Quotes By William James

Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not.

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

If any organism fails to fulfill its potentialities, it becomes sick.

Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.

If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.

When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.

Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.

It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.

To spend life for something which outlasts it.

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.

Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.

The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.

The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.

There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.

Time itself comes in drops.

The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.

The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.

Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.