Quote

Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.

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
Errors
Lightness
Certain
Healthier
Seems
Excessive
Heart
Caution
Things
Solemn
Carefulness
World
Behalf
Incur
Surely
Nervousness
Spite
Awfully

More quotes by William James

Image
The good we do today becomes the happiness of tomorrow.
William James
Image
But when all is said and done, the fact remains that some teachers have a naturally inspiring presence and can make their exercises interesting, whilst others simply cannot. And psychology and general pedagogy here confess their failure, and hand things over to the deeper spring of human personality to conduct the task.
William James
Image
If any organism fails to fulfill its potentialities, it becomes sick.
William James
Image
True is the name for whatever idea starts the verification process, useful is the name for its completed function in experience
William James
Image
If you give appreciation to people, you win their goodwill.
William James
Image
Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.
William James
Image
A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all.
William James
Image
The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.
William James
Image
The exercise of prayer, in those who habitually exert it, must be regarded by us doctors as the most adequate and normal of all the pacifiers of the mind and calmers of the nerves.
William James
Image
If you give appreciation to people, you win their goodwill. But more important than that, practicing this philosophy has made a different person of me.
William James
Image
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
William James
Image
Marvelous as may be the power of my dog to understand my moods, deathless as his affection and fidelity, his mental state is as unsolved a mystery to me as it was to my remotest ancestor.
William James
Image
Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. which give happiness. Thomas Jefferson We never enjoy perfect happiness our most fortunate successes are mingled with sadness some anxieties always perplex the reality of our satisfaction.
William James
Image
Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
William James
Image
The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion.
William James
Image
Humanism . . . is not a single hypothesis or theorem, and it dwells on no new facts. It is rather a slow shifting in the philosophic perspective, making things appear as from a new centre of interest or point of sight.
William James
Image
The strenuous life tastes better
William James
Image
Time itself comes in drops.
William James
Image
The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.
William James
Image
We need only in cold blood to act as if the thing in question were real and it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real.
William James