If you want a quality, act as if you already had it. Try the 'as if' technique. William James More Quotes by William James More Quotes From William James A winner's attitude: it may be difficult, but it's possible. A loser's attitude: It may be possible, but it's too difficult. William James losermayattitude I originally studied medicine in order to be a physiologist, but I drifted into psychology and philosophy from a sort of fatality. I never had any philosophic instruction, the first lecture on psychology I ever heard being the first I ever gave. William James medicinephilosophyorder We must not just patch and tinker with life. We must keep renewing it. Embrace novelty and uniqueness. William James embracenoveltyunique Choose a self and stand by it. William James self Ideas are so much flat psychological surface unless some mirrored matter gives them cognitive lustre. This is why as a pragmatistI have so carefully posited 'reality' ab initio, and why throughout my whole discussion, I remain an epistemologist realist. William James givingrealityideas Our beliefs are really rules for action. William James beliefaction Old-fashioned determinism was what we may call hard determinism. It did not shrink from such words as fatality, bondage of the will, necessitation, and the like. Nowadays, we have a soft determinism which abhors harsh words, and, repudiating fatality, necessity, and even predetermination, says that its real name is freedom; for freedom is only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom. William James freedomrealnames Materialism means simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of ultimate hopes; spiritualism means theaffirmation of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope. William James cuttingordermean Earnestness means willingness to live with energy, though energy bring pain. William James painenergymean Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting through becoming associated with an object in which an interest already exists. William James becomingmayinteresting True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that therefore is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known as. William James truth-isdifferencesideas The squalid cash interpretation put on the word success is our national disease. William James interpretationcashdisease The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist, and that those other worlds must contain experiences which have a meaning for our life also; and that although in the main their experiences and those of this world keep discrete, yet the two become continuous at certain points, and higher energies filter in. William James filtersother-worldstwo Our intelligence cannot wall itself up alive, like a pupa in a chrysalis. It must at any cost keep on speaking terms with the universe that engendered it. William James wallcostalive You do not sing because you're happy, you're happy because you sing. William James The "through-and-through" universe seems to suffocate me with its infallible impeccable all-pervasiveness. Its necessity , with no possibilities; its relations, with no subjects, make me feel as if I had entered into a contract with no reserved rights ... It seems too buttoned-up and white-chokered and clean-shaven a thing to speak for the vast slow-breathing unconscious Kosmos with its dread abysses and its unknown tides. William James breathingrightswhite Man is essentially the imitative animal. His whole educabilityand in fact the whole history of civilization depend on this trait, which his strong tendencies to rivalry, jealousy, and acquisitiveness reinforce. William James stronganimalmen The first thing the intellect does with an object is to class it along with something else. But any object that is infinitely important to us and awakens our devotion feels to us also as if it must be sui generis and unique. Probably a crab would be filled with a sense of personal outrage if it could hear us class it without ado or apology as a crustacean, and thus dispose of it. 'I am no such thing,' it would say; 'I am MYSELF, MYSELF alone. William James apologyuniquescience Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs; and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way. William James philosophicalpassionmen There must always be a discrepncy between concepts and reality, because the former are static and discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing William James staticlatterreality
