Quote

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

William James

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William James
Age: 68 †
Born: 1842
Born: January 11
Died: 1910
Died: August 26
Philosopher
Physician
Psychologist
University Teacher
W. James
Unless
Quality
Possible
Ethical
Whatever
Equally
Several
Ethics
Philosophical
Chosen

More quotes by William James

Image
... religious experience, as we have studied it, cannot be cited as unequivocally supporting the infinitist belief. The only thingthat it unequivocally testifies to is that we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our greatest peace.
William James
Image
In the last analysis, then, we believe that we all know and think about and talk about the same world because we believe our PERCEPTS are possessed by us in common
William James
Image
The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.
William James
Image
Life shall be built in doing and suffering and creating.
William James
Image
So far war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way.
William James
Image
Habit is the great flywheel of society.
William James
Image
It is art that makes life, and I know of no substitute whatsoever for the force and beauty of its process.
William James
Image
Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.
William James
Image
The greatest weapon we have to combat stress is the ability to choose our thoughts.
William James
Image
Your hopes, dreams and aspirations are legitimate. They are trying to take you airborne, above the clouds, above the storms, if you only let them.
William James
Image
Science herself consults her heart when she lays it down that the infinite ascertainment of fact and correction of false belief are the supreme goods for man.
William James
Image
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
William James
Image
Creatures extremely low in the intellectual scale may have conception. All that is required is that they should recognize the same experience again. A polyp would be a conceptual thinker if a feeling of 'Hello! thingumbob again!' ever flitted through its mind.
William James
Image
The subjectivist in morals, when his moral feelings are at war with the facts about him, is always free to seek harmony by toningdown the sensitiveness of the feelings.
William James
Image
All natural goods perish. Riches take wings fame is a breath love is a cheat youth and health and pleasure vanish.
William James
Image
The squalid cash interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease.
William James
Image
It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints.
William James
Image
There is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough.
William James
Image
Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.
William James
Image
The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.
William James