“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
Woe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his experience; they will lead him… — William James Copy Share Image
I believe there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with a fixed belief that certain… — William James Copy Share Image
“The submission which you demand of yourself to the general fact of evil in the world, your apparent acquiescence in it, is… — William James Copy Share Image
The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it." "This life is worth living, we can… — William James Copy Share Image
Science herself consults her heart when she lays it down that the infinite ascertainment of fact and correction of false belief are… — William James Copy Share Image
Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges… — William James Copy Share Image
Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible. — 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
Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact. — 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
“Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act… — William James Copy Share Image
There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self. — William James Copy Share Image
Every sort of energy and endurance, of courage and capacity for handling life's evils, is set free in those who have religious… — William James Copy Share Image
The suspicion is in the air nowadays that the superiority of one of our formulas to another may not consist so much… — William James Copy Share Image
A new opinion counts as true just in proportion as it gratifies the individual's desire to assimilate the novel in his experience… — William James Copy Share Image
Our faith is faith in someone else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case. — William James Copy Share Image
“...the faith state...is the psychic correlate of a biological growth reducing contending-desires to one direction... [p.272]” — William James Copy Share Image
The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite,… — William James Copy Share Image
Pragmatism asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true," it says, "what concrete difference will its being true… — William James Copy Share Image
Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world. — William James Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. — William James Copy Share Image
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 Image
“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 Image
