William James Quotes

511 quotes in 4990 categories

• Most men have a good memory for facts connected with their own pursuits.
• In all primary school work the principle of multiple impressions is well recognized.
• The art of remembering is the art of thinking. When we wish to fix a new thing in either our own mind or a pupil's,…
• Be patient and sympathetic with the type of mind that cuts a poor figure in examinations. It may, in the long examination which life sets…
• In all this process of acquiring conceptions, a certain instinctive order is followed. There is a native tendency to assimilate certain kinds of conception at…
• Feed the growing human being, feed him with the sort of experience for which from year to year he shows a natural craving, and he…
• The gist of the matter is this: Every impression that comes in from without, be it a sentence which we hear, an object of vision,…
• Volition . . . takes place only when there are a number of conflicting systems of ideas, and depends on our having a complex field…
• You perceive now, my friends, what your general or abstract duty is as teachers. Although you have to generate in your pupils a large stock…
• Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have; and, second, on the habitual coupling of the several…
• The exercise of voluntary attention in the schoolroom must therefore be counted one of the most important points of training that take place there; and…
• Considering the inner fitness of things, one would rather think that the very first act of a will endowed with freedom should be to sustain…
• Give your dreams all you've got, and you'll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.
• So it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young…
• It is as important to cultivate your silence power as your word power.
• If an unusual necessity forces us onward, a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain point, when, gradually or suddenly, it…
• Only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.
• Events are influenced by our very great desires.
• The more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble because…
• There is but one unconditional commandment ... to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.

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