“My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing.” — William James Copy Share Image
Man lives in only one small room of the enormous house of his consciousness. — William James Copy Share Image
To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking. — William James Copy Share Image
The true'to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only… — William James Copy Share Image
Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. — William James Copy Share Image
In the last analysis, then, we believe that we all know and think about and talk about the same world because we… — William James Copy Share Image
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. — 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
Pluralism lets things really exist in the each-form or distributively. Monism thinks that the all-form or collective-unit form is the only form… — William James Copy Share Image
The one who thinks over his experiences most, and weaves them into systematic relations with each other, will be the one with… — 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
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
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
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
The last peculiarity of consciousness to which attention is to be drawn in this first rough description of its stream is that… — 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
A remarkable parallel, which I think has never been noticed, obtains between the facts of social evolution on the one hand, and… — William James Copy Share Image
There is a law in psychology that if you form a picture in your mind of what you would like to be,… — William James Copy Share Image
Essential truth, the truth of the intellectualists, the truth with no one thinking it, is like the coat that fits tho no… — William James Copy Share Image
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived… — 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
If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing. It would take us… — 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
Compared with men, it is probable that brutes neither attend to abstract characters, nor have associations by similarity. Their thoughts probably pass… — William James Copy Share Image
... if we take the universe of 'fitting,' countless coats 'fit' backs, and countless boots 'fit' feet, on which they are not… — William James Copy Share Image
We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our functions. — 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
My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing, and I can only do one thing at… — William James Copy Share Image
You make a great, very great mistake, if you think that psychology, being the science of the mind's laws, is something from… — William James Copy Share Image
Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. which give… — 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
