William James quote: "Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make very small use of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger."

Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common ha...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.
WILLIAM JAMES

Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic current...
WILLIAM JAMES

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perce...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

I am against bigness and greatness in all their forms, and with the invisible molecular moral forces...
WILLIAM JAMES

The most violent revolutions in an individuals beliefs leave most of his old order standing. Time an...
WILLIAM JAMES

If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then y...
WILLIAM JAMES

Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of co...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

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

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

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

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
WILLIAM JAMES

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

If you want a trait, act as if you already have the trait.
WILLIAM JAMES

I will act as if what I do makes a difference.
WILLIAM JAMES

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of ...
WILLIAM JAMES

Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the act...
WILLIAM JAMES

Footnotes -- little dogs yapping at the heels of the text
WILLIAM JAMES

What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise -- although the ph...
WILLIAM JAMES

We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.
WILLIAM JAMES

We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. We p...
WILLIAM JAMES

Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.
WILLIAM JAMES

For morality life is a war, and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which also...
WILLIAM JAMES

I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those t...
WILLIAM JAMES

We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simpl...
WILLIAM JAMES

Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of thei...
WILLIAM JAMES

Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of o...
WILLIAM JAMES

Whenever two people meet there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, ...
WILLIAM JAMES

Everyone knows that on any given day there are energies slumbering in him which the incitement's of ...
WILLIAM JAMES

If any organism fails to fulfill its potentialities, it becomes sick.
WILLIAM JAMES

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

A little cooling down of animal excitability and instinct, a little loss of animal toughness, a litt...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the most int...
WILLIAM JAMES

Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.
WILLIAM JAMES

As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, c...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

Success plus Self-esteem equals Pretensions.
WILLIAM JAMES

The further limits of our being plunge, it seems to me, into an altogether other dimension of existe...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

We, the lineal representatives of the successful enactors of one scene of slaughter after another, m...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical facult...
WILLIAM JAMES

Belief creates the actual fact.
WILLIAM JAMES

As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.
WILLIAM JAMES

Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their ...
WILLIAM JAMES

The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their...
WILLIAM JAMES

Men's activities are occupied into ways -- in grappling with external circumstances and in striving ...
WILLIAM JAMES

Much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way men take the phenomenon. It can so often be con...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

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

If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained... it is no better than a g...
WILLIAM JAMES

I have often thought the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular me...
WILLIAM JAMES

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaste...
WILLIAM JAMES

If you want a quality, act as if you already had it. Try the as if technique.
WILLIAM JAMES

A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes...
WILLIAM JAMES

Often quoted in forms that correspond only loosely to Hugo's original words, for example: No army ca...
WILLIAM JAMES

Give up the feeling of responsibility, let go your hold, resign the care of your destiny to higher p...
WILLIAM JAMES

Events are influenced by our very great desires.
WILLIAM JAMES

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

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for ...
WILLIAM JAMES

To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.
WILLIAM JAMES

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

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

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

I am often confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves and relinquishing t...
WILLIAM JAMES

Failure, then, failure! so the world stamps us at every turn. We strew it with our blunders, our mis...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

Our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our...
WILLIAM JAMES

Millions of items in the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my e...
WILLIAM JAMES

Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for hero...
WILLIAM JAMES

Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is w...
WILLIAM JAMES

We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can...in the...
WILLIAM JAMES

The minute a man ceases to grow, no matter what his years, that minute he begins to be old.
WILLIAM JAMES

Act in earnest and you will become earnest in all you do.
WILLIAM JAMES

There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy-minded individual.
WILLIAM JAMES

We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. We p...
WILLIAM JAMES

Smitten as we are with the vision of social righteousness, a God indifferent to everything but adula...
WILLIAM JAMES

Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an inhabitual way.
WILLIAM JAMES

Fatalism, whose solving word in all crises of behavior is All striving is vain, will never reign sup...
WILLIAM JAMES

Only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.
WILLIAM JAMES

Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the conseq...
WILLIAM JAMES

We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities; it is only the particular ass that does so who...
WILLIAM JAMES

Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he f...
WILLIAM JAMES

From a pragmatic point of view, the difference between living against a background of foreigness (an...
WILLIAM JAMES

Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price o...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

Every time a resolve or fine glow of feeling evaporates without bearing fruit, it is worse than a ch...
WILLIAM JAMES

No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments ma...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for our...
WILLIAM JAMES

Hardly ever can a youth transferred to the society of his betters unlearn the nasality and other vic...
WILLIAM JAMES

