James, William

"Compassion for oneself is the first step in developing compassion for others."

"Does the flitting of a butterfly's wings set the whole world in commotion?"

"The true paradises are the paradises that we have lost."

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

"The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude."

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

"Millions and millions of us, in these hot, rank, steaming, grieving mobs, the struggling, confused herds of human being in this earth, how few of us ever really feel the sun on our faces!"

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

"Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you."

"Seize the very first opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain."

"We are made up largely of pathways worn by our habits."

"The deepest principle of human nature is the desire to be appreciated, and the sweetest pain is to work without this appreciation."

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

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

"The conscious mental life is presided over by voluntary attention."

"Much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way men take the phenomenon. It can so easily be converted into a bracing and tonic thing."

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

"Psychology is the science of mental life, both of its phenomena and of their conditions."

"The best use of imagination is creativity."

"Not a few times only but day after day, hour after hour, the human being must repeat the struggle."

"The principle of habit is fundamental to existence."

"If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally at stake, I do not see why we ought to outwit or even behave as we do."

"Wisdom is learning what to overlook."

"The greatest warrior is one who conquers himself."

"All motion is relative; there is no absolute motion."

"One of the deepest principles of our nature is the longing to be appreciated and understood."

"If we believe that this is an important truth that should be acted upon, we should therefore go ahead and act upon it and see if it proves to be the best assumption."

"The money-making instinct is a human instinct."

"We should do a better job of putting ourselves in the historical position of the people of the past."

"There is very little difference between one man and another; but what little there is, is very important."