Spiritual energy flows in and produces effects, psychological or material, within the phenomenal world. — William James Copy Share Image
Religion . . . shall mean for us the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude. — William James Copy Share Image
“In order to disprove the assertion that all crows are black, one white crow is sufficient.” — William James Copy Share Image
In its broadest term, religion says that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in rightful relations to… — William James Copy Share Image
I believe there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with a fixed belief that certain… — William James Copy Share Image
Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible ... faith is the readiness to act in a cause… — William James Copy Share Image
“Religious feeling is thus an absolute addition to the subject's range of life. It gives him a new sphere of power. When… — William James Copy Share Image
“Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it… — William James Copy Share Image
“When we survey the whole field of religion, we find a great variety in the thoughts that have prevailed there; but the… — William James Copy Share Image
If any one phrase could gather its (religion's) universal message, that phrase would be, - All is not vanity in this Universe,… — William James Copy Share Image
One hears of the mechanical equivalent of heat. What we now need to discover in the social realm is the moral equivalent… — William James Copy Share Image
Better risk loss of truth than chance of error--that is your faith-vetoer's exact position. He is actively playing his stake as much… — William James Copy Share Image
“Our faith is faith in some one else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case. Our belief in… — William James Copy Share Image
Who does not see that we are likely to ascertain the distinctive significance of religious melancholy and happiness, or of religious trances,… — 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
It does not follow, because our ancestors made so many errors of fact and mixed them with their religion, that we should… — William James Copy Share Image
Materialism means simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of ultimate hopes; spiritualism means theaffirmation of… — William James Copy Share Image
The highest flights of charity, devotion, trust, patience, bravery to which the wings of human nature have spread themselves, have been flown… — 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
