In all primary school work the principle of multiple impressions is well recognized. — William James Copy Share Image
To know psychology, therefore, is absolutely no guarantee that we shall be good teacher. — William James Copy Share Image
An educated memory depends on an organized system of associations; and its goodness depends on two of their peculiarities: first, on the… — William James Copy Share Image
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association — William James Copy Share Image
I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the most interesting and important… — William James Copy Share Image
Considering the inner fitness of things, one would rather think that the very first act of a will endowed with freedom should… — William James Copy Share Image
“There is something almost shocking in the notion of so chaste a function carrying this Kantian hurlyburly in her womb.” — William James Copy Share Image
... A rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those ... truths were really… — William James Copy Share Image
In all this process of acquiring conceptions, a certain instinctive order is followed. There is a native tendency to assimilate certain kinds… — William James Copy Share Image
I am only a philosopher, and there is only one thing that a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that… — William James Copy Share Image
From all these facts there emerges a very simple abstract program for the teacher to follow in keeping the attention of the… — William James Copy Share Image
“It never occurs to most of us .. that the question 'what is the truth' is no real question (being irrelative to… — William James Copy Share Image
The difference between an interesting and a tedious teacher consists in little more than the inventiveness by which the one is able… — 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
From the Vedas we learn a practical art of surgery, medicine, music, house building under which mechanized art is included. They are… — William James Copy Share Image
The entire routine of our memorized acquisitions, for example, is a consequence of nothing but the Law of Contiguity. The words of… — William James Copy Share Image
There is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account… — William James Copy Share Image
But when all is said and done, the fact remains that some teachers have a naturally inspiring presence and can make their… — William James Copy Share Image
We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and as carefully guard against… — William James Copy Share Image
Volition . . . takes place only when there are a number of conflicting systems of ideas, and depends on our having… — William James Copy Share Image
What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise although the philosophers generally call it recognition! — 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
There can be no final truth in ethics any more than in physics, until the last man has had his experience and… — William James Copy Share Image
There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers. — 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
No reception without reaction, no impression without correlative expression, -this is the great maxim which the teacher ought never to forget. — William James Copy Share Image
Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits. It works in the minutest crannies and it… — William James Copy Share Image
“The history of philosophy is, to a great extent, that of a certain clash of human temperaments…Of whatever temperament a philosopher is,… — William James Copy Share Image
All that we need explicitly to note is that, the more the passive attention is relied on, by keeping the material interesting;… — William James Copy Share Image
It is not probable that the reader will be satisfied with any of these solutions, and contemporary philosophers, even rationalistically minded ones,… — William James Copy Share Image
The absolute things, the last things, the overlapping things, are the truly philosophic concerns; all superior minds feel seriously about them, and… — William James Copy Share Image
“There is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it positively refuses to account… — William James Copy Share Image
Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and… — William James Copy Share Image
The science of logic never made a man reason rightly, and the science of ethics never made a man behave rightly. The… — William James Copy Share Image
Feed the growing human being, feed him with the sort of experience for which from year to year he shows a natural… — William James Copy Share Image
“The notion of God, on the other hand, however inferior it may be in clearness to those mathematical notions so current in… — William James Copy Share Image
“[There are, in us] possibilities that take our breath away, and show a world wider than either physics or philistine ethics can… — William James Copy Share Image
Humanism . . . is not a single hypothesis or theorem, and it dwells on no new facts. It is rather a… — William James Copy Share Image
Old age has the last word: the purely naturalistic look at life, however enthusiastically it may begin, is sure to end in… — 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
![“[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…” quote by William James](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/db5/william-james-228_breaths_there-are-in-us-possibilities-that-take_2888048.png)
