William James Quotes - Page 19

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Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.

William James

People, Democracy, Genius

William James (2012). “Memories and Studies”, p.33, The Floating Press

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[Pragmatism's] only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity of experience's demands, nothing being omitted.

William James

Truth, Demand, Tests

William James (1981). “Pragmatism”, p.38, Hackett Publishing

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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

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As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.

William James

Sympathy, Lying, Justice

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

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... if we take the universe of 'fitting,' countless coats 'fit' backs, and countless boots 'fit' feet, on which they are not practically fitted; countless stones 'fit' gaps in walls into which no one seeks to fit them actually. In the same way countless opinions 'fit' realities, and countless truths are valid, tho no thinker ever thinks them.

William James

Wall, Truth, Reality

William James (2015). “The Meaning of Truth: Human Understanding”, p.77, 谷月社

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The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist, and that those other worlds must contain experiences which have a meaning for our life also; and that although in the main their experiences and those of this world keep discrete, yet the two become continuous at certain points, and higher energies filter in.

William James

Other Worlds, Two, Filters

William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.463, Library of America

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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).

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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

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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

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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

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There can be no difference anywhere that does not make a difference somewhere.

William James

Differences, Making A Difference, Doe

William James (2000). “Pragmatism and Other Writings”, p.66, Penguin

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O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy . . . In finishing it I found . . . such a flavor of persistent euphony, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim.

William James

Philosophy, Real, Book

William James (1961). “Selected Letters”

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There is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a genuine portion of reality; and they may after all be the best key to life's significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth.

William James

Philosophical, Eye, Reality

Dr. William James (2013). “The William James Reader”, p.429, Simon and Schuster

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The first thing that intellect does with an object is to class it with something else.

William James

Class, Doe, Firsts

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What do believers in the Absolute mean by saving that their belief affords them comfort? They mean that since in the Absolute finite evil is ‘overruled’ already, we may, therefore, whenever we wish, treat the temporal as if it were potentially the eternal, be sure that we can trust its outcome, and, without sin, dismiss our fear and drop the worry of our finite responsibility. In short, they mean that we have a right ever and anon to take a moral holiday, to let the world wag in its own way, feeling that its issues are in better hands than ours and are none of our business.

William James

Holiday, Mean, Responsibility

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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

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The most ancient parts of truth . . . also once were plastic. They also were called true for human reasons. They also mediated between still earlier truths and what in those days were novel observations. Purely objective truth, truth in whose establishment the function of giving human satisfaction in marrying previous parts of experience with newer parts played no role whatsoever, is nowhere to be found. The reasons why we call things true is the reason why they are true, for to be true means only to perform this marriage-function.

William James

Truth, Mean, Giving

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

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