Authors:
  1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. W
  4. William James
  5. Life

William James Quotes about Life - Page 2

All William James 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 quotes 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
We ought, all of us, to realize each other in this intense, pathetic, and important way. If you say that this is absurd, and that we cannot be in love with everyone at once, I merely point out to you that, as a matter

We ought, all of us, to realize each other in this intense, pathetic, and important way. If you say that this is absurd, and that we cannot be in love with everyone at once, I merely point out to you that, as a matter of fact, certain persons do exist with an enormous capacity for friendship and for taking delight in other people's lives; and that such persons know more of truth than if their hearts were not so big.

William James
Life, Heart, People
"Essays on Faith and Morals".

Fatalism, whose solving word in all crises of behavior is All striving is vain, will never reign supreme, for the impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race. Moral creeds which speak to that impulse will be widely successful in spite of inconsistency, vagueness, and shadowy determination of expectancy. Man needs a rule for his will, and will invent one if one be not given him.

William James
Life, Determination, Successful
William James (2015). “Essays in Popular Philosophy: Top Essays”, p.58, 谷月社

Romeo wants Juliet as the filings want the magnet; and if no obstacles intervene he moves towards her by as straight a line as they. But Romeo and Juliet, if a wall be built between them, do not remain idiotically pressing their faces against its opposite sides like the magnet and the filings with the card. Romeo soon finds a circuitous way, by scaling the wall or otherwise, of touching Juliet's lips directly. With the filings the path is fixed; whether it reaches the end depends on accidents. With the lover it is the end which is fixed, the path may be modified indefinitely.

William James
Life, Wall, Moving
William James (1950). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.7, Courier Corporation

What excites and interests the looker-on at life, what the romances and the statues celebrate, and the grim civic monuments remind us of, is the everlasting battle of the powers of light with those of darkness; with heroism reduced to its bare chance, yet ever and anon snatching victory from the jaws of death.

William James
Life, Death, Light
William James (1983). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.153, Harvard University Press

We are all potentially such sick men. The sanest and best of us are of one clay with lunatics and prison-inmates. And whenever we feel this, such a sense of the vanity of our voluntary career comes over us, that all our morality appears but as a plaster hiding a sore it can never cure, and all our well-doing as the hollowest substitute for that well-being that our lives ought to be grounded in, but alas! are not.

William James
Life, Men, Vanity
"Essays in Religion and Morality".

There is no being capable of a spiritual life who does not have within him a jungle. Where the wolf constantly HOWLS and the OBSCENE bird of night chatters endlessly.

William James
Life, Spiritual, Night

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

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.

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

Real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not by dislikes and disdains; under all misleading wrappings it pounces unerringly upon the human core.

William James
Life, Real, Culture
'McClure's Magazine' February 1908, p. 422

You May Also Like: