Famous William James Quotations

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"If you want a quality, act as if you already had it."
by William James
"Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune."
by William James
"The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated."
by William James
"The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community."
by William James
"A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him."
by William James
"There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self."
by William James
"This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it."
by William James
"To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified."
by William James
"To spend life for something which outlasts it."
by William James
"We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable."
by William James
"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!"
by William James
"I will act as if what I do makes a difference."
by William James
"Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another."
by William James
"Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly."
by William James
"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."
by William James
"Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver."
by William James
"Only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom."
by William James
"Our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout."
by William James
"Much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way men take the phenomenon. It can so often be converted into a bracing and tonic good by a simple change of the sufferer's inner attitude from one of fear to one of fight; its string can so often depart and turn into a relish when, after vainly seeking to shun it, we agree to face about and bear it..."
by William James
"It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome."
by William James
"If any organism fails to fulfill its potentialities, it becomes sick."
by William James
"Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives."
by William James
"Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice."
by William James
"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."
by William James
"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."
by William James
"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does."
by William James
"Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune."
by William James
"Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact."
by William James
"The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it."
by William James
"Begin to be now what you will be hereafter."
by William James
"Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact."
by William James
"Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results."
by William James
"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."
by William James
"'Pure experience' is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories."
by William James
"[D]o every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty, so that, when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test."
by William James
"A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain."
by William James
"A genius is the man in whom you are least likely to find the power of attending to anything insipid or distasteful in itself. He breaks his engagements, leaves his letters unanswered, neglects his family duties incorrigibly, because he is powerless to turn his attention down and back from those more interesting trains of imagery with which his genius constantly occupies his mind."
by William James
"A great many people think they are thinking when they are rearranging theirprejudices."
by William James
"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely re-arranging their prejudices."
by William James
"Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action."
by William James
"An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible."
by William James
"As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use."
by William James
"Belief creates the actual fact."
by William James
"Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me."
by William James
"Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake."
by William James
"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."
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."
by William James
"Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible."
by William James
"Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way."
by William James
"Genius means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way."
by William James
"Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed."
by William James
"He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed."
by William James
"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."
by William James
"Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind."
by William James
"Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendship and intimacies, and soon their places will know them no more, and yet they leave their friendships and intimacies with no cultivation, to grow as they will by the roadside, expecting them to 'keep' by force of inertia."
by William James
"I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of pride."
by William James
"I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capil"
by William James
"I believe there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with a fixed belief that certain kinds of phenomena are impossible."
by William James
"I don't sing because I'm happy; I'm happy because I sing."
by William James
"I don't see how an epigram, being a bolt from the blue, with no introduction or cue, ever gets itself writ"
by William James
"If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience."
by William James
"If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door."
by William James
"If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it."
by William James
"If you want a quality, act as if you already had it. Try the 'as if' technique."
by William James
"If you want a quality, act as if you already had it. Try the ''as if'' technique."
by William James
"In business for yourself, not by yourself."
by William James
"In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start."
by William James
"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."
by William James
"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."
by William James
"It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."
by William James
"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."
by William James
"Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference."
by William James
"Man can alter his life by altering his thinking."
by William James
"Man lives for science as well as bread."
by William James
"Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."
by William James
"Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second. Give your dreams all you’ve got and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you!!"
by William James
"Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his lttle finger. Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed."
by William James
"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."
by William James
"Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task."
by William James
"Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task"
by William James
"Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul None is more gladdening or fruitful than to know You can regenerate and make yourself what you will."
by William James
"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."
by William James
"Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that assures the successful outcome of any venture."
by William James
"Our faith is faith in someone else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case."
by William James
"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."
by William James
"Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible; we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can. We patch and tinker more than we renew. The novelty soaks in; it stains the ancient mass; but it is also tinged by what absorbs it."
by William James
"Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power."
by William James
"Religion, whatever it is, is a man's total reaction upon life."
by William James
"Religion is the monumental chapter in the history of human egotism."
by William James
"Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism."
by William James
"Same old slippers, Same old rice, Same old glimpse of paradise."
by William James Lampton
"Spiritual energy flows in and produces effects in the phenomenal world."
by William James
"Success plus Self-esteem equals Pretensions."
by William James
"The 'I think' which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the 'I breathe' which actually does accompany them."
by William James
"The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one."
by William James
"The art of becoming wise is the art of knowing what to overlook."
by William James
"The best use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts life."
by William James
"The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one."
by William James
"The difference between a good man and a bad man is the choice of cause."
by William James
"The essence of genius is to know what to overlook."
by William James


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