William James Quotes | GloryQuotes

William James Quotes About Life

These then are my last words to you. Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.

The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.

Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.

This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.

The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.

William James Quotes About Philosophy

The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.

There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.

What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise although the philosophers generally call it recognition!

More Quotes by William James

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self.

The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of revelation.

The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

Our faith is faith in someone else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case.

If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

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.

If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.

In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start.

It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.

Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not.

Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.

We don't laugh because we're happy - we're happy because we laugh.

Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.

A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.

Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second.

Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.

Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise.

We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.

If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.

To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one's being added to that being.

Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.

Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.

When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.

Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.

Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.

Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.

Browse 106 quotes attributed to William James, listed in the source data as a American Philosopher, organized around themes such as Life, Philosophy, Honesty. Use the topic links to explore similar quotes, or browse the full author collection in one place.