What do believers in the Absolute mean by saving that their belief affords them comfort? They mean that since in the Absolute finite evil is ‘overruled’ already, we may, therefore, whenever we wish, treat the temporal as if it were potentially the eternal, be sure that we can trust its outcome, and, without sin, dismiss our fear and drop the worry of our finite responsibility. In short, they mean that we have a right ever and anon to take a moral holiday, to let the world wag in its own way, feeling that its issues are in better hands than ours and are none of our business.
William James
Related I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES So, tomorrow, I'm leaving. And I'm not going to let that happen again with anyone else. I'm going to... STEPHEN CHBOSKY Dialectics gives expression to a law which is felt in all grades of consciousness and in general exp... GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL If we all look at life we think how nice, then we look at death and everybody goes oh you can say th... GARY F EVANS... Here is one fact 1 minute to finish the class, 1 day to die, one day behind that fact, one day in th... DEYTH BANGER Now is the only time we have, and the only time that we have any control over. RICHARD CARLSON The Biggest Threat to our Democracy, Freedoms and Future is Leadership that fosters and Appeases the... MICHAEL HARRIS Convinced that we're living the whole time that we're dying. We decide to go out walking the wh... TEGAN QUIN The two men had a conversation. Brief, cryptic, to the point. As though they had exchanged numbers a... ARUNDHATI ROY That's why we seize the moment try to freeze it and own it, squeeze it and hold it. EMINEM Food Allergies Are Not Due to Food, Rather Are Due to the Constant Contamination of That Food That Y... THEHEALTHFOODGURU The universe is so vast, so immense, we can never expect to explore it all. It is in effect, not so ... CHRISTINA ENGELA If you love someone you must set them free like the wind and give them the respect they deserve.If y... GARY F EVANS... Who are we? Where do we come from? Why are we this way and not some other? What does it mean to be h... DR. CARL SAGAN Now is the only time we have, and the only time we have any control over. RICHARD CARLSON He called out to his fellow monks,'Come quickly I am tasting stars. JOHN GREEN we sat there smoking cigarettes at 5 in the morning. CHARLES BUKOWSKI A couple of customers interrupted [...] who wanted to know if we had some YA book about ants and ali... SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON She was intimidating and all I could do was sit back on the couch as she paced back and forth, slowl... IN THE MAKING Each of us views life through a different lens. What we think is colored by the baggage we carry, an... LAURIE BUCHANAN, PHD In a single moment we can understand we are not just facing a knee pain, or our discouragement and o... SHARON SALZBERG What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is s... JOHN GREEN Pero diré esto: Cuando los científicos del futuro aparezcan en mi casa con ojos robot y me digan q... JOHN GREEN Wow,” I said. “Are you making this up?” “Hazel Grace, could I, with my meager intellect... JOHN GREEN Finally, I decided that the proper strategy was to stare back. Boys do not have a monopoly on the St... JOHN GREEN We were sitting there on the couch together, and he pushed himself up to go but then fell back down ... JOHN GREEN So it’s your death suit.” “Correct. Don’t you have a death outfit?” “Yeah,”... JOHN GREEN I spent your Wish on that doucheface,” I said into his chest. “Hazel Grace. No. I will gran... JOHN GREEN «Hazel Grace,” he said, my name new and better in his voice. “It has been a real pleasure to ma... JOHN GREEN Cold,” he said, pressing a finger to my pale wrist. “Not cold so much as underoxygenated,�... JOHN GREEN If he is anything other than a total gentleman, I’m going to gouge his eyes out.” “So you... JOHN GREEN People always get used to beauty, though.” “I haven’t gotten used to you just yet,” he ... JOHN GREEN Augustus: “You probably need some rest.” Me: “I’m okay.” Augustus: “Okay.” (... JOHN GREEN Time's a slut, she screws with everyone. JOHN GREEN como toda pregunta sobre el universo, esta vía de investigación nos obliga inevitablemente a pregu... J.K. ROWLING No puedes escoger si serás lastimado en este mundo, pero si puedes decidir quién te lastima JOHN GREEN But it's your life. JOHN GREEN No matter how hard you kick, no matter how high you get, you can't go all the way round. JOHN GREEN Cancer kids are essentially side effects of the relentless mutation that made the diversity of life ... JOHN GREEN No puedes elegir si van hacerte daño en este mundo, pero sí eliges quién te lo hace. JOHN GREEN you clench your teeth,you look up, you tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them,and... JOHN GREEN That's the think about pain. It demands to be felt. JOHN GREEN Seriously, don't even get me started on my hot bod. You don't want to see me naked, Dave. seeing me ... JOHN GREEN Writing does not resurrect. It buries.. JOHN GREEN Pero diré esto: Cuando los científicos del futuro aparezcan en mi casa con ojos robot y me digan q... JOHN GREEN You’re arguing that the fragile, rare thing is beautiful simply because it is fragile and rare. Bu... JOHN GREEN So how’s it going?” “Okay. Glad to be home, I guess. Gus told me you were in the ICU?”<... JOHN GREEN Still perfect,” he said. “Read to me.” “This isn’t really a poem to read aloud when y... JOHN GREEN We are always saying: Let the Law take its Course but what we really mean is: Let the Law take OUR C... WILL ROGERS I realized that day that blessings come in a variety of shapes, colors, and sizes. CRAIG GROESCHEL You're full of contradictions, Ms. Wallace." I looked up at him and arched a brow. "I'm a girl... TAMMARA WEBBER When it's clear that we have a commitment to God that comes before anything else in our lives, most ... CRAIG GROESCHEL In order for our world to shift, we have to
