It is only in the lonely emergencies of life that our creed is tested: then routine maxims fail, and we fall back on our gods.

William James

Categorized in : Fall Lonely Routine

Pluralism lets things really exist in the each-form or distributively. Monism thinks that the all-form or collective-unit form is the only form that is rational.

pluralism form thinking

What interest, zest, or excitement can there be in achieving the right way, unless we are enabled to feel that the wrong way is also a possible and a natural way, nay, more, a menacing and an imminent way? And what sense can there be in condemning ourselves for taking the wrong way, unless we need have done nothing of the sort, unless the right way was open to us as well? I cannot understand the willingness to act, no matter how we feel, without the belief that acts are really good and bad.

zest done needs

What do believers in the Absolute mean by saving that their belief affords them comfort? They mean that since in the Absolute finite evil is ‘overruled’ already, we may, therefore, whenever we wish, treat the temporal as if it were potentially the eternal, be sure that we can trust its outcome, and, without sin, dismiss our fear and drop the worry of our finite responsibility. In short, they mean that we have a right ever and anon to take a moral holiday, to let the world wag in its own way, feeling that its issues are in better hands than ours and are none of our business.

holiday responsibility mean

The perfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence. The darkness held a presence that was all the more felt because it was not seen. I could not any more have doubted that HE was there than that I was. Indeed, I felt myself to be, if possible, the less real of the two.

The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion.

confusion eye baby

Religion must be considered vindicated in a certain way from the... by William James

Religion must be considered vindicated in a certain way from the attacks of her critics.

critics certain way

So you see that the process of education, taken in a large way, may be described as nothing but the process of acquiring ideas or conceptions, the best educated mind being the mind which has the largest stock of them, ready to meet the largest possible variety of the emergencies of life. The lack of education means only the failure to have acquired them, and the consequent liability to be 'floored' and 'rattled' in the vicissitudes of experience.

taken mean ideas

Most people, probably, are in doubt about certain matters ascribed to their past. They may have seen them, may have said them, done them, or they may only have dreamed or imagined they did so.

doubt people past

It would probably astound each of them beyond measure to be let into his neighbor's mind and to find how different the scenery there was from that in his own.

neighbor different mind

Time itself comes in drops. by William James

Time itself comes in drops.

We can change our circumstances by a mere change of our attitude. by William James

We can change our circumstances by a mere change of our attitude.

mere circumstances attitude

The total mental efficiency of a man is the resultant of the working together of all his faculties. He is too complex a being for any one of them to have the casting vote. If any one of them do have the casting vote, it is more likely to be the strength of his desire and passion, the strength of the interest he takes in what is proposed. Concentration, memory, reasoning power, inventiveness, excellence of the senses, all are subsidiary to this.

passion men memories

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack o... by William James

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self.

failure self-esteem inspirational

There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise.

companionship way needs

A great idea goes through three stages on its way to acceptance: 1) it is dismissed as nonsense, 2) it is acknowledged as true, but insignificant, 3) finally, it is seen to be important, but not really anything new.

important acceptance ideas

The pragmatist turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended absolutes and origins. He turns toward concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards action, and towards power.

adequacy principles facts

We all have a lifelong habit of inferiority to our full self..." by William James

We all have a lifelong habit of inferiority to our full self..."

inferiority habit self

Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.

guides truth sensible

If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates t... by William James

If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.

miracle grace doors

We and God have business with each other, and in opening ourselves to God's influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.

opening destiny influence