Religion must be considered vindicated in a certain way from the attacks of her critics. — William James Copy Share Image
Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation. — 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
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
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
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
So far war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I… — 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
...By far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions… — 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
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
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
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
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
Much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way men take the phenomenon. It can so often be converted… — 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
I have often thought the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral… — William James Copy Share Image
A Beethoven string-quartet is truly, as some one has said, a scraping of horses' tails on cats' bowels, and may be exhaustively… — 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
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
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
The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is mean and ugly. What can be more base and unworthy than the… — 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
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
We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and as carefully guard against… — 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
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
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
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
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
The true'to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only… — William James Copy Share Image
Experience, as we know, has a way of boiling over, and making us correct our present formulas. — William James Copy Share Image
There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise. — William James Copy Share Image
Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way. — William James Copy Share Image
We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient idealization of poverty could have meant: the liberation from material attachments,… — William James Copy Share Image
Emotional occasions, especially violent ones, are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive ways in which love, jealousy, guilt,… — 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
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
![“[Pragmatism's] only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity of experience's demands, nothing being omitted.” quote by William James](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/072/william-james-228_art-of-life_pragmatism-s-only-test-of-probable-truth_942773.jpg)
