William James Quotes - Page 25

Quotes about:

Acceptance Achievement Adversity Affection Age Alcohol Animals

In the last analysis, then, we believe that we all know and think about and talk about the same world because we believe our PERCEPTS are possessed by us in common

William James

Truth, Believe, Thinking

William James (2013). “The Meaning of Truth”, p.26, Courier Corporation

4 Copy quote
Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.

William James

Quality, Pay, Supreme

William James (1987). “Essays, Comments, and Reviews”, p.105, Harvard University Press

7 Copy quote
In this real world of sweat and dirt, it seems to me that when a view of things is 'noble,' that ought to count as presumption against its truth, and as a philosophic disqualification. The prince of darkness may be a gentleman, as we are told he is, but whatever the God of earth and heaven is, he can surely be no gentleman.

William James

Real, Views, Sweat

William James (2015). “Pragmatism: Human Understanding”, p.26, 谷月社

4 Copy quote
For I had often said that the best argument I knew for an immortal life was the existence of a man who deserved one as well as Child did.

William James

Men, Immortal Life, Life Is

"Essays in Psychical Research".

10 Copy quote
I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the most interesting and important thing about you is the way in which it determines the perspective in your several worlds.

William James

Philosophy, Interesting, Perspective

William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.487, Library of America

4 Copy quote
Conversion is in its essence a normal adolescent phenomenon, incidental to the passage from the child's small universe to the wider intellectual and spiritual life of maturity.

William James

Spiritual, Children, Maturity

Dr. William James (2013). “The William James Reader”, p.482, Simon and Schuster

4 Copy quote
The mind of your own enemy, the pupil, is working away from you, as keenly and eagerly as is the mind of the commander on the other side from the scientific general. Just what the respective enemies want and think, and what they know or do not know, are as hard things for the teachers as for the general to find out.

William James

Teacher, Thinking, Mind

William James (2013). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.4, Courier Corporation

4 Copy quote
For morality life is a war, and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which also calls for volunteers.

William James

War, Volunteer, Political

William James (2013). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.45, Courier Corporation

7 Copy quote
The war-function has grasped us so far; but the constructive interests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly lighter burden.

William James

War, May, Individual

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

4 Copy quote
It would probably astound each of them beyond measure to be let into his neighbor's mind and to find how different the scenery there was from that in his own.

William James

Mind, Different, Neighbor

"Psychology: The Briefer Course".

4 Copy quote
The question of free will is insoluble on strictly psychological grounds.

William James

Free Will, Psychological

William James (1984). “Psychology, Briefer Course”, p.391, Harvard University Press

7 Copy quote
I am well aware how odd it must seem to some of you to hear me say that an idea is true so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives

William James

Truth, Believe, Ideas

William James (2012). “Pragmatism”, p.30, Courier Corporation

4 Copy quote
Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us; our hour of triumph is what brings the void. Not the Jews of the captivity, but those of the days of Solomon 's glory are those from whom the pessimistic utterances in our Bible come.

William James

Struggle, Inspire, Triumph

William James (1956). “The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality”, p.47, Courier Corporation

4 Copy quote
The worst thing that can happen to a good teacher is to get a bad conscience about her profession because she feels herself hopeless as a psychologist.

William James

Teacher, Art, Teaching

William James (1983). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.18, Harvard University Press

4 Copy quote
You make a great, very great mistake, if you think that psychology, being the science of the mind's laws, is something from which you can deduce definite programmes and schemes and methods of instruction for immediate schoolroom use.

William James

Art, Mistake, Teaching

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

4 Copy quote
How can the moribund old man reason back to himself the romance, the mystery, the imminence of great things with which our old earth tingled for him in the days when he was young and well?

William James

Time, Men, Romance

William James (2015). “The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature”, p.60, Xist Publishing

4 Copy quote
Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions.

William James

Philosophy, Philosophical, Men

William James (2015). “Essays in Popular Philosophy: Top Essays”, p.61, 谷月社

4 Copy quote
There is but one unconditional commandment ... to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.

William James

Helping Others, Volunteer, Unconditional

William James (1956). “The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality”, p.209, Courier Corporation

4 Copy quote
Most men's friendships are too inarticulate.

William James

Men, Inarticulate

7 Copy quote
I wished by treating Psychology like a natural science, to help her become one.

William James

Science, Psychology, Helping

William James (1983). “Essays in Psychology”, p.270, Harvard University Press

4 Copy quote
[There are, in us] possibilities that take our breath away, and show a world wider than either physics or philistine ethics can imagine. Here is a world in which all is well, in spite of certain forms of death, death of hope, death of strength, death of responsibility, of fear and wrong, death of everything that paganism, naturalism and legalism pin their trust on.

William James

Responsibility, World, Paganism

William James, Frederick Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers, Ignas K. Skrupskelis (1982). “Essays in Religion and Morality”, p.128, Harvard University Press

5 Copy quote
The states of consciousness are all that psychology needs to do her work with. Metaphysics or theology may prove the Soul to exist; but for psychology the hypothesis of such a substantial principle of unity is superfluous.

William James

Soul, Psychology, Unity

William James (1984). “Psychology, Briefer Course”, p.181, Harvard University Press

4 Copy quote
To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from them any element that is directly experienced.

William James

Elements, Construction, Radical

William James (1976). “Essays in Radical Empiricism”, p.22, Harvard University Press

29 Copy quote
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

Past, People, Doubt

William James (1961). “Psychology: The Briefer Course”, p.73, Courier Corporation

4 Copy quote
Let sanguine healthy-mindedness do its best with its strange power of living in the moment and ignoring and forgetting, still the evil background is really there to be thought of, and the skull will grin in at the banquet.

William James

Skulls, Evil, Healthy

William James (1985). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.119, Harvard University Press

4 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Charles Sanders Peirce

G. Stanley Hall

William James

Follow

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

Popular Topics