Why may we not be in the universe, as our dogs and cats are in our drawingrooms and libraries? — William James Copy Share Image
Asceticism may be a mere expression of organic hardihood, disgusted with too much ease. — 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
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 teachers of this country, one may say, have its future in their hands. — William James Copy Share Image
The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths. — William James Copy Share Image
The total possible consciousness may be split into parts which co-exist but mutually ignore each other. — William James Copy Share Image
Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. — 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
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
The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in… — William James Copy Share Image
Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need… — 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
No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one… — William James Copy Share Image
Mental fire is what won't burn real sticks; mental water is what won't necessarily (though of course it may) put out even… — William James Copy Share Image
The states of consciousness are all that psychology needs to do her work with. Metaphysics or theology may prove the Soul to… — 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
There is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account… — William James Copy Share Image
Old-fashioned determinism was what we may call hard determinism. It did not shrink from such words as fatality, bondage of the will,… — 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
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
In this real world of sweat and dirt, it seems to me that when a view of things is 'noble,' that ought… — William James Copy Share Image
The stream of thought flows on; but most of its segments fall into the bottomless abyss of oblivion. Of some, no memory… — William James Copy Share Image
Of course, this has its good side as well as its bad one. As we become permanent drunkards by so may separate… — 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
The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is mean and ugly. What can be more base and unworthy than the… — 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
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
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
“However inadequate our ideas of causal efficacy may be, we are less wide of the mark when we say that our ideas… — William James Copy Share Image
What do believers in the Absolute mean by saving that their belief affords them comfort? They mean that since in the Absolute… — 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
We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but… — 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
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
Both thought and feeling are determinants of conduct, and the same conduct may be determined either by feeling or by thought. — William James Copy Share Image
A winner's attitude: it may be difficult, but it's possible. A loser's attitude: It may be possible, but it's too difficult. — 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,… — William James Copy Share Image
Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting through becoming associated with an object in which an interest already exists. — 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
![“We [may] answer the question: "Why is snow white?" by saying, "For the same reason that soap-suds or whipped eggs are white"-in other words, instead of giving the reason for a fact, we give another example of the same fact. This offering a similar instance, instead of a reason, has often been…” quote by William James](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ca9/william-james-228_abstract_we-may-answer-the-question-why-is-snow-w_906888.jpg)
