William James Quotes - Page 18

Quotes about:

Acceptance Achievement Adversity Affection Age Alcohol Animals

Much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way men take the phenomenon. It can so often be converted into a bracing and tonic good by a simple change of the sufferer's inner attitude from one of fear to one of fight; its string can so often depart and turn into a relish when, after vainly seeking to shun it, we agree to face about and bear it.

William James

Courage, Attitude, Fear

5 Copy quote
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.

William James

Moving, Risk, Trying

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

6 Copy quote
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.

William James

Children, Men, Thinking

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

53 Copy quote
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.

William James

Sacrifice, Men, Doctors

4 Copy quote
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.

William James

Art, Philosophy, Men

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

4 Copy quote
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.

William James

Memories, Ships, Should

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

5 Copy quote
The soul is stronger than its surroundings.

William James

Soul, Stronger, Surroundings

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

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

William James

Art, Force, Process

10 Copy quote
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'.

William James

Science, Expression, Talking

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

64 Copy quote
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.

William James

Brave, Use, Anticipation

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

4 Copy quote
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

William James

Truth, Reality, Order

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

4 Copy quote
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.

William James

Hate, Mind, Might

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

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

William James

Thinking, Sake, Lasts

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

4 Copy quote
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.

William James

Running, Eye, Order

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

12 Copy quote
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.

William James

Lying, Character, Men

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

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

William James

Long, Majority, Catchy

4 Copy quote
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.

William James

Effort, Spirit, Impossible

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

4 Copy quote
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.

William James

Christian, Emotional, Differences

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

17 Copy quote
Science must constantly be reminded that her purposes are not the only purposes and that the order of uniform causation which she has use for, and is therefore right in postulating, may be enveloped in a wider order, on which she has no claim at all.

William James

Technology, Order, Purpose

William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.576, Courier Corporation

4 Copy quote
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.

William James

Religious, Wings, Bravery

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

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

William James

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

7 Copy quote
The prescription is that the subject must be made to show new aspects of itself; to prompt new questions; in a word, to change. From an unchanging subject the attention inevitably wanders away.

William James

Attention, Unchanging, Made

William James (1983). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.68, Harvard University Press

4 Copy quote
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.

William James

Happiness, Dream, Spiritual

8 Copy quote
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.

William James

Lonely, Fall, Routine

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

4 Copy quote
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.

William James

Memories, Passion, Men

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

4 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Charles Sanders Peirce

G. Stanley Hall

William James

Follow

Born: January 11, 1842
Died: August 26, 1910
Occupation: Philosopher
Cite this Page: Citation

Popular Topics