A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows. William James More Quotes by William James More Quotes From William James Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it. William James businessattitudeinspirational From the Vedas we learn a practical art of surgery, medicine, music, house building under which mechanized art is included. They are encyclopedia of every aspect of life, culture, religion, science, ethics, law, cosmology and meteorology. William James culture-religionlawart 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. William James despairsurvivallife Effort is a measure of a Man. William James hockeysportsmen If I should throw down a thousand beans at random upon a table, I could doubtless, by eliminating a sufficient number of them, leave the rest in almost any geometrical pattern you might propose to me, and you might then say that that pattern was the thing prefigured beforehand, and that the other beans were mere irrelevance and packing material. Our dealings with Nature are just like this. William James irrelevancetablesnumbers The greatest empiricists among us are only empiricists on reflection: when left to their instincts, they dogmatize like infallible popes. William James popeinstinctreflection I am only a philosopher, and there is only one thing that a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that is, to contradict other philosophers. William James philosopherphilosophicalphilosophy It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association William James educationalliteraturephilosophy So it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young birds take to the sky. William James readingskychildren To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal. William James abnormalphilosophicalunderstanding Most of us can learn to live in perfect comfort on higher levels of power. Everyone knows that on any given day there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call forth. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. It is evident that our organism has stored-up reserves of energy that are ordinarily not called upon - deeper and deeper strata of explosible material, ready for use by anyone who probes so deep. The human individual usually lives far within his limits. William James powerperfectlife A new opinion counts as true just in proportion as it gratifies the individual's desire to assimilate the novel in his experience to his beliefs in stock William James belieftruthdesire Our theories are wedged and controlled as nothing else is. Yet sometimes alternative theoretic formulas are equally compatible with all the truths we know, and then we choose between them for subjective reasons. We choose the kind of theory to which we are already partial: we follow 'elegenace' or 'economy' William James alternativeskindtruth The trail of the human serpent is thus over everything. William James serpenttrailshumans The science of logic never made a man reason rightly, and the science of ethics never made a man behave rightly. The most such sciences can do is to help us to catch ourselves up and check ourselves, if we start to reason or to behave wrongly; and to criticise ourselves more articulately after we have made mistakes. William James teachingmistakeart Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism. William James heroismtheatrereality Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up. William James despairpeople Touch is the alpha and omega of affection. William James alpha-and-omegaalphasaffection Everything which is demanded is by that fact a good. William James facts On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true. William James theismprinciplesgod
