An impression which simply flows in at the pupil's eyes or ears and in no way modifies his active life, is an… — 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
The philosophy which is so important in each of us is not a technical matter; it is our more or less dumb… — William James Copy Share Image
Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and… — 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
Men's activities are occupied into ways -- in grappling with external circumstances and in striving to set things at one in their… — William James Copy Share Image
The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own particular ways of being happy, provided those ways… — William James Copy Share Image
It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic… — William James Copy Share Image
Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation. There is in… — William James Copy Share Image
The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite,… — William James Copy Share Image
Life is one long struggle between conclusions based on abstract ways of conceiving cases, and opposite conclusions prompted by our instinctive perception… — William James Copy Share Image
Regarding mutual tolerance: It is negative in one sense, but positive in another. It absolutely forbids us to be forward in pronouncing… — William James Copy Share Image
[Pragmatism's] only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life… — William James Copy Share Image
What interest, zest, or excitement can there be in achieving the right way, unless we are enabled to feel that the wrong… — William James Copy Share Image
So you see that the process of education, taken in a large way, may be described as nothing but the process of… — William James Copy Share Image
Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to… — William James Copy Share Image
If, then, you wish to insure the interest of your pupils, there is only one way to do it; and that is… — William James Copy Share Image
Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way. — William James Copy Share Image
What do believers in the Absolute mean by saving that their belief affords them comfort? They mean that since in the Absolute… — William James Copy Share Image
Every way of classifying a thing is but a way of handling it for some particular purpose. — William James Copy Share Image
A great idea goes through three stages on its way to acceptance: 1) it is dismissed as nonsense, 2) it is acknowledged… — William James Copy Share Image
Romeo wants Juliet as the filings want the magnet; and if no obstacles intervene he moves towards her by as straight a… — William James Copy Share Image
I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the most interesting and important… — William James Copy Share Image
The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this… — 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
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