stop accepting the prevailing knowledge as
right without... ELIZABETH ALRAUNE We wait upon finite minds to validate infinite things— this is evidence of human stupidity. C. JOYBELL C. Like life, what gives a story its meaning is the fact that it ends. Our stories have lives of their ... FRANCESCA ZAPPIA I thank God for schools that are serious about the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are vital to perpetu... JAMES C. DOBSON We may claim to believe in God, but we don't want to believe so much that it makes us different. CRAIG GROESCHEL Orion is above the horizon now, and near it Jupiter, brighter than it will ever be ... But i expect ... THOMAS HARRIS Just because you believe something was true in the past does not mean it will be true in the future. JEFFREY FRY Being present is being connected to All Things. S. KELLEY HARRELL, M. DIV. Millions of people acknowledge today that they do not know the meaning of life. JAMES C. DOBSON It was frustrating to still be in the dark about something and be given only so little light. LAUREN LOLA Use your heart. Understand. Learn to see things in the now, not as they were or will be, or as ... E.J. PATTEN We may not get to choose how we die, but we can chose how we live. The universe may for... SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON Dreams are hopeful because they exist as pure possibility. Unlike memories, which are fossils, long ... SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibili... ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibili... ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD Clay in the hands of a good potter suffers so many good turns, but in the end, we see its real and t... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH We have been communicating that with them since November. We are sure that most of our people have a... DANA CONKLIN I was a bit of a Victorian Lady, fainting-wise. JOHN GREEN While I did not fancy myself a particularly good person, I never thought my first real sexual action... JOHN GREEN Mom sobbed something into Dad's chest that I wish I hadn't heard, and that I hope she never finds ou... JOHN GREEN Come over here so I can examine your face with my hands and see deeper into your soul than a sighted... JOHN GREEN But it is the nature of stars to cross, and never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he has Cassiu... JOHN GREEN But this was the truth, a pitiful boy who desperately wanted not to be pitiful, screaming and crying... JOHN GREEN I'm feeling grand. I'm on a rollercoaster only going up. AUGUSTUS WATERS THE FAULT IN OUR STARS Or maybe they just accept that it's wrong in God's eyes, although not in their own, and they'll worr... CRAIG GROESCHEL We got babies raising babies, and its important for us as responsible adults to go out and do what w... ALONZO MOURNING Even after the dehadhyas (the belief that 'I am the body') has gone, people will say, "I saw you eat... DADA BHAGWAN A new day is here! yesterday is gone! tomorrow is preparing to come! but why is today here? ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Now that science has helped us to overcome the awe of the unknown in nature, we are the slaves of so... MAX HORKHEIMER There are books that speak to us of our own lives with a clarity we cannot match. They prevent the m... ALAIN DE BOTTON We cannot expect people to take seriously our belief in objective truth if, in our practice, we indi... FRANCIS SCHAEFFER While the soul is in mortal sin, nothing can profit it; none of its good works merit an eternal rewa... SAINT TERESA OF AVILA The words you can’t find, you borrow. We read to know we’re not alone. We read because w... GABRIELLE ZEVIN 28. Feelings are neither right nor wrong. It's what you do with them that causes the problems. JAMES C. DOBSON Often we wonder in our grief what is gained by our belief? Although night, and morning we pray, stil... EDGAR A. GUEST The only way he could have her was to shatter this stubborn faith of hers. In doing so, would he sha... FRANCINE RIVERS Often we wonder in our grief what is gained by our belief? Although night, and morning we pray, stil... EDGAR A. GUEST It really is something ... that men disapprove even of our doing things that are patently good. Woul... MODERATA FONTE I think we are faced in medicine with the reality that we have to be willing to talk about our failu... ATUL GAWANDE We want to make sure we do everything we can to help our employees in that region, ... Right now we ... BILL BOYD Vents were added to the rear bonnet in 1972 and resulted in wet engines and starting problems, and t... CHRISTINA ENGELA Feast of Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, Martyr, 1977 We shall benefit very much from the Sac... JOHN CALVIN This is the fix we are in. If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our eff... C.S. LEWIS Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833 All these several artifices, whateve... WILLIAM WILBERFORCE In the beginning, there was nothing and from nothing came our species then behold the dawn of music.... GARY F EVANS... America's greatest strength, and its greatest weakness, is our belief in second chances, our belief ... ANTHONY WALTON We talk a great deal about patriotism. What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? I ... ADLAI STEVENSON We mourn the blossoms of May because they are to wither; but we know that May is one day to have its... HENRY JOHN NEWMAN
More William James
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