True to her inveterate habit, rationalism reverts to 'principles,' and thinks that when an abstraction once is named, we own an oracular… — William James Copy Share Image
Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon… — William James Copy Share Image
Don't preach too much to your pupils or abound in good talk in the abstract. Lie in wait rather for the practical… — William James Copy Share Image
It is very important that teachers should realize the importance of habit. — William James Copy Share Image
Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have; and, second, on the habitual coupling… — William James Copy Share Image
Tension is a habit. Relaxing is a habit. Bad habits can be broken, good habits formed. — 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
