Quote

How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.

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
Times
Endure
Facts
Gains
Keep
Laughter
Men
Joy
Willing
Secret
Recover
Happiness
Motive
Fact
Gain

More quotes by William James

Image
The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite, assignable reasons.
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
Image
The impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race.
William James
Image
Psychology ought certainly to give the teacher radical help.
William James
Image
The difference between an interesting and a tedious teacher consists in little more than the inventiveness by which the one is able to mediate these associations and connections, and in the dullness in discovering such transitions which the other shows.
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
We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our functions.
William James
Image
A new opinion counts as true just in proportion as it gratifies the individual's desire to assimilate the novel in his experience to his beliefs in stock
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 deepest longing in the human breast is the desire for appreciation.
William James
Image
We can change our circumstances by a mere change of our attitude.
William James
Image
Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses power of various sorts which he habitually fails to use.
William James
Image
With no attempt there can be no failure with no failure no humiliation.
William James
Image
Let sanguine healthy-mindedness do its best with its strange power of living in the moment and ignoring and forgetting, still the evil background is really there to be thought of, and the skull will grin in at the banquet.
William James
Image
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.
William James
Image
Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true.
William James
Image
If you want to change your life, do it flamboyantly and start immediately.
William James
Image
So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.
William James
Image
Truth in our ideas means their power to work.
William James
Image
Most men have a good memory for facts connected with their own pursuits.
William James