black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the ‘pure’ experience. It is only virtually or potentially either object or subject as yet.

William James

The discovery of the power of our thoughts will prove to be the most important discovery of our time
WILLIAM JAMES

Discovery Important Positive
To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.
WILLIAM JAMES

Blessed Deception Giving Up
As long as there are postmen, life will have zest.
WILLIAM JAMES

Expectations Long Zest
A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.
WILLIAM JAMES

Change Dream Inspirational
The true’to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as ‘the right’ is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.
WILLIAM JAMES

Briefly Thinking True Way
All natural goods perish. Riches take wings; fame is a breath; love is a cheat; youth and health and pleasure vanish.
WILLIAM JAMES

Health Love Wings
Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.
WILLIAM JAMES

Becoming Gone Instant
A new opinion counts as true just in proportion as it gratifies the individual’s desire to assimilate the novel in his experience to his beliefs in stock
WILLIAM JAMES

Belief Desire Truth
The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.
WILLIAM JAMES

Math Passion Union
Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day.
WILLIAM JAMES

Effort Exercise Life Love
In all primary school work the principle of multiple impressions is well recognized.
WILLIAM JAMES

Educational Philosophy School
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
The most peculiar social self which one is apt to have is in the mind of the person one is in love with.
WILLIAM JAMES

Mind Peculiar Self
The greatest weapon we have to combat stress is the ability to choose our thoughts.
WILLIAM JAMES

Combat Stress Weapons
Science, like life, feeds on its own decay. New facts burst old rules; then newly divined conceptions bind old and new together into a reconciling law.
WILLIAM JAMES

Law Science Together
Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive.
WILLIAM JAMES

Alive Attitude Authenticity
Truth for us is simply a collective name for verification processes
WILLIAM JAMES

Names Process Truth
The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as the sculptor works on his block of stone.
WILLIAM JAMES

Block Data Mind
An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
WILLIAM JAMES

Ethics Philosophical Quality
True to her inveterate habit, rationalism reverts to ‘principles,’ and thinks that when an abstraction once is named, we own an oracular solution.
WILLIAM JAMES

Habit Principles Thinking
When thoughts do not neutralize an undesirable emotion, action will.
WILLIAM JAMES

Action Emotion Inspiration
Most men have a good memory for facts connected with their own pursuits.
WILLIAM JAMES

Educational Memories Philosophy
With no attempt there can be no failure; with no failure no humiliation.
WILLIAM JAMES

Attempt Failure Humiliation No
Once you accept an idea, it’s an idea whose time has come.
WILLIAM JAMES

Accepting Daring Ideas
[Religion is] the attempt to be in harmony with an unseen order of things.
WILLIAM JAMES

Grace Order Unseen
Genius is the capacity for seeing relationships where lesser men see none.
WILLIAM JAMES

Capacity Genius Men
On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.
WILLIAM JAMES

God Principles Theism

The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the ‘pure’ experience. It is only virtually or potentially either object or subject as yet.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the ‘pure’ experience. It is only virtually or potentially either object or subject as yet.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More William James Quotes