“A man's Self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers,… — 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
It is only the fundamental conceptions of psychology which are of real value to a teacher. — 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
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
What a teacher needs to know about psychology "might almost be written on the palm of one's hand." — 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
The good or bad is not in the circumstance, but only in the mind...that encounters it. — William James Copy Share Image
I originally studied medicine in order to be a physiologist, but I drifted into psychology and philosophy from a sort of fatality.… — William James Copy Share Image
“psychology is passing into a less simple phase. Within a few years what one may call a microscopic psychology has arisen in… — William James Copy Share Image
“We must judge the tree by its fruit. The best fruits of the religious experience are the best things history has to… — 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
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
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
But it is the bane of psychology to suppose that where results are similar, processes must be the same. Psychologists are too… — William James Copy Share Image
Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease-spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible: we… — William James Copy Share Image
“Theologians have by this time stretched their minds so as to embrace the darwinian facts, and yet to interpret them as still… — William James Copy Share Image
The first effect of the mind growing cultivated is that processes once multiple get to be performed in a single act. Lazarus… — William James Copy Share Image
“Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly. The fundamental conceptions of psychology are practically very clear to us,… — William James Copy Share Image
Be patient and sympathetic with the type of mind that cuts a poor figure in examinations. It may, in the long examination… — William James Copy Share Image
So you see that the process of education, taken in a large way, may be described as nothing but the process of… — 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
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
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
The worst thing that can happen to a good teacher is to get a bad conscience about her profession because she feels… — William James Copy Share Image
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can change his life by changing his attitude of mind — William James Copy Share Image
The greatest discovery of my generation is that human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of his mind. — 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
“Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” — William James Copy Share Image
To know psychology, therefore, is absolutely no guarantee that we shall be good teacher. — 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
The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the… — 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
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
Emotional occasions, especially violent ones, are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive ways in which love, jealousy, guilt,… — William James Copy Share Image
Selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built. And in this case of memory its utility is obvious.… — 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
