William James Quotes

Most people, probably, are in doubt about certain matters ascribed to their past. They may have seen them, may have said them, done them, or they may only have dreamed or imagined they did so.

~ William James

It may be that no religious reconciliation with the absolute totality of things is possible. Some evils, indeed, are ministerial to higher forms of good; but it may be that there are forms of evil so extreme as to enter into no good system whatsoever…

~ William James

Four Characters in Consciousness—How does it go on? We notice immediately four important characters in the process, of which it shall be the duty of the present chapter to treat in a general way:1) Every 'state' tends to be part of a personal consciousness. 2) Within each personal consciousness states are always changing. 3) Each personal consciousness is sensibly continuous.4) It is interested in some parts of its object to the exclusion of others, and welcomes or rejects—chooses from among them, in a word—all the while.

~ William James

Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.

~ William James

Earnestness means willingness to live with energy, though energy bring pain. The pain may be pain to other people or pain to one's self — it makes little difference; for when the strenuous mood is on one, the aim is to break something, no matter whose or what. Nothing annihilates an inhibition as irresistibly as anger does it; for, as Moltke says of war, destruction pure and simple is its essence. This is what makes it so invaluable an ally of every other passion. The sweetest delights are trampled on with a ferocious pleasure the moment they offer themselves as checks to a cause by which our higher indignations are elicited. It costs then nothing to drop friendships, to renounce long-rooted privileges and possessions, to break with social ties. Rather do we take a stern joy in the astringency and desolation; and what is called weakness of character seems in most cases to consist of the inaptitude for these sacrificial moods, of which one's own inferior self and its pet softnesses must often be the targets and the victims.

~ William James

There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference.

~ William James

The question of being is the darkest in all philosophy.

~ William James

Moral scepticism can no more be refuted or proved by logic than intellectual scepticism can. When we stick to it that there is truth (be it of either kind), we do so with our whole nature, and resolve to stand or fall by the results. The sceptic with his whole nature adopts the doubting attitude; but which of us is the wiser, Omniscience only knows.

~ William James

All religions and spiritual traditions begin with the cry Help!

~ William James

I, therefore, for one, cannot see my way to accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking, or wilfully agree to keep my willing nature out of the game. I cannot do so for this plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule.

~ William James

To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.

~ William James

The greatest discovery of our generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. As you think, so shall you be.

~ William James

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.

~ William James

Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.

~ William James

Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation.

~ William James

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

~ William James

Fear of life in one form or another is the great thing to exorcise.

~ William James

Man lives by habits indeed but what he lives for is thrill and excitements. ... From time immemorial war has been ... the supremely thrilling excitement.

~ William James

We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

~ William James

Faith is one of the forces by which men live the total absence of it means collapse.

~ William James

With mere good intentions hell is proverbially paved.

~ William James

Action may not always bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

~ William James

The emotions are not always subject to reason ... but they are always subject to action. When thoughts do not neutralize an undesirable emotion action will.

~ William James

As Charles Lamb says there is nothing so nice as doing good by stealth and being found out by accident so I now say it is even nicer to make heroic decisions and to be prevented by 'circumstances beyond your control' from ever trying to execute them.

~ William James

Habit is the enormous flywheel of society its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding or regretting of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.

~ William James

Lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or on being.

~ William James

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

~ William James

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

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.

~ William James

Footnotes the little dogs yapping at the heels of the text.

~ William James

The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.

~ William James

Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results.

~ William James

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.

~ William James

It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.

~ William James

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

~ William James

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.

~ William James

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self.

~ William James

Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second.

~ William James

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.

~ William James

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.

~ William James