Most people, probably, are in doubt about certain matters ascribed to their past. They may have seen them, may have said them,… — William James Copy Share Image
Why may we not be in the universe, as our dogs and cats are in our drawingrooms and libraries? — William James Copy Share Image
You may not get everything you dream about, but you will never get anything you don't dream about. — William James Copy Share Image
We must frankly confess, then, using our empirical common sense and ordinary practical prejudices, that in the world that actually is, the… — William James Copy Share Image
Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism. In heroism, we feel, life's… — William James Copy Share Image
Whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the object before us, another part (and it may be the… — William James Copy Share Image
The suspicion is in the air nowadays that the superiority of one of our formulas to another may not consist so much… — William James Copy Share Image
Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and… — William James Copy Share Image
In youth we may have an absolutely new experience, subjective or objective, every hour of the day. Apprehension is vivid, retentiveness strong,… — 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
Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to… — William James Copy Share Image
Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep… — William James Copy Share Image
We [may] answer the question: "Why is snow white?" by saying, "For the same reason that soap-suds or whipped eggs are white"-in… — 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
Compared with men, it is probable that brutes neither attend to abstract characters, nor have associations by similarity. Their thoughts probably pass… — William James Copy Share Image
Science must constantly be reminded that her purposes are not the only purposes and that the order of uniform causation which she… — 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
A man may not achieve everything he has dreamed, but he will never achieve anything great without having dreamed it first. — William James Copy Share Image
The war-function has grasped us so far; but the constructive interests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the… — 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
In modern eyes, precious though wars may be they must not be waged solely for the sake of the ideal harvest. Only… — William James Copy Share Image
The teachers of this country, one may say, have its future in their hands. — William James Copy Share Image
Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual… — William James Copy Share Image
Nature in her unfathomable designs had mixed us of clay and flame, of brain and mind, that the two things hang indubitably… — William James Copy Share Image
The more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike,… — 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
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