All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits. — William James Copy Share Image
There are two lives, the natural and the spiritual, and we must lose the one before we can participate in the other. — William James Copy Share Image
It is only in the lonely emergencies of life that our creed is tested: then routine maxims fail, and we fall back… — William James Copy Share Image
For morality life is a war, and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which also calls for… — William James Copy Share Image
The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude. — William James Copy Share Image
There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy-minded individual. — William James Copy Share Image
The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one. — William James Copy Share Image
[Pragmatism's] only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life… — William James Copy Share Image
“Belief and doubt are living attitudes, and involve conduct on our part. Our only way, for example, of doubting, or refusing to… — William James Copy Share Image
All of our life is but a mass of small habits - practical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual - that bear us irresistibly… — 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
There is a stream, a succession of states, or waves, or fields (or whatever you please to call them), of knowledge, of… — William James Copy Share Image
The truth remains that, after adolescence has begun, "words, words, words," must constitute a large part, and an always larger part as… — 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
Man, whatever else he may be, is primarily a practical being, whose mind is given him to aid in adapting him to… — William James Copy Share Image
The philosophy which is so important in each of us is not a technical matter; it is our more or less dumb… — William James Copy Share Image
The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of… — William James Copy Share Image
What excites and interests the looker-on at life, what the romances and the statues celebrate, and the grim civic monuments remind us… — William James Copy Share Image
We ought, all of us, to realize each other in this intense, pathetic, and important way. If you say that this is… — William James Copy Share Image
Out of time we cut 'days' and 'nights', 'summers' and 'winters.' We say what, each part of the sensible continuum is, and… — William James Copy Share Image
“Believe truth! Shun error!-these, we see, are two materially different laws; and by choosing between them we may end by coloring differently… — William James Copy Share Image
Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendship and intimacies, and soon… — William James Copy Share Image
Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendships and intimacies … and… — William James Copy Share Image
“Now, my dear little girl, you have come to an age when the inward life develops and when some people (and on… — William James Copy Share Image
The further limits of our being plunge, it seems to me, into an altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and… — William James Copy Share Image
Most of us can learn to live in perfect comfort on higher levels of power. Everyone knows that on any given day… — William James Copy Share Image
“This sadness lies at the heart of every merely positivistic, agnostic, or naturalistic scheme of philosophy. Let sanguine healthy-mindedness do its best… — William James Copy Share Image
If you say that this is absurd, that we cannot be in love with everyone at once, I merely point out to… — William James Copy Share Image
Romeo wants Juliet as the filings want the magnet; and if no obstacles intervene he moves towards her by as straight a… — 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
![“[Pragmatism's] only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity of experience's demands, nothing being omitted.” quote by William James](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/072/william-james-228_art-of-life_pragmatism-s-only-test-of-probable-truth_942773.jpg)
