Philosophy Quotes by William James

Habit is second nature, or rather . . . ten times nature.

— William James

Most men have a good memory for facts connected with their own pursuits.

— William James

“Wisdom is seeing something in a non-habitual manner.”

— William James

All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.

— William James

The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.

— William James

To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind.

— William James

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.

— William James

In all primary school work the principle of multiple impressions is well recognized.

— William James

“There is something almost shocking in the notion of so chaste a function carrying this Kantian hurlyburly in her womb.”

— William James

Considering the inner fitness of things, one would rather think that the very first act of a will endowed with freedom should…

— William James

I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the most interesting and important…

— William James

It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association

— William James

... A rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those ... truths were really…

— William James

In all this process of acquiring conceptions, a certain instinctive order is followed. There is a native tendency to assimilate certain kinds…

— William James

The God of many men is little more than their court of appeal against the damnatory judgment passed on their failures by…

— William James

Good-humor is a philosophic state of mind; it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she…

— William James

But when all is said and done, the fact remains that some teachers have a naturally inspiring presence and can make their…

— William James

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

Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits. It works in the minutest crannies and it…

— William James

The entire routine of our memorized acquisitions, for example, is a consequence of nothing but the Law of Contiguity. The words of…

— William James

It is not probable that the reader will be satisfied with any of these solutions, and contemporary philosophers, even rationalistically minded ones,…

— William James

All that we need explicitly to note is that, the more the passive attention is relied on, by keeping the material interesting;…

— William James

“The history of philosophy is, to a great extent, that of a certain clash of human temperaments…Of whatever temperament a philosopher is,…

— William James

From the Vedas we learn a practical art of surgery, medicine, music, house building under which mechanized art is included. They are…

— William James

The gist of the matter is this: Every impression that comes in from without, be it a sentence which we hear, an…

— William James

Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual…

— William James

If, then, you wish to insure the interest of your pupils, there is only one way to do it; and that is…

— William James

“Common-Law judges sometimes talk about the law, and schoolmasters talk about the latin tongue, in a way to make their hearers think…

— William James

If the topic be highly abstract, show its nature by concrete examples; if it be unfamiliar, make it figure as part of…

— William James

“There is, it must be confessed, a curious fascination in hearing deep things talked about, even tho neither we nor the disputants…

— William James

“It is as if a man should hesitate indefinitely to ask a certain woman to marry him because he was not perfectly…

— William James

“The most violent revolutions in an individual's beliefs leave most of his old order standing. Time and space, cause and effect, nature…

— William James

“Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease-spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible: we…

— William James

“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

“See the exquisite contrast of the types of mind! The pragmatist clings to facts and concreteness, observes truth at its work in…

— William James

To know psychology, therefore, is absolutely no guarantee that we shall be good teacher.

— William James

Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.

— William James

Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions.

— William James

Philosophy is "an unusually stubborn attempt to think clearly.

— William James

A man with no philosophy in him is the most inauspicious and unprofitable of all possible social mates.

— William James