We are all potentially such sick men. The sanest and best of us are of one clay with lunatics and prison-inmates. And… — William James Copy Share Image
Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something.… — 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
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
What we really need the poet's and orator's I help to keep alive in us is not, then, the common and gregarious… — William James Copy Share Image
An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: "There is very little difference between one man and another; but… — William James Copy Share Image
A genius is the man in whom you are least likely to find the power of attending to anything insipid or distasteful… — William James Copy Share Image
Between what a man calls me and what he simply calls mine the line is difficult to draw. We feel and act… — 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
Science herself consults her heart when she lays it down that the infinite ascertainment of fact and correction of false belief are… — William James Copy Share Image
One of the greatest discoveries of our time is that a man can alter the state of their life by altering the… — William James Copy Share Image
The absolute things, the last things, the overlapping things, are the truly philosophic concerns; all superior minds feel seriously about them, and… — William James Copy Share Image
Man, biologically considered ... is simply the most formidable of all beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically… — William James Copy Share Image
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying… — William James Copy Share Image
The nation blest above all nations is she in whom the civic genius of the people does the saving day by day,… — 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
Men's activities are occupied into ways -- in grappling with external circumstances and in striving to set things at one in their… — William James Copy Share Image
How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive… — William James Copy Share Image
The most natively interesting object to a man is his own personal self and its fortunes. We accordingly see that the moment… — William James Copy Share Image
Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in… — William James Copy Share Image
Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the… — William James Copy Share Image
Man lives by habits indeed, but what he lives for is thrill and excitements. ... From time immemorial war has been ...… — 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
