William James

Psychologist, Philosopher American 1842 – 1910

American psychologist; studied religious experience scientifically.

388 quotes

"Our faith is faith in someone else's faith."
Faith
"Probably a crab which had read popular zoology would be filled with a sense of personal outrage at learning what it had to do."
Humor
"The moral equivalent of war must be something heroic that will speak to men as universally as war does."
Peace
"Consciousness is never attached to a single material organ."
Science
"To change one's life: start immediately, do it flamboyantly, no exceptions."
Courage
"Character is formed in the stream of life, not withdrawn from it."
Strength
"Psychology is the science of mental life."
Science
"The love of life is the whole game."
Life
"Those who have never entered the struggle can never know the personal development of those who have."
Perseverance
"Thought is in constant change, in constant flux."
Philosophy
"The world of our experience consists at all times of two parts."
Knowledge
"Feel the feelings and click the triggers and notice the magic that happens."
Inspiration
"The highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge or Virtue, but something even higher, Power."
Power
"Pragmatism is a method and a theory of meaning simultaneously."
Philosophy
"Life is all inclusion and confusion; philosophy all exclusion and discrimination."
Wisdom
"When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that itself is a choice."
"The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and endure a great deal."
Wisdom
"I have found that the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving."
"The senses collect; the mind judges."
Knowledge
"Democracy's only sure reliance is the characted of the common people."
Politics
"The greatest discovery is that a person can change his future by changing his attitudes."
Motivation
"Patience of the moral law suggests that there is intelligence."
Philosophy
"No reception without reaction; no impression without correlative expression."
Science
"When all is said and done, we are living a mythology, and there is nothing we can do about it."
Philosophy
"A human being is not a finished product; he is a continuous process."
Change
"The mother of all experience is wonder."
Adventure
"Human happiness requires both social and individual elements."
Happiness
"I don't sing because I am happy; I am happy because I sing."
Music
"Look to the origin of a practice, and we learn its rationale."
History
"Dreams are where consciousness goes to play."
Dreams