There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or… — 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
Every sort of energy and endurance, of courage and capacity for handling life's evils, is set free in those who have religious… — 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 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
Religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight, or in a mountain gorge. — 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
Our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout. — William James Copy Share Image
It is so human a book that I don't see how belief in its divine authority can survive the reading of it. — William James Copy Share Image
The love of life, at any and every level of development, is the religious impulse. — 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
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
