There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of… — William James Copy Share Image
If the topic be highly abstract, show its nature by concrete examples; if it be unfamiliar, make it figure as part of… — William James Copy Share Image
You can be an artist without visual images, a reader without eyes, a mass of erudition with a bad elementary memory. In… — 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
“However inadequate our ideas of causal efficacy may be, we are less wide of the mark when we say that our ideas… — William James Copy Share Image
The emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action. — William James Copy Share Image
The prescription is that the subject must be made to show new aspects of itself; to prompt new questions; in a word,… — William James Copy Share Image
In teaching, you must simply work your pupil into such a state of interest in what you are going to teach him… — William James Copy Share Image
The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the 'pure' experience. It is only virtually or potentially… — William James Copy Share Image
When two minds of a high order, interested in kindred subjects, come together, their conversation is chiefly remarkable for the summariness of… — William James Copy Share Image
If the topic be highly abstract, show its nature by concrete examples. If it be unfamiliar, trace some point of analogy in… — 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
