black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Our beliefs are really rules for action.

William James

We with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest… But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground.
WILLIAM JAMES

Islands Roots Sea Underground
Both thought and feeling are determinants of conduct, and the same conduct may be determined either by feeling or by thought.
WILLIAM JAMES

Determine Feelings May
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 most immutable barrier in nature is between one man’s thoughts and another’s.
WILLIAM JAMES

Barriers Immutable Men
Facts’ are the bounds of human knowledge, set for it, not by it.
WILLIAM JAMES

Facts Knowledge Science
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
Religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight, or in a mountain gorge.
WILLIAM JAMES

Mountain Religious Twilight
We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves.
WILLIAM JAMES

Habit Past Self
True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot
WILLIAM JAMES

Ideas Truth Verify
Man alone of all the creatures of earth can change his own pattern. Man alone is the architect of his own destiny.
WILLIAM JAMES

Destiny Men Tree
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

All Fields Instant Time
But facts are facts, and if we only get enough of them theyare sure to combine.
WILLIAM JAMES

Combine Enough Fact Facts
In the matter of belief, we are all extreme conservatives.
WILLIAM JAMES

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

Math Passion Union
The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.
WILLIAM JAMES

Philosophical Prayer Worry
All religions begin with the cry Help.
WILLIAM JAMES

Cry Helping Religion

Our beliefs are really rules for action.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Our beliefs are really rules for action.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More William James Quotes