There is a voice inside which speaks and says: “This is the real me!”
—William James
Topics: Self-love, Love
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
—William James
Topics: Truth, Persuasion
Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.
—William James
Topics: Thinking
The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.
—William James
Topics: Genius
Failure, then, failure! so the world stamps us at every turn. We strew it with our blunders, our misdeeds, our lost opportunities, with all the memorials of our inadequacy to our vocation. And with what a damning emphasis does it then blot us out! No easy fine, no mere apology or formal expiation, will satisfy the world’s demands, but every pound of flesh exacted is soaked with all its blood. The subtlest forms of suffering known to man are connected with the poisonous humiliations incidental to these results.
—William James
Topics: Failure
Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
—William James
Topics: Adversity, Fortune, Misfortunes, Acceptance
Wisdom is learning what to overlook.
—William James
Topics: Wisdom
Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.
—William James
Topics: Effort, Action
We don’t laugh because we’re happy—we’re happy because we laugh.
—William James
Topics: Laughter
Smitten as we are with the vision of social righteousness, a God indifferent to everything but adulation, and full of partiality for his individual favorites, lacks an essential element of largeness.
—William James
Topics: God, Religion
Whenever two people meet there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.
—William James
Topics: Potential, Possibilities, Teamwork, Teams
As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.
—William James
Topics: Belief
Man, biologically considered, and whatever else he may be into the bargain, is the most formidable of all beasts of prey, and indeed, the only one who preys systematically on his own species.
—William James
Topics: Man
Act the part and you will become the part.
—William James
Topics: Act
Belief creates the actual fact.
—William James
Topics: Belief
It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
—William James
Topics: Faith
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
Topics: Reality
We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition.
—William James
Topics: Poverty
The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That – with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word ‘success’ – is our national disease.
—William James
Topics: Success & Failure, Success
Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.
—William James
Topics: Doing Your Best
Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
—William James
Topics: Dance, Humor
Faith is one of the forces by which men live; the total absence of it means collapse.
—William James
Topics: Faith, Belief
The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.
—William James
Topics: Facts
We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities; it is only the particular ass that does so whom we can’t tolerate.
—William James
Topics: Sincerity, Candor
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
Topics: Science
Every time a resolve or fine glow of feeling evaporates without bearing fruit, it is worse than a chance lost; it works to hinder future emotions from taking the normal path of discharge.
—William James
Topics: Emotions, Instincts
Men habitually use only a small part of the powers which they possess and which they might use under appropriate circumstances.
—William James
Topics: Difficulties, Adversity
It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult undertaking which, more than anything else, will determine its successful outcome.
—William James
Topics: Success, Beginnings, Attitude
Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that insures the successful outcome of our venture.
—William James
Topics: Positive Attitudes, Optimism
We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.
—William James
Topics: Truth, Change
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- John Dewey American Philosopher
- Charles Sanders Peirce American Philosopher
- George Santayana Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
- Eric Hoffer American Philosopher
- Robert Anton Wilson American Polymath
- Timothy Leary American Psychologist
- Mortimer J. Adler American Philosopher, Educator
- Michel Foucault French Philosopher
- Georges Bataille French Essayist, Intellectual
- Ludwig Wittgenstein Austrian-born British Philosopher
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