Quotes by William James

Earnestness means willingness to live with energy, though energy bring pain. The pain may be pain to other people or pain to ones self — it makes little difference; for when the strenuous mood is on one, the aim is to break something, no matter whose or what. Nothing annihilates an inhibition as irresistibly as anger does it; for, as Moltke says of war, destruction pure and simple is its essence. This is what makes it so invaluable an ally of every other passion. The sweetest delights are trampled on with a ferocious pleasure the moment they offer themselves as checks to a cause by which our higher indignations are elicited. It costs then nothing to drop friendships, to renounce long-rooted privileges and possessions, to break with social ties. Rather do we take a stern joy in the astringency and desolation; and what is called weakness of character seems in most cases to consist of the inaptitude for these sacrificial moods, of which ones own inferior self and its pet softnesses must often be the targets and the victims.

Much of what we call evil can often be converted into a bracing and tonic good by a simple change of the sufferers inner attitude from one of fear to one of fight

There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference.

The question of being is the darkest in all philosophy.

Moral scepticism can no more be refuted or proved by logic than intellectual scepticism can. When we stick to it that there is truth (be it of either kind), we do so with our whole nature, and resolve to stand or fall by the results. The sceptic with his whole nature adopts the doubting attitude; but which of us is the wiser, Omniscience only knows.

All religions and spiritual traditions begin with the cry Help!

I, therefore, for one, cannot see my way to accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking, or wilfully agree to keep my willing nature out of the game. I cannot do so for this plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule.

Everyone is familiar with the phenomenon of feeling more or less alive on different days. Everyone knows on any given day that there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call forth, but which he might display if these were greater. Most of us feel as if a sort of cloud weighed upon us, keeping us below our highest notch of clearness in discernment, sureness in reasoning, or firmness in deciding. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits; he possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use.

Most people live in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, and of their souls resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole organism should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.

To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.

The greatest discovery of our generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. As you think, so shall you be.

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.

Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.

Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation.

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequence of any misfortune.

Be willing to have it so acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

Men habitually use only a small part of the powers which they possess and which they might use under appropriate circumstances.

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

Fear of life in one form or another is the great thing to exorcise.

Man lives by habits indeed but what he lives for is thrill and excitements. ... From time immemorial war has been ... the supremely thrilling excitement.