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The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.

William James

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William James
Age: 68 †
Born: 1842
Born: January 11
Died: 1910
Died: August 26
Philosopher
Physician
Psychologist
University Teacher
W. James
Human
Temperaments
Humans
Clash
Great
Temperament
Extent
Philosophical
Philosophy
History
Certain

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We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.
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Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make very small use of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.
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All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.
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All religions begin with the cry Help.
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As we take, in fact, a general view of the wonderful stream of our consciousness, what strikes us first is this different pace of its parts. Like a bird 's life, it seems to be made of an alternation of flights and perchings.
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...By far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions is to ignore them altogether, or to abuse those who bear witness for them.
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Every time a resolve or a fine glow of feeling evaporates without bearing practical fruit is worse than a chance lost it works so as positively to hinder future resolutions and emotions from taking the normal path of discharge.
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Language is the most imperfect and expensive means yet discovered for communicating thought.
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Selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built. And in this case of memory its utility is obvious. If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.
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An experience, perceptual or conceptual, must conform to reality in order to be true
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Impulse without reason is enough, and reason without impulse is a poor makeshift.
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Owing to the fact that all experience is a process, no point of view can ever be the last one
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Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have and, second, on the habitual coupling of the several ideas with action or inaction respectively.
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The squalid cash interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease.
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There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference.
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The emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.
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My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing, and I can only do one thing at a time.
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Do something everyday for no other reason than 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.
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To consider hypotheses is surely always better than to dogmatize ins blaue hinein
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When thoughts do not neutralize an undesirable emotion, action will.
William James