Selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built. And in this case of memory its utility is obvious.… — William James Copy Share Image
The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself. — William James Copy Share Image
I originally studied medicine in order to be a physiologist, but I drifted into psychology and philosophy from a sort of fatality.… — William James Copy Share Image
“To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense… — William James Copy Share Image
It is as if there were in the human consciousness a sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of… — William James Copy Share Image
But it is the bane of psychology to suppose that where results are similar, processes must be the same. Psychologists are too… — William James Copy Share Image
“There is a finely translated epigram in the greek anthology which admirably expresses this state of mind, this acceptance of loss as… — William James Copy Share Image
The greatest discovery of the 19th century was not in the realm of the physical sciences, but the power of the subconscious… — William James Copy Share Image
The art of remembering is the art of thinking. When we wish to fix a new thing in either our own mind… — William James Copy Share Image
“There is something almost shocking in the notion of so chaste a function carrying this Kantian hurlyburly in her womb.” — William James Copy Share Image
“But psychology is passing into a less simple phase. Within a few years what one may call a microscopic psychology has arisen… — William James Copy Share Image
“Everyone knows what attention is. It is taking possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what… — William James Copy Share Image
Intellectualism' is the belief that our mind comes upon a world complete in itself, and has the duty of ascertaining its contents;… — William James Copy Share Image
To know psychology, therefore, is absolutely no guarantee that we shall be good teacher. — William James Copy Share Image
In teaching, you must simply work your pupil into such a state of interest in what you are going to teach him… — William James Copy Share Image
When two minds of a high order, interested in kindred subjects, come together, their conversation is chiefly remarkable for the summariness of… — William James Copy Share Image
It is only the fundamental conceptions of psychology which are of real value to a teacher. — William James Copy Share Image
“Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” — William James Copy Share Image
How many of us persist in a precipitate course which, but for a moment of heedlessness we might never have entered upon,… — 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
I wished by treating Psychology like a natural science, to help her become one. — William James Copy Share Image
What a teacher needs to know about psychology "might almost be written on the palm of one's hand." — William James Copy Share Image
The first lecture in psychology that I ever heard was the first I ever gave. — 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
