True to her inveterate habit, rationalism reverts to ‘principles,’ and thinks that when an abstraction once is named, we own an oracular solution.
WILLIAM JAMESThe mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as the sculptor works on his block of stone.
More William James Quotes
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Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions.
WILLIAM JAMES -
One of the greatest discoveries of our time is that a man can alter the state of their life by altering the state of their mind.
WILLIAM JAMES -
The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.
WILLIAM JAMES -
Truth is something that happens to an idea.
WILLIAM JAMES -
A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.
WILLIAM JAMES -
We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.
WILLIAM JAMES -
When thoughts do not neutralize an undesirable emotion, action will.
WILLIAM JAMES -
Footnotes — little dogs yapping at the heels of the text
WILLIAM JAMES -
At bottom, the whole concern of religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe.
WILLIAM JAMES -
Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
WILLIAM JAMES -
New habits can be launched.
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Once you accept an idea, it’s an idea whose time has come.
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Genius… means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
WILLIAM JAMES -
A man with no philosophy in him is the most inauspicious and unprofitable of all possible social mates.
WILLIAM JAMES -
The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.
WILLIAM JAMES