William James Quotes

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

  William James

  Topics in Leadership

  Tags in Attain, Care

• Belief creates the actual fact.

  William James

  Topics in Belief, Inspirational

  Tags in Faith

• This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Worth, Make, Living

• The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Spend, Outlast, Great

• Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.

  William James

  Topics in Humor

  Tags in Different, Common

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

  William James

  Topics in Belief

  Tags in Theoretically, Doubt, Possible, Faith

• Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequence of any misfortune.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Acceptance

• 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

• Old age has the last word: the purely naturalistic look at life, however enthusiastically it may begin, is sure to end in sadness. . . . This sadness lies at the heart of every merely positivist, agnostic, or naturalistic scheme of philosophy.

  William James

  Topics in Age, Funny

  Tags in Naturalistic

• Footnotes, the little dogs yapping at the heels of the text.

  William James

  Tags in Writers And Writing

• The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.

  William James

  Tags in Gratitude, Fulfillment

• Genius means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

  William James

  Topics in Genius

  Tags in Creativity

• But actions originally prompted by conscious intelligence may grow so automatic by dint of habit as to be apparently unconsciously performed. Standing, walking, buttoning and unbuttoning, piano-playing, talking, even saying one’s prayers, may be done when the mind is absorbed in other things. The performances of animal instinct seem semi-automatic, and the reflex acts of self-preservation certainly are so. Yet they resemble intelligent acts in bringing about the same ends at which the animals’ consciousness, on other occasions, deliberately aims.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Intuition, Habit

• Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create that fact.

  William James

  Topics in Inspirational, Life

  Tags in Afraid, Creed, Credo

• To change one’s life:
  1. Start immediately.
  2. Do it flamboyantly.
  3. No exceptions.

  William James

  Topics in Inspirational, Life

  Tags in Now, Change/Growth, Enthusiasm

• Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Philosophy

• If a man’s good for nothing else, he can at least teach philosophy.

  William James

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Philosophy

• A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

  William James

  Topics in Wisdom

  Tags in Prejudice, Thinking, Opinions

• Religion, whatever it is, is a man’s total reaction upon life.

  William James

  Topics in Life, Religion

  Tags in Men

• A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.

  William James

  Topics in Service

  Tags in Chain, Link

William James (125)

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

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