In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start. — William James Copy Share Image
The science of logic never made a man reason rightly, and the science of ethics never made a man behave rightly. The… — William James Copy Share Image
There is a law in psychology that if you form a picture in your mind of what you would like to be,… — William James Copy Share Image
The exercise of prayer, in those who habitually exert it, must be regarded by us doctors as the most adequate and normal… — William James Copy Share Image
“See the exquisite contrast of the types of mind! The pragmatist clings to facts and concreteness, observes truth at its work in… — William James Copy Share Image
What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise although the philosophers generally call it recognition! — William James Copy Share Image
The total mental efficiency of a man is the resultant of the working together of all his faculties. He is too complex… — William James Copy Share Image
The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone. In… — William James Copy Share Image
Psychology saves us from mistakes. It makes us more clear as to what we are about. We gain confidence in respect to… — William James Copy Share Image
Emotional occasions, especially violent ones, are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive ways in which love, jealousy, guilt,… — William James Copy Share Image
To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind. — William James Copy Share Image
“A man's Self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers,… — William James Copy Share Image
It would probably astound each of them beyond measure to be let into his neighbor's mind and to find how different the… — William James Copy Share Image
“Theologians have by this time stretched their minds so as to embrace the darwinian facts, and yet to interpret them as still… — William James Copy Share Image
Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves. — 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
