So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end...and a courage-fit will very likely… — William James Copy Share Image
“I fear to lose truth by the pretension to possess it already wholly.” — William James Copy Share Image
The sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and… — William James Copy Share Image
Great indeed is Fear; but it is not, as our military enthusiasts believe and try to make us believe, the only stimulus… — William James Copy Share Image
I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess… — William James Copy Share Image
“Much of what we call evil can often be converted into a bracing and tonic good by a simple change of the… — William James Copy Share Image
What do believers in the Absolute mean by saving that their belief affords them comfort? They mean that since in the Absolute… — 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
“To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense… — William James Copy Share Image
Evil is a disease; and worry over disease is itself an additional form of disease, which only adds to the original complaint. — William James Copy Share Image
These then are my last words to you. Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief… — William James Copy Share Image
Much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way men take the phenomenon. It can so often be converted… — William James Copy Share Image
The voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, and act and speak as if… — William James Copy Share Image
The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers. — 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
These then are my last words to you. Be not afraid of life. Believe life is worth living and your belief will… — William James Copy Share Image
The desire to gain wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption. — 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
