William James Quotes - Page 15

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• All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.

  William James

  Philosophic, Ideals, Altars

  The Dilemma of Determinism" (1884)

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• Our acts of voluntary attending, as brief and fitful as they are, are nevertheless momentous and critical, determining us, as they do, to higher or lower destinies.

  William James

  Destiny, Higher, Critical

  William James (2013). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.92, Courier Corporation

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• True to her inveterate habit, rationalism reverts to 'principles,' and thinks that when an abstraction once is named, we own an oracular solution.

  William James

  Thinking, Principles, Habit

  William James (2013). “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (New Thought Edition - Secret Library)”, p.105, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Lay plans as if we were to be immortal.

  William James

  Immortality, Plans, Ifs

  The Varieties of Religious Experience Lecture 3 (1902)

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• Truth happens to an idea

  William James

  Truth, Ideas, Happens

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

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• As a rule reading fiction is as hard to me as trying to hit a target by hurling feathers at it. I need resistance to celebrate!

  William James

  Reading, Book, Trying

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• If, then, you wish to insure the interest of your pupils, there is only one way to do it; and that is to make certain that they have something in their minds to attend with, when you begin to talk. That something can consist in nothing but a previous lot of ideas already interesting in themselves, and of such a nature that the incoming novel objects which you present can dovetail into them and form with them some kind of a logically associated or systematic whole.

  William James

  Philosophy, Educational, Ideas

  William James (2008). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.80, Nuvision Pubns

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• If there is aught of good in the style, it is the result of ceaseless toil in rewriting. Everything comes out wrong with me at first; but when once objectified in a crude shape, I can torture and poke and scrape and pat it till it offends me no more.

  William James

  Style, Toil, Firsts

  "The Letters of William James".

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• 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

  Nice, Decision, Trying

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• 'Facts' are the bounds of human knowledge, set for it, not by it.

  William James

  Knowledge, Science, Facts

  William James (2012). “The Will to Believe and Human Immortality”, p.271, Courier Corporation

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• We must frankly confess, then, using our empirical common sense and ordinary practical prejudices, that in the world that actually is, the virtues of sympathy, charity, and non-resistance may be, and often have been, manifested in excess. ... You will agree to this in general, for in spite of the Gospel, in spite of Quakerism, in spite of Tolstoi, you believe in fighting fire with fire, in shooting down usurpers, locking up thieves, and freezing out vagabonds and swindlers.

  William James

  Believe, Fighting, Fire

  William James (1985). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.284, Harvard University Press

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• An impression which simply flows in at the pupil's eyes or ears and in no way modifies his active life, is an impression gone to waste. It is physiologically incomplete... Its motor consequences are what clinch it.

  William James

  Eye, Waste, Flow

  William James (2008). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.17, Cosimo, Inc.

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• We [may] answer the question: "Why is snow white?" by saying, "For the same reason that soap-suds or whipped eggs are white"-in other words, instead of giving the reason for a fact, we give another example of the same fact. This offering a similar instance, instead of a reason, has often been criticised as one of the forms of logical depravity in men. But manifestly it is not a perverse act of thought, but only an incomplete one. Furnishing parallel cases is the necessary first step towards abstracting the reason imbedded in them all.

  William James

  Science, Men, Offering

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• The word 'cause' is an altar to an unknown god.

  William James

  Causes, Altars

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• Take the happiest man, the one most envied by the world, and in nine cases out of ten his inmost consciousness is one of failure. Either his ideals in the line of his achievements are pitched far higher than the achievements themselves, or else he has secret ideals of which the world knows nothing, and in regard to which he inwardly knows himself to be found wanting.

  William James

  Failure, Men, Secret

  William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.129, Library of America

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• It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association

  William James

  Educational, Philosophy, Literature

  William James (2013). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.42, Courier Corporation

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• The good or bad is not in the circumstance, but only in the mind...that encounters it.

  William James

  Gratitude, Mind, Encounters

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• The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.

  William James

  Lonely, Civilization, Agony

  William James (2015). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.158, Booklassic

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• Our intelligence cannot wall itself up alive, like a pupa in a chrysalis. It must at any cost keep on speaking terms with the universe that engendered it.

  William James

  Wall, Cost, Alive

  William James (1977). “A Pluralistic Universe”, p.94, Harvard University Press

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• In teaching, you must simply work your pupil into such a state of interest in what you are going to teach him that every other object of attention is banished from his mind; then reveal it to him so impressively that he will remember the occasion to his dying day; and finally fill him with devouring curiosity to know what the next steps in connection with the subject are.

  William James

  Art, Teaching, Psychology

  William James (1912). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”

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• The study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself.

  William James

  Might, Sake, Study

  William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.144, Courier Corporation

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• There is a stream, a succession of states, or waves, or fields (or whatever you please to call them), of knowledge, of feeling, of desire, of deliberation, etc., that constantly pass and repass, and that constitute our inner life.

  William James

  Educational, Philosophy, Feelings

  William James (2008). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.20, Nuvision Pubns

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• The greatest empiricists among us are only empiricists on reflection: when left to their instincts, they dogmatize like infallible popes.

  William James

  Reflection, Pope, Instinct

  William James (2015). “Essays in Popular Philosophy: Top Essays”, p.12, 谷月社

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• Act in earnest and you will become earnest in all you do.

  William James

  Truth, Honesty, Integrity

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• Asceticism may be a mere expression of organic hardihood, disgusted with too much ease.

  William James

  Expression, Asceticism, Ease

  William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.272, Library of America

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