If you want a quality, act as if you already had it. William James More Quotes by William James More Quotes From William James The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths. William James philosophicaltruthlying Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom. William James oceanseaislands 'Pure experience' is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories. William James fluxreflectionnames A genius is the man in whom you are least likely to find the power of attending to anything insipid or distasteful in itself. He breaks his engagements, leaves his letters unanswered, neglects his family duties incorrigibly, because he is powerless to turn his attention down and back from those more interesting trains of imagery with which his genius constantly occupies his mind. William James familypowermen It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true. William James optimismfaithlife The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments. William James philosophicalcertainphilosophy Owing to the fact that all experience is a process, no point of view can ever be the last one William James owingtruthviews The sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such conduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on that occasion can. So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end, and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of fear. William James cheerfulbravefear A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed. William James strongerresponsibilitymen All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods. William James philosophicidealsaltars We [may] answer the question: "Why is snow white?" by saying, "For the same reason that soap-suds or whipped eggs are white"-in other words, instead of giving the reason for a fact, we give another example of the same fact. This offering a similar instance, instead of a reason, has often been criticised as one of the forms of logical depravity in men. But manifestly it is not a perverse act of thought, but only an incomplete one. Furnishing parallel cases is the necessary first step towards abstracting the reason imbedded in them all. William James offeringmenscience Deepest principle of human nature is to be appreciated. William James human-natureappreciatedprinciples An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible. William James philosophicalethicsquality I am, myself, a very poor visualizer and find that I can seldom call to mind even a single letter of the alphabet in purely retinal terms. I must trace the letter by running my mental eye over its contour in order that the image of it shall leave any distinctness at all. William James eyerunningorder We, the lineal representatives of the successful enactors of one scene of slaughter after another, must, whatever more pacific virtues we may also possess, still carry about with us, ready at any moment to burst into flame, the smoldering and sinister traits of character by means of which they lived through so many massacres, harming others, but themselves unharmed. William James successfulcharactermean To plead the organic causation of a religious state of mind, then, in refutation of its claim to possess superior spiritual value, is quite illogical and arbitrary, unless one have already worked out in advance some psycho-physical theory connecting spiritual values in general with determinate sorts of physiological change. Otherwise none of our thoughts and feelings, not even our scientific doctrines, not even our dis -beliefs, could retain any value as revelations of the truth, for every one of them without exception flows from the state of their possessor's body at the time. William James religiousspiritualfeelings There's nothing so absurd William James propagandabelievepeople Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way. William James creativitysciencemean In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannot start. William James philosophicalsurfingmind We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood. William James trusttruthlife
