Quote

The one who thinks over his experiences most, and weaves them into systematic relations with each other, will be the one with the best memory.

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
Experience
Weaves
Best
Systematic
Thinking
Relations
Experiences
Thinks
Relation
Memory
Memories

More quotes by William James

Image
The minute a man ceases to grow, no matter what his years, that minute he begins to be old.
William James
Image
Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.
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
Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.
William James
Image
No one sees further into a generalization than his own knowledge of detail extends.
William James
Image
Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.
William James
Image
Faith branches off the highroad before reason begins
William James
Image
Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system
William James
Image
Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer . . . It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
William James
Image
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
Image
No living person is sunk so low as not to be imitated by somebody.
William James
Image
We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can. . . . The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.
William James
Image
The greatest discovery of the 20th Century is that our attitude of mind determines our quality of life, not circumstances.
William James
Image
Life shall be built in doing and suffering and creating.
William James
Image
Ideas are so much flat psychological surface unless some mirrored matter gives them cognitive lustre. This is why as a pragmatistI have so carefully posited 'reality' ab initio, and why throughout my whole discussion, I remain an epistemologist realist.
William James
Image
The mind of your own enemy, the pupil, is working away from you, as keenly and eagerly as is the mind of the commander on the other side from the scientific general. Just what the respective enemies want and think, and what they know or do not know, are as hard things for the teachers as for the general to find out.
William James
Image
Men are now proud of belonging to a conquering nation, and without a murmur they lay down their persons and their wealth, if by so doing they may fend off subjection.
William James
Image
Owing to the fact that all experience is a process, no point of view can ever be the last one
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
Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.
William James