All William James Quotes
- As a rule reading fiction is as hard to me as trying to hit a target by hurling feathers at it. I need resistance to… Book
- Religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight, or in a mountain gorge. Awe
- A Beethoven string-quartet is truly, as some one has said, a scraping of horses' tails on cats' bowels, and may be exhaustively described in such… Applicability
- It is only in the lonely emergencies of life that our creed is tested: then routine maxims fail, and we fall back on our gods. Creed
- Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up. Despair
- Experience, as we know, has a way of boiling over, and making us correct our present formulas. Boiling
- Man, biologically considered ... is simply the most formidable of all beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own… All
- Science herself consults her heart when she lays it down that the infinite ascertainment of fact and correction of false belief are the supreme goods… Belief
- So far war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war… Been
- The unrest which keeps the never stopping clock of metaphysics going is the thought that the nonexistence of this world is just as possible as… Clock
- Millions of items in the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest… Agree
- From a pragmatic point of view, the difference between living against a background of foreigness (an indifferent Universe) and one of intimacy (a benevolent Universe)… Background
- To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind. Background
- The general law is that no mental modification ever occurs which is not accompanied or followed by a bodily change. Accompanied
- Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive. Alive
- Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract, be they facts or be they principles, under penalty of endless inconsistency and… Abstract
- The man whose acquisitions stick is the man who is always achieving and advancing whilst his neighbors, spending most of their time in relearning what… Accomplishment
- The belief in free-will is not in the least incompatible with the belief in Providence, provided you do not restrict the Providence to fulminating nothing… Belief
- As Charles Lamb says, there is nothing so nice as doing good by stealth and being found out by accident, so I now say it… Accident
- The thinker philosophizes as the lover loves. Even were the consequences not only useless but harmful, he must obey his impulse. Consequence