William James quotes - page 9

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self. (William James)
If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it. View quote
William James
Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second. View quote
William James
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. View quote
William James
A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain. View quote
William James
Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. View quote
William James
Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. View quote
William James
The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community. View quote
William James
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. View quote
William James
To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal. View quote
William James
Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible. (William James)
The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments. View quote
William James
If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door. View quote
William James
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. View quote
William James
We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be. View quote
William James
The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths. View quote
William James
Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice. View quote
William James
The stronghold of the determinist argument is the antipathy to the idea of chance...This notion of alternative possibility, this admission that any one of several things may come to pass is, after all, only a roundabout name for chance. View quote
William James
In its widest possible sense, however, a man's Self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account. All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down. View quote
William James
Possibilities that fail to get realized are, for determinism, pure illusions: they never were possibilities at all. There is nothing inchoate, it says, about this universe of ours, all that was or is or shall be actual having been from eternity virtually there. The cloud of alternatives our minds escort this mass of actuality withal is a cloud of sheer deceptions, to which 'impossibilities' is the only name that rightfully belongs. View quote
William James
There are moments of sentimental and mystical experience... that carry an enormous sense of inner authority and illumination with them when they come. But they come seldom, and they do not come to everyone; and the rest of life makes either no connection with them, or tends to contradict them more than it confirms them. Some persons follow more the voice of the moment in these cases, some prefer to be guided by the average results. Hence the sad discordancy of so many of the spiritual judgments of human beings; a discordancy which will be brought home to us acutely enough before these lectures end. (William James)
Our minds thus grow in spots and like grease spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can. We patch and tinker more than we renew. The novelty soaks in it stains the ancient mass but it is also tinged by what absorbs it. View quote
William James
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. View quote
William James
To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one's being added to that being. View quote
William James
Our faith is faith in someone else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case. View quote
William James