There is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account… — William James Copy Share Image
The truth remains that, after adolescence has begun, "words, words, words," must constitute a large part, and an always larger part as… — William James Copy Share Image
“We must know the truth; and we must avoid error,--these are our first and great commandments as would-be knowers; but they are… — William James Copy Share Image
Theory must mediate between all previous truths and certain new experiences — William James Copy Share Image
We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood. — William James Copy Share Image
To consider hypotheses is surely always better than to dogmatize ins blaue hinein — William James Copy Share Image
Far from being antecedent principles that animate the process, law, language, truth are but abstract names for its results. — William James Copy Share Image
I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather I fear to lose truth by the pretension to possess it… — William James Copy Share Image
“Moral scepticism can no more be refuted or proved by logic than intellectual scepticism can. When we stick to it that there… — William James Copy Share Image
“See the exquisite contrast of the types of mind! The pragmatist clings to facts and concreteness, observes truth at its work in… — William James Copy Share Image
In the last analysis, then, we believe that we all know and think about and talk about the same world because we… — William James Copy Share Image
The ultimate test of what a truth means is the conduct it dictates or inspires. — William James Copy Share Image
... no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp. — William James Copy Share Image
“It never occurs to most of us .. that the question 'what is the truth' is no real question (being irrelative to… — William James Copy Share Image
True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot — 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
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
... if we take the universe of 'fitting,' countless coats 'fit' backs, and countless boots 'fit' feet, on which they are not… — William James Copy Share Image
An experience, perceptual or conceptual, must conform to reality in order to be true — William James Copy Share Image
“I, therefore, for one, cannot see my way to accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking, or wilfully agree to keep my willing… — William James Copy Share Image
True is the name for whatever idea starts the verification process, useful is the name for its completed function in experience — 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
