So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.
WILLIAM JAMESOur faith is faith in someone else’s faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case.
More William James Quotes
-
-
Asceticism may be a mere expression of organic hardihood, disgusted with too much ease.
WILLIAM JAMES -
Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
WILLIAM JAMES -
Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance.
WILLIAM JAMES -
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 -
An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
WILLIAM JAMES -
Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world.
WILLIAM JAMES -
For morality life is a war, and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which also calls for volunteers.
WILLIAM JAMES -
The ultimate test of what a truth means is the conduct it dictates or inspires.
WILLIAM JAMES -
We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.
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 -
Genius… means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
WILLIAM JAMES -
You may not get everything you dream about, but you will never get anything you don’t dream about.
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.
WILLIAM JAMES -
In business for yourself, not by yourself.
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.
WILLIAM JAMES