Individuality is founded in feeling; and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of char...
WILLIAM JAMES

To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.
WILLIAM JAMES

The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our c...
WILLIAM JAMES

There is a voice inside which speaks and says: This is the real me!
WILLIAM JAMES

Man lives for science as well as bread.
WILLIAM JAMES

The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is mean and ugly. What can be more base and unwo...
WILLIAM JAMES

It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all.
WILLIAM JAMES

When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material u...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appe...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

A cowboy is a man with guts and a horse.
WILLIAM JAMES

Act the part and you will become the part.
WILLIAM JAMES

Faith isn't faith until it's all you're holding on to
WILLIAM JAMES

When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all respon...
WILLIAM JAMES

The emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between d...
WILLIAM JAMES

These then are my last words to you. Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and yo...
WILLIAM JAMES

Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power
WILLIAM JAMES

There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.
WILLIAM JAMES

He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.
WILLIAM JAMES

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

To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them gratified.
WILLIAM JAMES

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

For morality life is a war, and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which a...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

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

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

Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether h...
WILLIAM JAMES

He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.
WILLIAM JAMES

Spiritual energy flows in and produces effects in the phenomenal world.
WILLIAM JAMES

Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendship and in...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices.
WILLIAM JAMES

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

There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saint...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they h...
WILLIAM JAMES

The 'I think' which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the 'I breath...
WILLIAM JAMES

The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholes...
WILLIAM JAMES

Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.
WILLIAM JAMES

Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.
WILLIAM JAMES

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

Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference betwe...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

I don't sing because I'm happy. I'm happy because I sing.
WILLIAM JAMES

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

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

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the ...
WILLIAM JAMES

It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our...
WILLIAM JAMES

The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner ...
WILLIAM JAMES

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor i...
WILLIAM JAMES

Beyond the very extremity of fatigue distress, amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourse...
WILLIAM JAMES

See the exquisite contrast of the types of mind! The pragmatist clings to facts and concreteness, ob...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this su...
WILLIAM JAMES

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical facult...
WILLIAM JAMES

One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on bo...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

Time itself comes in drops.
WILLIAM JAMES

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

The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is o...
WILLIAM JAMES

No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments ma...
WILLIAM JAMES

Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendship and in...
WILLIAM JAMES

A genius is the man in whom you are least likely to find the power of attending to anything insipid ...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

There is only one thing that a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that is, to contradict other ...
WILLIAM JAMES

We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the oppos...
WILLIAM JAMES

Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.
WILLIAM JAMES

The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his at...
WILLIAM JAMES

The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sym...
WILLIAM JAMES

The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy...
WILLIAM JAMES

Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself,...
WILLIAM JAMES

These, then are my last words to you: be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and ...
WILLIAM JAMES

The stream of thought flows on; but most of its segments fall into the bottomless abyss of oblivion....
WILLIAM JAMES

The most immutable barrier in nature is between one man's thoughts and another's.
WILLIAM JAMES

The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
WILLIAM JAMES

The great use of a life is to spend for something that outlasts it.
WILLIAM JAMES

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

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
WILLIAM JAMES

Whatever universe a professor believes in must at any rate be a universe that lends itself to length...
WILLIAM JAMES

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

How can the moribund old man reason back to himself the romance, the mystery, the imminence of great...
WILLIAM JAMES

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.
WILLIAM JAMES

To spend life for something which outlasts it.
WILLIAM JAMES

The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That - with the squ...
WILLIAM JAMES

If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you...
WILLIAM JAMES

The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.
WILLIAM JAMES

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to b...
WILLIAM JAMES

The path to cheerfulness is to sit cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already t...
WILLIAM JAMES

Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully ...
WILLIAM JAMES

Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendship and in...
WILLIAM JAMES

Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us.
WILLIAM JAMES

Do every day or two something for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the ...
WILLIAM JAMES

To change one's life: 1. Starte immediately, 2. Do it flamboyantly, 3. No exceptions. -William Jame...
WILLIAM JAMES

To change ones life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.
WILLIAM JAMES

Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along ...
WILLIAM JAMES

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible
WILLIAM JAMES

Ninety-nine hundredths or, possibly, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is pur...
WILLIAM JAMES

No human being ever learns to live until he has awakened to the dormant powers within him
WILLIAM JAMES

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

Tell him to live by yes and no -- yes to everything good, no to everything bad.
WILLIAM JAMES

William James

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