As Charles Lamb says, there is nothing so nice as doing good by stealth and being found out by accident, so I… — William James Copy Share Image
Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways: I will do somebody a good turn and not get found… — William James Copy Share Image
The most ancient parts of truth . . . also once were plastic. They also were called true for human reasons. They… — William James Copy Share Image
Religions have approved themselves; they have ministered to sundry vital needs which they found reigning. When they violated other needs too strongly,… — William James Copy Share Image
Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they… — William James Copy Share Image
Take the happiest man, the one most envied by the world, and in nine cases out of ten his inmost consciousness is… — William James Copy Share Image
O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy .… — 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
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
