William James
All religions begin with the cry Help.Collection: Religion
Man's chief difference from the brutes lies in the exuberant excess of his subjective propensities. Prune his extravagance, sober him, and you undo him.Collection: Lying
The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it." "This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it." "Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.Collection: Inspirational Life
Individuality is founded in feelingCollection: Inspirational
No living person is sunk so low as not to be imitated by somebody.Collection: Failure
If it works, it's true.Collection: Working It
To leap across an abyss, one is better served by faith than doubt.Collection: Faith
[Religion is] the attempt to be in harmony with an unseen order of things.Collection: Order
We do not sing because we are happy, we are happy because we sing.Collection: Inspirational
Modern man . . . has not ceased to be credulous . . . the need to believe haunts him.Collection: Believe
In the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible.Collection: Strong
Life is one long struggle between conclusions based on abstract ways of conceiving cases, and opposite conclusions prompted by our instinctive perception of them.Collection: Respect
If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it. Only you must, then, really wish these things, and wish them exclusively, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.Collection: Wish
If you give appreciation to people, you win their goodwill.Collection: Appreciation
Fear of life in one form or another is the great thing to exorcise.Collection: Form
Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.Collection: Philosophy
The love of life, at any and every level of development, is the religious impulse.Collection: Religious
Men habitually use only a small part of the power which they actually possess.Collection: Men
When a thing is new, people say: ‘It is not true.’ Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say: ‘It is not important.’ Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say: ‘Anyway, it is not new.Collection: People
The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude.Collection: Personal Growth
Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.Collection: About Life
Real servants don’t try to use God for their purposes. They let God use them for His purposes.Collection: Real
There is a voice inside which speaks and says, “This is the real me!”Collection: Real
Life feels like a real fight – as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfulnesses, are needed to redeem.Collection: Real
The old question of whether there is design is idle. The real question is what is the world, whether or not it have a designer – and that can be revealed only by the study of all nature’s particulars.Collection: Real
If there is aught of good in the style, it is the result of ceaseless toil in rewriting. Everything comes out wrong with me at first; but when once objectified I can torture and poke and scrape and pat it till it offends me no more.Collection: Firsts
It is so human a book that I don’t see how belief in its divine authority can survive the reading of it.Collection: Book
To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else’s type of thinking.Collection: Real