Do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty. — William James Copy Share Image
Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways: I will do somebody a good turn and not get found… — William James Copy Share Image
“Invention, using the term most broadly, and imitation, are the two legs, so to call them, on which the human race historically… — William James Copy Share Image
The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of… — William James Copy Share Image
Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the… — William James Copy Share Image
That reality is 'independent' means that there is something in every experience that escapes our arbitrary control. If it be a sensible… — William James Copy Share Image
The perfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence. The darkness held a presence that was all the… — William James Copy Share Image
Nature in her unfathomable designs had mixed us of clay and flame, of brain and mind, that the two things hang indubitably… — William James Copy Share Image
There are two lives, the natural and the spiritual, and we must lose the one before we can participate in the other. — William James Copy Share Image
Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting through becoming associated with an object in which an interest already exists. The… — William James Copy Share Image
Whatever universe a professor believes in must at any rate be a universe that lends itself to lengthy discourse. A universe definable… — William James Copy Share Image
Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice. — William James Copy Share Image
But it is the bane of psychology to suppose that where results are similar, processes must be the same. Psychologists are too… — 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
Social evolution is a resultant of the interaction of two wholly distinct factors: the individual ... bearing all the power of initiative… — William James Copy Share Image
An educated memory depends on an organized system of associations; and its goodness depends on two of their peculiarities: first, on the… — 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
