Humans Quotes by William James

Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.

— William James

The deepest longing in the human breast is the desire for appreciation.

— William James

A purely disembodied human emotion is a nonentity.

— William James

The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.

— William James

Deepest principle of human nature is to be appreciated.

— William James

The deepest hunger in human beings is the desire to be appreciated.

— William James

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

— William James

Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.

— William James

The truth remains that, after adolescence has begun, "words, words, words," must constitute a large part, and an always larger part as…

— William James

“Invention, using the term most broadly, and imitation, are the two legs, so to call them, on which the human race historically…

— William James

We are proud of a human nature that could be so passionately extreme, but we shrink from advising others to follow the…

— William James

Real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not by dislikes and disdains; under all misleading wrappings it pounces unerringly upon the human…

— William James

True ideas lead us into useful verbal and conceptual quarters as well as directly up to useful sensible termini. They lead to…

— William James

The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change…

— William James

It is so human a book that I don't see how belief in its divine authority can survive the reading of it.

— William James

The highest flights of charity, devotion, trust, patience, bravery to which the wings of human nature have spread themselves, have been flown…

— William James

But when all is said and done, the fact remains that some teachers have a naturally inspiring presence and can make their…

— William James

Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits. It works in the minutest crannies and it…

— William James

Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendships and intimacies … and…

— William James

Everyone knows that on any given day there are energies slumbering in him which the incitement's of that day do not call…

— William James

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of…

— William James

If evolution and the survival of the fittest be true at all, the destruction of prey and of human rivals must have…

— William James

Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived…

— William James

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

— William James

The most ancient parts of truth . . . also once were plastic. They also were called true for human reasons. They…

— William James

(Five) thinkers since Galileo, each informing his successor of what discoveries his own lifetime had seen achieved, might have passed the torch…

— William James

Every time a resolve or a fine glow of feeling evaporates without bearing practical fruit is worse than a chance lost; it…

— William James

Compared with men, it is probable that brutes neither attend to abstract characters, nor have associations by similarity. Their thoughts probably pass…

— William James

Most of us can learn to live in perfect comfort on higher levels of power. Everyone knows that on any given day…

— William James

The trail of the human serpent is thus over everything.

— William James

Organization and method mean much, but contagious human characters mean more in a university.

— William James

As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and…

— William James

It is as if there were in the human consciousness a sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of…

— William James

Feed the growing human being, feed him with the sort of experience for which from year to year he shows a natural…

— William James

Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of…

— William James