Quote

Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.

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
Accurate
Habit
Movement
Simplifies
Happiness
Diminishes
Makes
Simplify
Life
Fatigue
Diminish
Movements

More quotes by William James

Image
A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.
William James
Image
Man is essentially the imitative animal. His whole educabilityand in fact the whole history of civilization depend on this trait, which his strong tendencies to rivalry, jealousy, and acquisitiveness reinforce.
William James
Image
The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is mean and ugly.
William James
Image
Every way of classifying a thing is but a way of handling it for some particular purpose.
William James
Image
Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power.
William James
Image
No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed.
William James
Image
Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.
William James
Image
There is a stream, a succession of states, or waves, or fields (or whatever you please to call them), of knowledge, of feeling, of desire, of deliberation, etc., that constantly pass and repass, and that constitute our inner life.
William James
Image
Creatures extremely low in the intellectual scale may have conception. All that is required is that they should recognize the same experience again. A polyp would be a conceptual thinker if a feeling of 'Hello! thingumbob again!' ever flitted through its mind.
William James
Image
Man can change his life simply by changing his attitude.
William James
Image
Organization and method mean much, but contagious human characters mean more in a university.
William James
Image
Focus on increasing service. Becoming great where you are. Pile in the wood. The heat will follow.
William James
Image
What holds attention determines action.
William James
Image
Theory must mediate between all previous truths and certain new experiences
William James
Image
Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
William James
Image
Better risk loss of truth than chance of error--that is your faith-vetoer's exact position. He is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is he is backing the field against the religious hypothesis, just as the believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field.
William James
Image
Each of us is in fact what he is almost exclusively by virtue of his imitative-ness.
William James
Image
Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.
William James
Image
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
William James
Image
If theological ideas prove to have a value for concrete life, they will be true, for pragmatism, in the sense of being good for so much. How much more they are true, will depend entirely on their relations to the other truths that also have to be acknowledged.
William James