The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can change his life by changing his attitude of mind — William James Copy Share Image
“What was bright and exciting becomes weary, flat, and unprofitable.” — William James Copy Share Image
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes. — William James Copy Share Image
“The best use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts it.” — William James Copy Share Image
The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. — William James Copy Share Image
Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact. — William James Copy Share Image
We must not just patch and tinker with life. We must keep renewing it. Embrace novelty and uniqueness. — William James Copy Share Image
“The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude.” — 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
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
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
There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise. — 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
Life is one long struggle between conclusions based on abstract ways of conceiving cases, and opposite conclusions prompted by our instinctive perception… — William James Copy Share Image
“Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it… — William James Copy Share Image
To change one's life: a. Start immediately b. B. Do it flamboyantly c. No exceptions Never suffer an exception to occur till… — William James Copy Share Image
So you see that the process of education, taken in a large way, may be described as nothing but the process of… — William James Copy Share Image
Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. which give… — 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
Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make very small use… — William James Copy Share Image
Regarding mutual tolerance: It is negative in one sense, but positive in another. It absolutely forbids us to be forward in pronouncing… — William James Copy Share Image
“There is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it positively refuses to account… — William James Copy Share Image
Feed the growing human being, feed him with the sort of experience for which from year to year he shows a natural… — William James Copy Share Image
The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it. — William James Copy Share Image
Real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not by dislikes and disdains; under all misleading wrappings it pounces unerringly upon the human… — William James Copy Share Image
The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it." "This life is worth living, we can… — William James Copy Share Image
Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting… — William James Copy Share Image
The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change… — William James Copy Share Image
An impression which simply flows in at the pupil's eyes or ears and in no way modifies his active life, is an… — William James Copy Share Image
Old age has the last word: the purely naturalistic look at life, however enthusiastically it may begin, is sure to end in… — William James Copy Share Image
The teacher's prime concern should be to ingrain into the pupil that assortment of habits that shall be most useful to him… — William James Copy Share Image
Our life is always deeper than we know, is always more divine than it seems, and hence we are able to survive… — William James Copy Share Image
We with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest... But the trees also commingle their… — William James Copy Share Image
For I had often said that the best argument I knew for an immortal life was the existence of a man who… — William James Copy Share Image
If this life is not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no… — William James Copy Share Image
These then are my last words to you. Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief… — 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
