Quotes By William James

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

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

Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.

We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.

To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from them any element that is directly experienced.

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

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

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

If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.

Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results.

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

Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not.

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

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

Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.

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

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

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

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

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

Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

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

It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.

To spend life for something which outlasts it.

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.

Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.

The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.

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

The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.