William James Quotes - Page 10

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• 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.

  William James

  Oneness, Differences, Achievement

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

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• In the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible.

  William James

  Strong, Leaving, Acquisition

  William James (2008). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.34, Cosimo, Inc.

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

  William James

  Education, Philosophical, Carpe Diem

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• Time itself comes in drops.

  William James

  Philosophical

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

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• Man's chief difference from the brutes lies in the exuberant excess of his subjective propensities. Prune his extravagance, sober him, and you undo him.

  William James

  Lying, Men, Differences

  William James, John Dewey, John M. Capps, Donald Capps (2005). “James and Dewey on Belief and Experience”, p.52, University of Illinois Press

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• Man, biologically considered ... is simply the most formidable of all beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own kind.

  William James

  Men, Kind, Beast

  William James, Frederick Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers, Ignas K. Skrupskelis (1982). “Essays in Religion and Morality”, p.121, Harvard University Press

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• 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.

  William James

  Energy, Half, Limits

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• The war against war is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party.

  William James

  War, Party, Holiday

  William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.1281, Library of America

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• 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.

  William James

  Islands, Sea, Roots

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

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• 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.

  William James

  Sight, Disease And Death, Attention

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

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

  William James

  Giving Up, Age, Aging

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

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• 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.

  William James

  Strong, Real, Educational

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

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• 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.

  William James

  Science, Discovery, Important

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

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

  William James

  Mean, Thinking, Effort

  1890 The Principles of Psychology, ch.6.

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• 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.

  William James

  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

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• No decision is, in itself, a decision.

  William James

  Decision

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• 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.

  William James

  Believe, Belief, Pleasure

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

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

  William James

  Usual, Inward, Paradise

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

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• 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.

  William James

  Dog, Book, Cat

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

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• 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.

  William James

  Prayer, Exercise, Doctors

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

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• 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.

  William James

  Failure, Fire, Use

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

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• Events are influenced by our very great desires.

  William James

  Desire, Events

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

  William James

  Feel Good, Alcohol, Feelings

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

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

  William James

  Truth, Reality, Order

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

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• The absolute things, the last things, the overlapping things, are the truly philosophic concerns; all superior minds feel seriously about them, and the mind with the shortest views is simply the mind of the more shallow man.

  William James

  Philosophical, Men, Views

  William James (2016). “William James: Essays and Lectures”, p.52, Routledge

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