William James Quotations
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William James
48 Quotation(s) Total:
Page 2 of 3
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If we only check a cowardly impulse in time, for example, or if we only don't strike the blow or rip out with the complaining or insulting word that we shall regret as long as we live, our feelings themselves will presently be calmer and better, with no particular guidance from us on their own account. |
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| William James | |
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In one sense, the more or less of tension in our faces and in our unused muscles is a small thing: not much mechanical work is done by these contractions. But it is not always the material size of a thing that measures its importance, often it is its place and function. One of the most philosophical remarks I ever heard was by an unlettered workman who was doing some repairs at my house many years ago. "There is very little difference between one... |
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| William James | |
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In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ulimate mystery of things works sadly... |
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| William James | |
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Invention and imitation, taken together, form, one may say, the warp and woof of human life, in so far as it is social. The American over-tension and jerkiness and breathlessness and intensity and agony of expression are primarily social, and only secondarily physiological, phenomena. They are bad habits, nothing more or less, bred of custom or example, born of imitation of bad models and the cultivation of false personal ideals. |
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| William James | |
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It is as important to cultivate your silence power as your word power. |
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| William James | |
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It is as important to cultivate your silence power as your word power. |
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| William James | |
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It is as important to cultivate your silence power as your word power. |
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| William James | |
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Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man, who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger. Great emergencies and crises s... |
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| William James | |
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No human being ever learns to live until he has awakened to the dormant powers within him. |
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| William James | |
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One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time, and my impression of its truth has ever since remained unshaken. It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it parted by the flimsiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stim... |
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| William James | |
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One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling. |
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| William James | |
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Our emotions are mainly due to those organic stirrings that are aroused in us in a reflex way by the stimulus of the exciting object or situation.. An emotion of fear, for example, or surprise, is not a direct effect of these objects's presence on the mind, but an effect of that still easier effect, the bodily commotion which the object suddenly excites; so that, were this bodily commotion suppressed, we should not so much feel fear as call the s... |
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| William James | |
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Our life is always deeper than we know, is always more divine |
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| William James | |
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Our life is always deeper than we know, is always more divine than it seems, and hence we are able to survive degradations and despairs which otherwise must engulf us." |
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| William James | |
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Religious history proves that one hypothesis after another has worked ill, has crumbled at contact with a widening knowledge of the world, and has lapsed from the minds of men. |
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| William James | |
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So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end... and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of fear. |
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| William James | |
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The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. |
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| William James | |
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The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is also mean and ugly. |
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| William James | |
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The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it." |
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| William James | |
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The mere joy of living is so immense in Walt Whitman's veins that it abolishes the possibility of any other kind of feeling. |
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| William James | |
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