William James Quotes - Page 24

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Individuality is founded in feeling; and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.

William James

Real, Character, Feelings

William James, John Dewey, John M. Capps, Donald Capps (2005). “James and Dewey on Belief and Experience”, p.124, University of Illinois Press

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The drunken consciousness is one bit of the mystic consciousness, and our total opinion of it must find its place in our opinion of that larger whole.

William James

Opinion, Consciousness, Mystic

William James (2013). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.387, Courier Corporation

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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

Regret, Men, Agents

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Millions of items in the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind --without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.

William James

Order, Mind, Experience

William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.402, Courier Corporation

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The bottom of being is left logically opaque to us, a datum in the strict sense of the word, something we simply come upon and find, and about which (if we wish to act) we should pause and wonder as little as possible. In this confession lies the lasting truth of empiricism.

William James

Lying, Data, Wish

William James, Frederick Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers, Ignas K. Skrupskelis (1978). “Essays in Philosophy”, p.59, Harvard University Press

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The simplest rudiment of mystical experience would seem to be that deepened sense of the significance of a maxim or formula which occasionally sweeps over one.

William James

Mystical Experiences, Natural, Significance

William James (2015). “The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature”, p.129, Xist Publishing

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I am tired of the position of the dried-up critic and doubter. The believer is the true full man. (from a biography of James by Robert D. Richardson)

William James

Tired, Men, Biographies

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...These healers...my intellect has been unable to assimilate their theories....But their facts are patent and startling; and anything that interferes with the multiplication of such facts, and with our freest opportunity of observing and studying them, will, I believe, be a public calamity.

William James

Believe, Dark, Opportunity

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In my individual heart I fully believe my faith is as robust as yours. The trouble with your robust and full bodied faiths, however, is, that they begin to cut each others throats too soon, and for getting on in the world and establishing a modus vivendi these pestilential refinements and reasonablenesses and moderations have to creep in.

William James

Believe, Heart, Cutting

Letter to John Jay Chapman, April 5, 1897.

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Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves.

William James

Art, Teaching, Psychology

William James (2008). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.14, Nuvision Pubns

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To be fertile in hypotheses is the first perquisite of creativity and to be willing to throw them away the moment experience contradicts them is the next.

William James

Creativity, Next, Firsts

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... no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp.

William James

Tolls, Bells, Truth Is

William James, John Dewey, John M. Capps, Donald Capps (2005). “James and Dewey on Belief and Experience”, p.109, University of Illinois Press

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True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that therefore is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known as.

William James

Ideas, Differences, Truth Is

William James (2013). “The Meaning of Truth”, p.6, Courier Corporation

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The first effect of the mind growing cultivated is that processes once multiple get to be performed in a single act. Lazarus has called this the progressive "condensation" of thought. ... Steps really sink from sight. An advanced thinker sees the relations of his topics is such masses and so instantaneously that when he comes to explain to younger minds it is often hard ... Bowditch, who translated and annotated Laplace's Méchanique Céleste, said that whenever his author prefaced a proposition by the words "it is evident," he knew that many hours of hard study lay before him.

William James

Science, Sight, Mind

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The same is true of Love, and the instinctive desire to please those whom we love. The teacher who succeeds in getting herself loved by the pupils will obtain results which one of a more forbidding temperament finds it impossible to secure.

William James

Teacher, Teaching, Self Love

William James (2013). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.24, Courier Corporation

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What a magnificent land and race is this Britain! Everything about them is of better quality than the corresponding thing in the U.S.... Yet I believe (or suspect) that ours is eventually the bigger destiny, if we can only succeed in living up to it.

William James

Believe, Destiny, Race

William James, Elizabeth Hardwick (1980). “The Selected Letters of William James”, David R Godine Pub

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We hear the words we have spoken, feel our own blow as we give it, or read in the bystander's eyes the success or failure of our conduct.

William James

Teaching, Eye, Bystanders

"Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals".

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The thinker philosophizes as the lover loves. Even were the consequences not only useless but harmful, he must obey his impulse.

William James

Useless, Lovers, Impulse

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Great indeed is Fear; but it is not, as our military enthusiasts believe and try to make us believe, the only stimulus known for awakening the higher ranges of men's spiritual energy.

William James

Spiritual, Military, Believe

William James, Frederick Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers, Ignas K. Skrupskelis (1982). “Essays in Religion and Morality”, p.173, Harvard University Press

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Intellectualism' is the belief that our mind comes upon a world complete in itself, and has the duty of ascertaining its contents; but has no power of re-determining its character, for that is already given.

William James

Character, Mind, World

William James, Frederick Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers, Ignas K. Skrupskelis (1979). “Some Problems of Philosophy”, p.111, Harvard University Press

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Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.

William James

Gone, Becoming, Instant

William James (1961). “Psychology: The Briefer Course”, p.147, Courier Corporation

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The unrest which keeps the never stopping clock of metaphysics going is the thought that the nonexistence of this world is just as possible as its existence.

William James

Stopping, Unrest, World

William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.1002, Library of America

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To know an object is to lead to it through a context which the world provides

William James

Truth, World, Objects

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The perfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence. The darkness held a presence that was all the more felt because it was not seen. I could not any more have doubted that HE was there than that I was. Indeed, I felt myself to be, if possible, the less real of the two.

William James

Real, Night, Two

William James (1985). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.61, Harvard University Press

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Theory must mediate between all previous truths and certain new experiences

William James

Truth, New Experiences, Theory

William James (2013). “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (New Thought Edition - Secret Library)”, p.101, Lulu Press, Inc

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

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