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William James Quotes - Page 21

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

Lay plans as if we were to be immortal.

Lay plans as if we were to be immortal.

Immortality, Plans, Ifs

The Varieties of Religious Experience Lecture 3 (1902)

The self-same atoms which, chaotically dispersed, made the nebula, now, jammed and temporarily caught in peculiar positions, form our brains; and the 'evolution' of brains, if understood, would be simply the account of how the atoms came to be so caught and jammed.

Science, Self, Brain

William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.146, Courier Corporation

We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our functions.

Thinking, Function, Intellect

Dr. William James (2013). “The William James Reader”, p.669, Simon and Schuster

Only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.

Freedom, Age, Understood

William James (1970). “Essays in Pragmatism”, Simon and Schuster

Every time a resolve or a fine glow of feeling evaporates without bearing practical fruit is worse than a chance lost; it works so as positively to hinder future resolutions and emotions from taking the normal path of discharge.

Inspirational, Feelings, Path

"The Principles of Psychology".

From all these facts there emerges a very simple abstract program for the teacher to follow in keeping the attention of the child: Begin with the line of his native interests, and offer him objects that have some immediate connection with these.

Teacher, Children, Philosophy

William James (1907). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”

In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannot start.

Philosophical, Surfing, Mind

"Psychology: The Briefer Course".

If there is aught of good in the style, it is the result of ceaseless toil in rewriting. Everything comes out wrong with me at first; but when once objectified in a crude shape, I can torture and poke and scrape and pat it till it offends me no more.

Style, Toil, Firsts

"The Letters of William James".

If this life is not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight.

Life, Success, Real

William James (1956). “The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality”, p.61, Courier Corporation

Science, like life, feeds on its own decay. New facts burst old rules; then newly divined conceptions bind old and new together into a reconciling law.

Science, Law, Together

William James (1986). “Essays in Psychical Research”, p.101, Harvard University Press

An enormous mass of experience, both of homeopathic doctors and their patients, is invoked in favor of the efficacy of these remedies and doses.

Doctors, Favors, Patient

William James (1987). “Essays, Comments, and Reviews”, p.57, Harvard University Press

We must frankly confess, then, using our empirical common sense and ordinary practical prejudices, that in the world that actually is, the virtues of sympathy, charity, and non-resistance may be, and often have been, manifested in excess. ... You will agree to this in general, for in spite of the Gospel, in spite of Quakerism, in spite of Tolstoi, you believe in fighting fire with fire, in shooting down usurpers, locking up thieves, and freezing out vagabonds and swindlers.

Believe, Fighting, Fire

William James (1985). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.284, Harvard University Press

The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the 'pure' experience. It is only virtually or potentially either object or subject as yet.

Fields, All Time, Instant

William James (1976). “Essays in Radical Empiricism”, p.13, Harvard University Press

It does not follow, because our ancestors made so many errors of fact and mixed them with their religion, that we should therefore leave off being religious at all. By being religious we establish ourselves in possession of ultimate reality at the only points at which reality is given us to guard. Our responsible concern is with our private destiny, after all.

Religious, Reality, Destiny

William James (1985). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.394, Harvard University Press

It seems the natural thing for us to listen whilst the Europeans talk.

Political, Politics, Natural

William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.11, Library of America

Better risk loss of truth than chance of error--that is your faith-vetoer's exact position. He is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is; he is backing the field against the religious hypothesis, just as the believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field.

Faith, Religious, Loss

William James, John Dewey, John M. Capps, Donald Capps (2005). “James and Dewey on Belief and Experience”, p.107, University of Illinois Press

Faith is synonymous with working hypothesis.

Faith, Hypothesis

William James (1956). “The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality”, p.95, Courier Corporation

There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or snicker; if sad, it must not scream or curse.

Religious, Attitude, Snickers

William James (2015). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.42, Booklassic

In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly.

Heart, Mystery, Corners

William James (2015). “Essays in Popular Philosophy: Top Essays”, p.23, 谷月社

The only function that one experience can perform is to lead into another experience; and the only fulfillment we can speak of isthe reaching of a certain experienced end. When one experience leads to (or can lead to) the same end as another, they agree in function.

Speak, Reaching, Ends

William James (2003). “Essays in Radical Empiricism”, p.33, Courier Corporation

Volition . . . takes place only when there are a number of conflicting systems of ideas, and depends on our having a complex field of consciousness.

Philosophy, Educational, Ideas

William James (1983). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.104, Harvard University Press

To know one thing thoroughly would be to know the universe.

Would Be, One Thing, Knows

William James (2012). “Psychology: The Briefer Course”, p.221, Courier Corporation

Mental fire is what won't burn real sticks; mental water is what won't necessarily (though of course it may) put out even a mentalfire.

Real, Fire, Water

William James (1912). “Essays in Radical Empiricism”

Ideas are so much flat psychological surface unless some mirrored matter gives them cognitive lustre. This is why as a pragmatistI have so carefully posited 'reality' ab initio, and why throughout my whole discussion, I remain an epistemologist realist.

Reality, Ideas, Giving

William James (2015). “The Meaning of Truth: Human Understanding”, p.74, 谷月社

In all this process of acquiring conceptions, a certain instinctive order is followed. There is a native tendency to assimilate certain kinds of conception at one age, and other kinds of conception at a later age.

Philosophy, Educational, Order

William James (1983). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.89, Harvard University Press

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