If you want to change your life, do it flamboyantly and start immediately. — William James Copy Share Image
The science of logic never made a man reason rightly, and the science of ethics never made a man behave rightly. The… — William James Copy Share Image
There is a law in psychology that if you form a picture in your mind of what you would like to be,… — William James Copy Share Image
If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it. Only you must, then, really wish these things,… — William James Copy Share Image
If theological ideas prove to have a value for concrete life, they will be true, for pragmatism, in the sense of being… — William James Copy Share Image
We can act as if there were a God; feel as if we were free; consider Nature as if she were full… — William James Copy Share Image
If I should throw down a thousand beans at random upon a table, I could doubtless, by eliminating a sufficient number of… — William James Copy Share Image
We believe as much as we can. We would believe everything if we could. — William James Copy Share Image
The total mental efficiency of a man is the resultant of the working together of all his faculties. He is too complex… — William James Copy Share Image
If you want a confidence, act as if you already have it. Try the "as if" technique. — William James Copy Share Image
Even if matter could do every outward thing that God does, the idea of it would not work as satisfactorily, because the… — William James Copy Share Image
If the topic be highly abstract, show its nature by concrete examples. If it be unfamiliar, trace some point of analogy in… — William James Copy Share Image
... if we take the universe of 'fitting,' countless coats 'fit' backs, and countless boots 'fit' feet, on which they are not… — William James Copy Share Image
Men are now proud of belonging to a conquering nation, and without a murmur they lay down their persons and their wealth,… — 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
