We believe as much as we can. We would believe everything if we could. — William James Copy Share Image
There is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough. — 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
If you want to change your life, do it flamboyantly and start immediately. — William James Copy Share Image
But facts are facts, and if we only get enough of them theyare sure to combine. — 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
... A rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those ... truths were really… — William James Copy Share Image
On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true. — William James Copy Share Image
Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act… — William James Copy Share Image
If WE claim only reasonable probability, it will be as much as men who love the truth can ever at any given… — William James Copy Share Image
We need only in cold blood to act as if the thing in question were real and it will infallibly end by… — William James Copy Share Image
Life feels like a real fight - as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our… — William James Copy Share Image
If you give appreciation to people, you win their goodwill. But more important than that, practicing this philosophy has made a different… — William James Copy Share Image
Creatures extremely low in the intellectual scale may have conception. All that is required is that they should recognize the same experience… — William James Copy Share Image
But petitional prayer is only one department of prayer; and if we take the word in the wider sense as meaning every… — William James Copy Share Image
If evolution and the survival of the fittest be true at all, the destruction of prey and of human rivals must have… — William James Copy Share Image
The self-same atoms which, chaotically dispersed, made the nebula, now, jammed and temporarily caught in peculiar positions, form our brains; and the… — William James Copy Share Image
What a magnificent land and race is this Britain! Everything about them is of better quality than the corresponding thing in the… — William James Copy Share Image
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived… — William James Copy Share Image
If an unusual necessity forces us onward, a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain point, when, gradually… — William James Copy Share Image
If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one… — William James Copy Share Image
You can be an artist without visual images, a reader without eyes, a mass of erudition with a bad elementary memory. In… — 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
The art of remembering is the art of thinking. When we wish to fix a new thing in either our own mind… — William James Copy Share Image
(Five) thinkers since Galileo, each informing his successor of what discoveries his own lifetime had seen achieved, might have passed the torch… — 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
The "through-and-through" universe seems to suffocate me with its infallible impeccable all-pervasiveness. Its necessity , with no possibilities; its relations, with no… — 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
That reality is 'independent' means that there is something in every experience that escapes our arbitrary control. If it be a sensible… — William James Copy Share Image
There are 3 rules to follow if you want to change; (1) Start immediately, (2) Do it flamboyantly, (3) No exceptions. — William James Copy Share Image
To give the theory plenty of 'rope' and see if it hangs itself eventually is better tactics than to choke it off… — William James Copy Share Image
If any one phrase could gather its (religion's) universal message, that phrase would be, - All is not vanity in this Universe,… — William James Copy Share Image
So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end...and a courage-fit will very likely… — William James Copy Share Image
If there is aught of good in the style, it is the result of ceaseless toil in rewriting. Everything comes out wrong… — 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
Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world. — William James Copy Share
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
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
“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
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
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
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
“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
There can be no difference anywhere that does not make a difference somewhere. — William James Copy Share
It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. — William James Copy Share
The pragmatist turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended absolutes… — William James Copy Share
