William James Quotes

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

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Fatiguing

• 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!

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Lengthy, Universe

• It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has been set like plaster, and will never soften again.

  William James

  Topics in Age

  Tags in Thirty, Most

• There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man’s lack of faith in his true Self.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Lack, Self

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

  William James

  Topics in Belief

  Tags in Theoretically, Doubt, Possible, Faith

• The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Immortal, Argument

• Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Supreme, Price

• The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Sovereign, Prayer

• Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Done, Everything

• 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.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Act, Every

• 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.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Uncharitable, Enemies

• 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.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Habit, Think

• Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Overlook, Learning

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

  William James

  Topics in College

  Tags in Good Man, Teach

• Individuality is founded in feeling; and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Recesses, Done

• In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Dim, Doing

• Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Least, Hates

• We don’t laugh because we’re happy – we’re happy because we laugh.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Because, Happy

• 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.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Recover, Happiness

• Truths emerge from facts, but they dip forward into facts again and add to them; which facts again create or reveal new truth (the word is indifferent) and so on indefinitely. The ‘facts’ themselves meanwhile are not true. They simply are. Truth is the function of the beliefs that start and terminate among them.

  William James

  Topics in Belief, Truth

  Tags in Facts

William James (125)

Birth:	11th January, 1842
Death:	26th August, 1910
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Philosopher, Psychologist

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