Quote

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.

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
Realizing
Conduct
State
Plastic
Become
Habits
Young
Mere
Give
Soon
States
Habit
Giving
Walking
Bundles
Would
Realize
Heed

More quotes by William James

Image
I take it that no man is educated who has never dallied with the thought of suicide.
William James
Image
To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind.
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
When you have broken the reality into concepts you never can reconstruct it in its wholeness.
William James
Image
Deepest principle of human nature is to be appreciated.
William James
Image
Wisdom is learning what to overlook.
William James
Image
You may not get everything you dream about, but you will never get anything you don't dream about.
William James
Image
As Charles Lamb says, there is nothing so nice as doing good by stealth and being found out by accident, so I now say it is even nicer to make heroic decisions and to be prevented by 'circumstances beyond your control' from ever trying to execute them.
William James
Image
The exercise of voluntary attention in the schoolroom must therefore be counted one of the most important points of training that take place there and the first-rate teacher, by the keenness of the remoter interests which he is able to awaken, will provide abundant opportunities for its occurrence.
William James
Image
If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it. Only you must, then, really wish these things, and wish them exclusively, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.
William James
Image
Experience, as we know, has a way of boiling over, and making us correct our present formulas.
William James
Image
Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.
William James
Image
How can the moribund old man reason back to himself the romance, the mystery, the imminence of great things with which our old earth tingled for him in the days when he was young and well?
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
Psychology saves us from mistakes. It makes us more clear as to what we are about. We gain confidence in respect to any method which we are using as soon as we believe that it has theory as well as practice at its back.
William James
Image
The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature.
William James
Image
Divinity lies all around us, but society remains too hidebound to accept that fact...The mother sea and the fountain-head of all religions lies in the mystical experiences of the individual.
William James
Image
It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.
William James
Image
I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.
William James
Image
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.
William James