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Man, whatever else he may be, is primarily a practical being, whose mind is given him to aid in adapting him to this world's life

William James

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William James
Age: 68 †
Born: 1842
Born: January 11
Died: 1910
Died: August 26
Philosopher
Physician
Psychologist
University Teacher
W. James
Given
Practicals
Else
Practical
May
Aids
Mind
Educational
Men
Whose
Life
Philosophy
World
Literature
Adapting
Whatever
Primarily

More quotes by William James

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We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves.
William James
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Man's chief difference from the brutes lies in the exuberant excess of his subjective propensities. Prune his extravagance, sober him, and you undo him.
William James
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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
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I am only a philosopher, and there is only one thing that a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that is, to contradict other philosophers.
William James
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A Beethoven string-quartet is truly, as some one has said, a scraping of horses' tails on cats' bowels, and may be exhaustively described in such terms but the application of this description in no way precludes the simultaneous applicability of an entirely different description.
William James
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It is not probable that the reader will be satisfied with any of these solutions, and contemporary philosophers, even rationalistically minded ones, have on the whole agreed that no one has intelligibly banished the mystery of fact.
William James
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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
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Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction
William James
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The university most worthy of rational admiration is that one in which your lonely thinker can feel himself lonely, most positively furthered, and most richly fed
William James
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My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing, and I can only do one thing at a time.
William James
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True to her inveterate habit, rationalism reverts to 'principles,' and thinks that when an abstraction once is named, we own an oracular solution.
William James
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Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it.
William James
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No decision is, in itself, a decision.
William James
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Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
William James
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... A rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those ... truths were really there, would be an irrational rule.
William James
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The squalid cash interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease.
William James
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With mere good intentions hell is proverbially paved.
William James
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Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.
William James
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But facts are facts, and if we only get enough of them theyare sure to combine.
William James
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No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.
William James