black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to hear.

William James

We hear the words we have spoken, feel our own blow as we give it, or read in the bystander’s eyes the success or failure of our conduct.
WILLIAM JAMES

Bystanders Eye Teaching
If merely ‘feeling good’ could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.
WILLIAM JAMES

Alcohol Feel Feelings Good
[Religion is] the attempt to be in harmony with an unseen order of things.
WILLIAM JAMES

Grace Order Unseen
For the moment, what we attend to is reality.
WILLIAM JAMES

Attend Moments Reality
… the intellect, everywhere invasive, shows everywhere its shallowing effect.
WILLIAM JAMES

Effects Intellect Shows
The education of attention would be an education par excellence
WILLIAM JAMES

Attention Education Excellence
A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith’s usual result.
WILLIAM JAMES

Inward Paradise Usual
We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all.
WILLIAM JAMES

Book Cat Conservations Dog
Truth, as any dictionary will tell you, is a property of certain of our ideas. It means their agreement, as falsity means their disagreement, with reality.
WILLIAM JAMES

Mean Reality Truth
Wisdom is learning what to overlook.
WILLIAM JAMES

Learning Philosophical Wisdom
When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.
WILLIAM JAMES

Decision Order Responsibility
So it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young birds take to the sky.
WILLIAM JAMES

Children Effortless Reading Sky
A man with no philosophy in him is the most inauspicious and unprofitable of all possible social mates.
WILLIAM JAMES

Men Philosophy Social
With no attempt there can be no failure; with no failure no humiliation.
WILLIAM JAMES

Attempt Failure Humiliation No
Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation.
WILLIAM JAMES

Facts Philosophy Way
Real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not by dislikes and disdains; under all misleading wrappings it pounces unerringly upon the human core.
WILLIAM JAMES

Culture Life Real

Our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to hear.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to hear.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More William James Quotes