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Habit Quotes by William James

33 Habit quotes by William James

All Habit quotes William James’s page

William James offers a rich mix of insights about how habits shape our thoughts and actions. His words cut across philosophy and practical psychology, giving readers a nuanced look at the patterns that drive us. Whether you’re curious about the science or the personal impact, his collection offers a solid foundation for thinking about routine.

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Habit is the great flywheel of society.

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New habits can be launched.

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We are mere bundles of habits.

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Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.

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Habit is second nature, or rather . . . ten times nature.

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All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.

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Do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty.

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We all have a lifelong habit of inferiority to our full self..."

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Tension is a habit. Relaxing is a habit. Bad habits can be broken, good habits formed.

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It is very important that teachers should realize the importance of habit.

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We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves.

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In the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves…

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All of our life is but a mass of small habits - practical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual - that bear us irresistibly…

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Man lives by habits indeed, but what he lives for is thrill and excitements. ... From time immemorial war has been ...…

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True to her inveterate habit, rationalism reverts to 'principles,' and thinks that when an abstraction once is named, we own an oracular…

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To change one's life: a. Start immediately b. B. Do it flamboyantly c. No exceptions Never suffer an exception to occur till…

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Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have; and, second, on the habitual coupling…

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Ninety-nine hundredths or, possibly, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is purely automatic and habitual, from our rising in the…

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Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the…

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Habit is thus the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the…

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“Most people live in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their…

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Don't preach too much to your pupils or abound in good talk in the abstract. Lie in wait rather for the practical…

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We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can...in the acquisition of a new…

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Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in…

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So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He…

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Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon…

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Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the…

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Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.

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From a pragmatic point of view, the difference between living against a background of foreigness (an indifferent Universe) and one of intimacy…

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The teacher's prime concern should be to ingrain into the pupil that assortment of habits that shall be most useful to him…

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Plasticity, then, in the wide sense of the word, means the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influence,…

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Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting…

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Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make very small use…

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More by William James

Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world.

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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…

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In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who…

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“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…

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Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me.

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'Facts' are the bounds of human knowledge, set for it, not by it.

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Woe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his experience; they will lead him nowhere or…

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We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.

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It is your friends who make your world.

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Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

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Most people, probably, are in doubt about certain matters ascribed to their past. They may have seen them, may have said them, done them,…

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“How soon, indeed, are human things forgotten! As we meet here this morning, the Southern sun is shining on their place of burial, and…

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There can be no difference anywhere that does not make a difference somewhere.

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It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

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The pragmatist turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended absolutes…

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