Poet William James

William James

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William James Quotes

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.
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.
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.
There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or snicker if sad, it must not scream or curse.
To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.
The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one.
In business for yourself, not by yourself.
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 world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.
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.
To change ones life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.
The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.
If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.
'Pure experience' is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories.
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.
There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self.
Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.
There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self.
Our faith is faith in someone else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case.
Whatever universe a professor believes in must at any rate be a universe that lends itself to lengthy discourse. A universe definable in two sentences is something for which the professorial intellect has no use. No faith in anything of that cheap kind!
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.
The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.
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.
If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.
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.
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.
If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.
The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.
No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.
The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.
Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.
How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.
The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.
The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.
Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
Belief creates the actual fact.
Knowledge about life is one thing effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.
If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.
If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.
Wisdom is learning what to overlook.
Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
To change ones life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.
This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.
The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.
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.
The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.
How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.
The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.
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.

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Jenny R: Where is James' quote from: "Our lives are like islands in the sea or like trees in the forest.... We are both a forest and a single tree--one big Trembling Giant, stirred by an
invisible breeze."
Mason Cooley
Simon Mainwaring

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