by the opinion of the world.

Art, Philosophy, Men

William James (2015). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.135, Booklassic

Selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built. And in this case of memory its utility is obvious. If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.

Memories, Ships, Should

William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.680, Courier Corporation

The soul is stronger than its surroundings.

Soul, Stronger, Surroundings

"How About a Little Hope?" by Litsa Dremousis, www.esquire.com. July 30, 2007.

It is art that makes life, and I know of no substitute whatsoever for the force and beauty of its process.

Art, Force, Process

Consciousness... does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as 'chain' or 'train' do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A 'river' or a 'stream' are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life. Source of the expression 'stream of consciousness'.

Science, Expression, Talking

The Principles of Psychology vol. 1, ch. 9 (1890).

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.

Brave, Use, Anticipation

William James (2008). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.100, Cosimo, Inc.

Woe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his experience; they will lead him nowhere or else make false connections

Truth, Reality, Order

William James (2016). “William James: Essays and Lectures”, p.86, Routledge

How many of us persist in a precipitate course which, but for a moment of heedlessness we might never have entered upon, simply because we hate to change our minds.

Hate, Mind, Might

William James (1918). “The Principles of Psychology, Vol. 2”, p.530, Courier Corporation

My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing, and I can only do one thing at a time.

Thinking, Sake, Lasts

William James (1961). “Psychology: The Briefer Course”, p.222, Courier Corporation

I am, myself, a very poor visualizer and find that I can seldom call to mind even a single letter of the alphabet in purely retinal terms. I must trace the letter by running my mental eye over its contour in order that the image of it shall leave any distinctness at all.

Running, Eye, Order

William James (1950). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.61, Courier Corporation

The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.

Fear, Civilization, Class

William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.334, Library of America

Man's chief difference from the brutes lies in the exuberant excess of his subjective propensities his preeminence over them simply and solely in the number and in the fantastic and unnecessary character of his wants, physical, moral, aesthetic, and intellectual. Had his whole life not been a quest for the superfluous, he would never have established himself as inexpugnably as he has done in the necessary.

Lying, Character, Men

William James (2015). “Essays in Popular Philosophy: Top Essays”, p.83, 谷月社

Equality is attainable as long as you are part of the majority.

Long, Majority, Catchy

The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.

Faith, Example, May

William James (1956). “The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality”, p.176, Courier Corporation

It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints.

Christian, Emotional, Differences

William James (2015). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.45, Booklassic

Each of us is in fact what he is almost exclusively by virtue of his imitative-ness.

Role Models, Facts, Virtue

William James (1983). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.38, Harvard University Press

The highest flights of charity, devotion, trust, patience, bravery to which the wings of human nature have spread themselves, have been flown for religious ideals.

Religious, Wings, Bravery

William James (2015). “The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature”, p.93, Xist Publishing

The greatest discovery of the 19th century was not in the realm of the physical sciences, but the power of the subconscious mind touched by faith. Any individual can tap into an eternal reservoir of power that will enable them to overcome any problem that may arise. All weaknesses can be overcome, bodily healing, financial independence, spiritual awakening, and prosperity beyond your wildest dreams. This is the superstructure of happiness.

Happiness, Dream, Spiritual

Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism. In heroism, we feel, life's supreme mystery is hidden. We tolerate no one who has no capacity whatever for it in any direction. On the other hand, no matter what a man's frailties otherwise may be, if he be willing to risk death, and still more if he suffer it heroically, in the service he has chosen, the fact consecrates him forever.

Reality, Men, Hands

William James (1985). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.290, Harvard University Press

It is only in the lonely emergencies of life that our creed is tested: then routine maxims fail, and we fall back on our gods.

Lonely, Fall, Routine

William James (1956). “The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality”, p.105, Courier Corporation

To suggest personal will and effort to one all sicklied o'er with the sense of irremediable impotence is to suggest the most impossible of things. What he craves is to be consoled in his very powerlessness, to feel that the spirit of the universe recognizes and secures him, all decaying and failing as he is.

Effort, Spirit, Impossible

Dr. William James (2013). “The William James Reader”, p.336, Simon and Schuster

The total mental efficiency of a man is the resultant of the working together of all his faculties. He is too complex a being for any one of them to have the casting vote. If any one of them do have the casting vote, it is more likely to be the strength of his desire and passion, the strength of the interest he takes in what is proposed. Concentration, memory, reasoning power, inventiveness, excellence of the senses, all are subsidiary to this.

Memories, Passion, Men

William James (2008). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.92, Nuvision Pubns

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