William James was an American philosopher and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. Profoundly inspirational William James quotes will challenge the way you think, and help guide you through any life experience.
If you’re searching for meaningful philosopher quotes that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of amazing Bertrand Russell quotes, top Diogenes quotes and quotes from Montesquieu.
Famous William James Quotes
There is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough. William James
Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. William James
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. William James
The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook. William James
To change one’s life 1. Start immediately. 2. Do it flamboyantly. 3. No exceptions. William James
We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep. William James
The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. William James
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. William James
We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep. William James
The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude. William James
Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task. William James
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
There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man’s lack of faith in his true self. William James
Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, This is the real me, and when you have found that attitude, follow it. William James
The greatest use of a life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. William James
Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact. William James
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune. William James
If you can change your mind, you can change your life. William James
If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system. William James
The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. William James
The mind is made up by what it feeds upon. William James
The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. William James
There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. William James
Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task. William James
Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact. William James
Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude. William James
You may not get everything you dream about, but you will never get anything you don’t dream about. William James
I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny, invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man’s pride. William James
Most unhappiness is caused because people listen to themselves instead of talking to themselves. William James
To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds. William James
As we take, in fact, a general view of the wonderful stream of our consciousness, what strikes us first is this different pace of its parts. William James
Anything you may hold firmly in your imagination can be yours. William James
This absolute determinability of our mind by abstractions is one of the cardinal facts in our human constitution. William James
Good humor is a philosophic state of mind; it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us. I maintain that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile. William James
Properly they are but one protracted consciousness, one unbroken stream. William James
Our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to hear. William James
There is but one indefectibly certain truth, and that is the truth that pyrrhonistic skepticism itself leaves standing, the truth that the present phenomenon of consciousness exists. William James
If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system. William James
The total possible consciousness may be split into parts which co exist but mutually ignore each other. William James
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
The whole universe of concrete objects, as we know them, swims in a wider and higher universe of abstract ideas, that lend it its significance. William James
Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives. William James
The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist. William James
Procrastination is attitude’s natural assassin. There’s nothing so fatiguing as an uncompleted task. William James
The drunken consciousness is one bit of the mystic consciousness, and our total opinion of it must find its place in our opinion of that larger whole. William James
My experience is what I agree to attend to. William James
Man lives in only one small room of the enormous house of his consciousness. William James
Beyond the very extremity of fatigue distress, amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves to own, sources of strength habitually not taxed at all, because habitually we never push through the obstruction. William James
By being religious we establish ourselves in possession of ultimate reality at the only points at which reality is given us to guard. Our responsible concern is with our private destiny, after all. William James
Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendships and intimacies and yet they leave their friendships and intimacies with no cultivation, to grow as they will by the roadside, expecting them to keep by force of mere inertia. William James
If there were such a thing as inspiration from a higher realm, it might well be that the neurotic temperament would furnish the chief condition of the requisite receptivity. William James
A great nation is not saved by wars, it is saved by acts without external picturesqueness; by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by smiting corruption swiftly; by good temper between parties; by the people knowing true men when they see them, and preferring them as leaders to rabid partisans and empty quacks. William James
When we survey the whole field of religion, we find a great variety in the thoughts that have prevailed there; but the feelings on the one hand and the conduct on the other are almost always the same. William James
If merely feeling good could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience. William James
The highest flights of charity, devotion, trust, patience, bravery to which the wings of human nature have spread themselves have been flown for religious ideals. William James
Actions seems to follow feeling, but really actions and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not. Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. William James
There are two lives, the natural and the spiritual, and we must lose the one before we can participate in the other. William James
We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. We postpone and postpone until those smiling possibilities are dead. By neglecting the necessary concrete labor, by sparing ourselves the little daily tax, we are positively digging the graves of our higher possibilities. William James
The word divine shall mean only such a primal reality as the individual feels impelled to respond to solemnly and gravely. William James
If any organism fails to fulfill its potentialities, it becomes sick. William James
The theorizing mind tends always to the oversimplification of its materials. William James
Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another. William James
We need a kind of good that will not perish, a good in fact that flies beyond the goods of nature. William James
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
Like every other instinctive eagerness and impulse, religion adds to life an enchantment which is not rationally or logically deducible from anything else. William James
There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. William James
Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives. William James
The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one. William James
Successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. William James
Why should we think upon things that are lovely Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings. William James
Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice. William James
When a thing is new, people say It is not true. Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say It is not important. Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say Anyway, it is not new. William James
There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy minded individual. William James
A sense of humor is just common sense dancing. William James
The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck. William James
There are two lives, the natural and the spiritual, and we must lose the one before we can participate in the other. 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
I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather I fear to lose truth by the pretension to possess it already wholly. William James
Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. William James
The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal. William James
A winner’s attitude it may be difficult, but it’s possible. A loser’s attitude It may be possible, but it’s too difficult. William James
A man has as many social selves as there are distinct groups of persons about whose opinion he cares. He generally shows a different side of himself to each of these different groups. William James
Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed. William James
It would probably astound each of us beyond measure to be let into his neighbors mind and to find how different the scenery was there from that of his own. William James
Positive images of the future are a powerful and magnetic force. William James
I don’t sing because I’m happy. I’m happy because I sing. William James
Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity. William James
If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn’t seek to show that no crows are; it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white. William James
We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. William James
Your hopes, dreams and aspirations are legitimate. They are trying to take you airborne, above the clouds, above the storms, if you only let them. William James
The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. William James
If this life is not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight. William James
There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it. William James
Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit. William James
When a thing is new, people say It is not true. Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say It is not important. Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say Anyway, it is not new. William James
It does not follow, because our ancestors made so many errors of fact and mixed them with their religion, that we should therefore leave off being religious at all. By being religious we establish ourselves in possession of ultimate reality at the only points at which reality is given us to guard. Our responsible concern is with our private destiny, after all. William James
Give your dreams all you’ve got, and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you. William James
Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto. William James
The minute a man ceases to grow, no matter what his years, that minute he begins to be old. William James
The perfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence. The darkness held a presence that was all the more felt because it was not seen. I could not any more have doubted that HE was there than that I was. Indeed, I felt myself to be, if possible, the less real of the two. William James
Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly and you will be amazed at the positive results. William James
Philosophy, beginning in wonder, as Plato and Aristotle said, is able to fancy everything different from what it is. It sees the familiar as if it were strange, and the strange as if it were familiar. It can take things up and lay them down again. It rouses us from our native dogmatic slumber and breaks up our caked prejudices. William James
Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact. William James
The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers. William James
All natural goods perish. Riches take wings; fame is a breath; love is a cheat; youth and health and pleasure vanish. William James
Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not. Williams James
