William James
An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.
There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise.
The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.
There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.
Time itself comes in drops.
The 'I think' which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the 'I breathe' which actually does accompany them.
One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling.
The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.
It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.
No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.
Our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout.
Our faith is faith in someone else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case.
We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.
If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.
Whatever universe a professor believes in must at any rate be a universe that lends itself to lengthy discourse. A universe definable in two sentences is something for which the professorial intellect has no use. No faith in anything of that cheap kind!
How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.
The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one.
In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start.
To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one's being added to that being.
Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.
What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise although the philosophers generally call it recognition!
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
We don't laugh because we're happy - we're happy because we laugh.
I don't sing because I'm happy; I'm happy because I sing.
Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.
There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.
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.
Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.
To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.
A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.
Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.
Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.
Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.
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.
Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.
Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.
Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.
The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.
Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.
To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from them any element that is directly experienced.
Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.
Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.
It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.
An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of revelation.