A great nation is not saved by wars, it is saved by acts without external picturesqueness; by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by… — William James Copy Share Image
When happiness is actually in possession, the thought of evil can no more acquire the feeling of reality than the thought of… — William James Copy Share Image
When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when… — William James Copy Share Image
Man's chief difference from the brutes lies in the exuberant excess of his subjective propensities his preeminence over them simply and solely… — William James Copy Share Image
All the qualities of a man acquire dignity when he knows that the service of the collectivity that owns him needs them.… — 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
