A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.
--William James
A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all.
--William James
All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.
--William James
As a rule we disbelieve all facts and theories for which we have no use.
--William James
Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
--William James
Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
--William James
Freedom is only necessity understood.
--William James
Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
--William James
In any project, the important factor is your belief. Without belief, there can be no successful outcome.
--William James
In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly.
--William James
Instinct leads, intelligence does but follow.
--William James
It is an odd circumstance that neither the old nor the new, by itself, is interesting; the absolutely old is insipid; the absolutely new makes no appeal at all. The old in the new is what claims the attention,- the old with a slightly new turn.
--William James
It is poor government that does not realize that the prolonged life, health and happiness of its people are its greatest asset.
--William James Mayo
Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being.
--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.
--William James
Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
--William James
Real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not by dislikes and disdain- under all misleading wrappings it pounces unerringly upon the human core.
--William James
Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. Not through mere perversity do men run after it.
--William James
Take the happiest man, the one most envied by the world, and in nine cases out of ten his inmost consciousness is one of failure. Either his ideals in the line of his achievements are pitched far higher than the achievements themselves, or else he has secret ideals of which the world knows nothing, and in regard to which he inwardly knows himself to be found wanting.
--William James
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
--William James
The bigger the unit you deal with, the hollower, the more brutal, the more mendacious is the life displayed.
--William James
The deadliest enemies of nations are not their foreign foes; they always dwell within their borders.
--William James
The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
--William James
The essence of genius is knowing what to overlook.
--William James
The gods we stand by are the gods we need and can use, the gods whose demands on us are reinforcements of our demands on ourselves and on one another.
--William James
The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind.
--William James
The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.
--William James
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 fashioning our characters in the wrong way.
--William James
The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That- with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success- is our national disease.
--William James
The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.
--William James
There is but one unconditional commandment, which is that we should seek incessantly, with fear and trembling, so to vote and to act as to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.
--William James
There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.
--William James
There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.
--William James
There is only one thing that a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that is, to contradict other philosophers.
--William James
Thinking is what a great many people think they are doing when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
--William James
To change one's life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions.
--William James
To kill time is not murder, it is suicide.
--William James
To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.
--William James
Truth is what works.
--William James
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.
--William James
We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar.
--William James
Whenever two people meet there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.
--William James
Wherever you are it is your own friends who make your world.
--William James
Found 43 occurence(s) in 52,059 quotation(s).