Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves. — William James Copy Share Image
An idea will infect another with its own emotional interest when they have become both associated together into any sort of a… — 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
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
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
In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start. — 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
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
The mind of your own enemy, the pupil, is working away from you, as keenly and eagerly as is the mind of… — William James Copy Share Image
We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can. . . . The more… — 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
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 Copy Share Image
Millions of items in the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they… — 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
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
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
So you see that the process of education, taken in a large way, may be described as nothing but the process of… — 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
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
To plead the organic causation of a religious state of mind, then, in refutation of its claim to possess superior spiritual value,… — 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
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 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
“Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” — William James Copy Share Image
To know psychology, therefore, is absolutely no guarantee that we shall be good teacher. — William James Copy Share Image
The greatest discovery of the 20th Century is that our attitude of mind determines our quality of life, not circumstances. — William James Copy Share Image
The worst thing that can happen to a good teacher is to get a bad conscience about her profession because she feels… — William James Copy Share Image
The greatest discovery of my generation is that human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of his mind. — William James Copy Share Image
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can change his life by changing his attitude of mind — 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
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
The general law is that no mental modification ever occurs which is not accompanied or followed by a bodily change. — 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
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
Neither moral relations nor the moral law can swing in vacuo. Their only habitat can be a mind which feels them; and… — William James Copy Share Image
Ideas are so much flat psychological surface unless some mirrored matter gives them cognitive lustre. This is why as a pragmatistI have… — 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
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
“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
You make a great, very great mistake, if you think that psychology, being the science of the mind's laws, is something from… — 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
