William James Quotes - Page 20

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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

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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

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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

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Hardly ever can a youth transferred to the society of his betters unlearn the nasality and other vices of speech bred in him by the associations of his growing years. Hardly ever, indeed, no matter how much money there be in his pocket, can he ever learn to dress like a gentleman-born. The merchants offer their wares as eagerly to him as to the veriest swell, but he simply cannot buy the right things.

William James

War, Years, Gentleman

William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.122, Courier Corporation

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Science can tell us what exists; but to compare the worths, both of what exists and of what does not exist, we must consult not science, but what Pascal calls our heart.

William James

Heart, Science, Doe

William James (2015). “Essays in Popular Philosophy: Top Essays”, p.18, 谷月社

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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

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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

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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

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The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.

William James

Faith, Example, May

William James (1956). “The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality”, p.176, Courier Corporation

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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

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Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism. In heroism, we feel, life's supreme mystery is hidden. We tolerate no one who has no capacity whatever for it in any direction. On the other hand, no matter what a man's frailties otherwise may be, if he be willing to risk death, and still more if he suffer it heroically, in the service he has chosen, the fact consecrates him forever.

William James

Reality, Men, Hands

William James (1985). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.290, Harvard University Press

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Nature in her unfathomable designs had mixed us of clay and flame, of brain and mind, that the two things hang indubitably together and determine each other's being but how or why, no mortal may ever know.

William James

Nature, Science, Flames

William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.182, Courier Corporation

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There is no being capable of a spiritual life who does not have within him a jungle. Where the wolf constantly HOWLS and the OBSCENE bird of night chatters endlessly.

William James

Life, Spiritual, Night

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When two minds of a high order, interested in kindred subjects, come together, their conversation is chiefly remarkable for the summariness of its allusions and the rapidity of its transitions. Before one of them is half through a sentence the other knows his meaning and replies. ... His mental lungs breathe more deeply, in an atmosphere more broad and vast.

William James

Science, Order, Two

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

William James

Giving Up, Blessed, Deception

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New habits can be launched.

William James

Habit, New Habits

William James (2008). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.65, Nuvision Pubns

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The intellectual life of man consists almost wholly in his substitution of conceptual order for the perceptual order in which his experience originally comes.

William James

Men, Order, Intellectual

William James (1911). “Some Problems of Philosophy: A Beginning of an Introduction to Philosophy”, p.51, U of Nebraska Press

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The most peculiar social self which one is apt to have is in the mind of the person one is in love with.

William James

Self, Mind, Peculiar

William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.294, Courier Corporation

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What the whole community comes to believe in grasps the individual as in a vise.

William James

Believe, Community, Belief

William James (2016). “William James: Essays and Lectures”, p.311, Routledge

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The more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble because we are sorry, angry, or fearful as the case may be.

William James

Sorry, Apology, May

William James (2012). “Psychology: The Briefer Course”, p.243, Courier Corporation

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Pluralism lets things really exist in the each-form or distributively. Monism thinks that the all-form or collective-unit form is the only form that is rational.

William James

Thinking, Pluralism, Form

William James (1977). “A Pluralistic Universe”, p.146, Harvard University Press

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If any one phrase could gather its (religion's) universal message, that phrase would be, - All is not vanity in this Universe, whatever the appearances may suggest.

William James

Vanity, Religion, Would Be

William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.41, Library of America

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The university most worthy of rational admiration is that one in which your lonely thinker can feel himself lonely, most positively furthered, and most richly fed

William James

Lonely, Admiration, Feds

William James (2012). “Memories and Studies”, p.178, The Floating Press

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The 'I think' which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the 'I breathe' which actually does accompany them.

William James

Thinking, Doe, Able

William James (2016). “William James: Essays and Lectures”, p.134, Routledge

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An idea will infect another with its own emotional interest when they have become both associated together into any sort of a mental total.

William James

Educational, Philosophy, Emotional

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

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