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William James Quotes - Page 4

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

Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.

Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.

Inspirational, Life, Hate

The desire to gain wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption.

Desire, Gains, Wealth

William James (2013). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.368, Courier Corporation

A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.

Dance, Humor, Common Sense

Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being.

Circles, People, Sith

Letter toWincenty Lutoslawski, 6 May 1906

We and God have business with each other, and in opening ourselves to God's influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.

Destiny, Influence, Opening

Dr. William James (2013). “The William James Reader”, p.739, Simon and Schuster

The transition from tenseness, self-responsibility, and worry, to equanimity, receptivity, and peace, is the most wonderful of all those shiftings of inner equilibrium, those changes of personal centre of energy, which I have analyzed so often; and the chief wonder of it is that it so often comes about, not by doing, but by simply relaxing and throwing the burden down.

Responsibility, Self, Worry

"The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature". Book by William James, 1902.

Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it.

Inspirational, Attitude, Business

Man can change his life simply by changing his attitude.

Attitude, Men

We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition

Ambition, Order, Political

William James (2013). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.368, Courier Corporation

My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.

Believe, Firsts, Free Will

Diary, 30 Apr. 1870

We can act as if there were a God; feel as if we were free; consider Nature as if she were full of special designs; lay plans as if we were to be immortal; and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life.

Differences, Design, Special

The Varieties of Religious Experience Lecture 3 (1902)

If you want a confidence, act as if you already have it. Try the "as if" technique.

Motivational, Positive, Exercise

Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction

Ease, May, Born To Run

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.

Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.

Love, Relationship, Marriage

If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.

Leadership, Motivation, Philosophical

If any organism fails to fulfill its potentialities, it becomes sick.

Sick, Failing, Ifs

As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.

Use, Facts, Belief

"The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy". Book by William James, 1897.

No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.

Success, Uplifting, Taken

William James, Robert D Richardson (2010). “The Heart of William James”, p.112, Harvard University Press

The aim of science is always to reduce complexity to simplicity.

Simplicity, Aim, Complexity

1890 The Principles of Psychology, ch.9.

Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.

Inspirational, Motivational, Saving

The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.

Philosophical, Essence, Genius

If you give appreciation to people, you win their goodwill. But more important than that, practicing this philosophy has made a different person of me.

Appreciation, Attitude, Philosophy

The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as the sculptor works on his block of stone.

Block, Data, Mind

William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.288, Courier Corporation

We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can. . . . The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.

Life, Work, Hands

William James (2012). “Psychology: The Briefer Course”, p.12, Courier Corporation

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