Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. — William James Copy Share Image
“What was bright and exciting becomes weary, flat, and unprofitable.” — William James Copy Share Image
How many of us persist in a precipitate course which, but for a moment of heedlessness we might never have entered upon,… — William James Copy Share Image
One of the greatest discoveries of our time is that a man can alter the state of their life by altering the… — William James Copy Share Image
In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start. — William James Copy Share Image
Man, whatever else he may be, is primarily a practical being, whose mind is given him to aid in adapting him to… — William James Copy Share Image
To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind. — William James Copy Share Image
The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as the sculptor works on his block of stone. — William James Copy Share Image
The most peculiar social self which one is apt to have is in the mind of the person one is in love… — William James Copy Share Image
It would probably astound each of us beyond measure to be let into his neighbors mind and to find how different the… — William James Copy Share Image
Neither moral relations nor the moral law can swing in vacuo. Their only habitat can be a mind which feels them; and… — William James Copy Share Image
Nature in her unfathomable designs had mixed us of clay and flame, of brain and mind, that the two things hang indubitably… — William James Copy Share Image
Good-humor is a philosophic state of mind; it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she… — William James Copy Share Image
Millions of items in the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they… — William James Copy Share Image
The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone. In… — William James Copy Share Image
We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can. . . . The more… — William James Copy Share Image
The mind of your own enemy, the pupil, is working away from you, as keenly and eagerly as is the mind of… — William James Copy Share Image
Creatures extremely low in the intellectual scale may have conception. All that is required is that they should recognize the same experience… — William James Copy Share Image
If, then, you wish to insure the interest of your pupils, there is only one way to do it; and that is… — William James Copy Share Image
To begin with, our knowledge grows in spots. The spots may be large or small, but the knowledge ever grows all over...… — William James Copy Share Image
When two minds of a high order, interested in kindred subjects, come together, their conversation is chiefly remarkable for the summariness of… — William James Copy Share Image
The art of remembering is the art of thinking. When we wish to fix a new thing in either our own mind… — William James Copy Share Image
In teaching, you must simply work your pupil into such a state of interest in what you are going to teach him… — William James Copy Share Image
A genius is the man in whom you are least likely to find the power of attending to anything insipid or distasteful… — William James Copy Share Image
To begin with our knowledge grows in spots. ..What you first gain, ... is probably a small amount of new information, a… — William James Copy Share Image
To plead the organic causation of a religious state of mind, then, in refutation of its claim to possess superior spiritual value,… — William James Copy Share Image
“Most of us probably fall several times a day into a fit somewhat like this: The eyes are fixed on vacancy, the… — William James Copy Share Image
The good or bad is not in the circumstance, but only in the mind...that encounters it. — William James Copy Share Image
It would probably astound each of them beyond measure to be let into his neighbor's mind and to find how different the… — William James Copy Share Image
The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself. — William James Copy Share Image
The general law is that no mental modification ever occurs which is not accompanied or followed by a bodily change. — William James Copy Share Image
The greatest discovery of the 20th Century is that our attitude of mind determines our quality of life, not circumstances. — William James Copy Share Image
Men's activities are occupied into ways -- in grappling with external circumstances and in striving to set things at one in their… — William James Copy Share Image
Whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the object before us, another part (and it may be the… — William James Copy Share Image
The exercise of prayer, in those who habitually exert it, must be regarded by us doctors as the most adequate and normal… — William James Copy Share Image
In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering 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
