Quotes By William James

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

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

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

In business for yourself, not by yourself.

The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.

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

The 'I think' which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the 'I breathe' which actually does accompany them.

We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.

Belief creates the actual fact.

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

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

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

Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.

Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.