William James quotes page 3

All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.William James

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

Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts,
and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to
stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.William James

Tell him to live by yes and no - yes to everything good, no to everything bad.William James

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

There is no more contemptible type of human character than that of the nerveless
sentimentalist and dreamer who spends his life in a weltering sea of sensibility and emotion,
but who never does a manly concrete deed.William James

What an awful trade that of professor is - paid to talk, talk, talk! It would be an awful
universe if everything could be converted into words, words, words.William James

If any organism fails to fulfill its potentialities, it becomes sick.William James

So you see that the process of education, taken in a large way, may be described as nothing
but the process of acquiring ideas or conceptions, the best educated mind being the mind
which has the largest stock of them, ready to meet the largest possible variety of the
emergencies of life. The lack of education means only the failure to have acquired them, and
the consequent liability to be "floored" and "rattled" in the vicissitudes of experience.William James

Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.William James

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

Take the happiest man, the one most envied by the world, and in nine cases out of ten his
inmost consciousness is one of failure.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

We don't laugh because we're happy, we're happy because we laugh.William James

A man with no philosophy in him is the most inauspicious and unprofitable of all possible social
mates.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

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

If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of
it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always
willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed.William James