William James quotes - page 8

Time itself comes in drops. (William James)
What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise although the philosophers generally call it recognition! View quote
William James
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. View quote
William James
Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. View quote
William James
We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable. View quote
William James
The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck. View quote
William James
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. View quote
William James
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. View quote
William James
Man lives for science as well as bread. View quote
William James
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. View quote
William James
Individuality is founded in feeling; and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done. (William James)
Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it. View quote
William James
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. View quote
William James
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. View quote
William James
The sovereign cure for worry is prayer. View quote
William James
Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not. View quote
William James
There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise. View quote
William James
In business for yourself, not by yourself. View quote
William James
Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly. View quote
William James
An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of revelation. View quote
William James
The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives. (William James)
Our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout. View quote
William James
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! View quote
William James
To spend life for something which outlasts it. View quote
William James
It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome. View quote
William James