All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits. — William James Copy Share Image
Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue. — William James Copy Share Image
We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves. — William James Copy Share Image
Do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty. — William James Copy Share Image
It is very important that teachers should realize the importance of habit. — William James Copy Share Image
In the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves… — William James Copy Share Image
All of our life is but a mass of small habits - practical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual - that bear us irresistibly… — William James Copy Share Image
Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the… — William James Copy Share Image
Ninety-nine hundredths or, possibly, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is purely automatic and habitual, from our rising in the… — William James Copy Share Image
True to her inveterate habit, rationalism reverts to 'principles,' and thinks that when an abstraction once is named, we own an oracular… — William James Copy Share Image
To change one's life: a. Start immediately b. B. Do it flamboyantly c. No exceptions Never suffer an exception to occur till… — William James Copy Share Image
Man lives by habits indeed, but what he lives for is thrill and excitements. ... From time immemorial war has been ...… — William James Copy Share Image
Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have; and, second, on the habitual coupling… — William James Copy Share Image
So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He… — William James Copy Share Image
Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in… — William James Copy Share Image
Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon… — William James Copy Share Image
“Most people live in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their… — William James Copy Share Image
Habit is thus the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the… — William James Copy Share Image
We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can...in the acquisition of a new… — William James Copy Share Image
Don't preach too much to your pupils or abound in good talk in the abstract. Lie in wait rather for the practical… — William James Copy Share Image
From a pragmatic point of view, the difference between living against a background of foreigness (an indifferent Universe) and one of intimacy… — William James Copy Share Image
Tension is a habit. Relaxing is a habit. Bad habits can be broken, good habits formed. — William James Copy Share Image
Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make very small use… — William James Copy Share Image
Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting… — William James Copy Share Image
Plasticity, then, in the wide sense of the word, means the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influence,… — William James Copy Share Image
The teacher's prime concern should be to ingrain into the pupil that assortment of habits that shall be most useful to him… — William James Copy Share Image
Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the… — William James Copy Share Image
Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world. — William James Copy Share
We are all potentially such sick men. The sanest and best of us are of one clay with lunatics and prison-inmates. And whenever we… — William James Copy Share
In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who… — William James Copy Share
“Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease-spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible: we keep unaltered… — William James Copy Share
Woe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his experience; they will lead him nowhere or… — William James Copy Share
We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be. — William James Copy Share
Most people, probably, are in doubt about certain matters ascribed to their past. They may have seen them, may have said them, done them,… — William James Copy Share
“How soon, indeed, are human things forgotten! As we meet here this morning, the Southern sun is shining on their place of burial, and… — William James Copy Share
There can be no difference anywhere that does not make a difference somewhere. — William James Copy Share
It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. — William James Copy Share
The pragmatist turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended absolutes… — William James Copy Share
