An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: "There is very little difference between one man and another; but… — William James Copy Share Image
As we take, in fact, a general view of the wonderful stream of our consciousness, what strikes us first is this different… — William James Copy Share Image
I am well aware how odd it must seem to some of you to hear me say that an idea is true… — William James Copy Share Image
The further limits of our being plunge, it seems to me, into an altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and… — William James Copy Share Image
Essential truth, the truth of the intellectualists, the truth with no one thinking it, is like the coat that fits tho no… — William James Copy Share Image
The "through-and-through" universe seems to suffocate me with its infallible impeccable all-pervasiveness. Its necessity , with no possibilities; its relations, with no… — William James Copy Share Image
The war-function has grasped us so far; but the constructive interests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the… — William James Copy Share Image
In this real world of sweat and dirt, it seems to me that when a view of things is 'noble,' that ought… — William James Copy Share Image
Modern transcendental idealism, Emersonianism, for instance, also seems to let God evaporate into abstract Ideality. Not a deity in concreto, not a… — William James Copy Share Image
The difference between the first and second-best things in art absolutely seems to escape verbal definition -- it is a matter of… — William James Copy Share Image
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived… — William James Copy Share Image
All natural happiness thus seems infected with a contradiction. The breath of the sepulchre surrounds it. — William James Copy Share Image
The simplest rudiment of mystical experience would seem to be that deepened sense of the significance of a maxim or formula which… — William James Copy Share Image
Our life is always deeper than we know, is always more divine than it seems, and hence we are able to survive… — William James Copy Share Image
Feed the growing human being, feed him with the sort of experience for which from year to year he shows a natural… — 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
