A genius is the man in whom you are least likely to find the power of attending to anything insipid or distasteful… — William James Copy Share Image
Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark. — William James Copy Share Image
Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way. — William James Copy Share Image
Genius is the capacity for seeing relationships where lesser men see none. — William James Copy Share Image
Geniuses are commonly believed to excel other men in their power of sustained attention . . . But it is their genius… — William James Copy Share Image
When a superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce in the same individual, we have the best possible condition for the kind… — William James Copy Share Image
When two minds of a high order, interested in kindred subjects, come together, their conversation is chiefly remarkable for the summariness of… — 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
