Quote

The most natively interesting object to a man is his own personal self and its fortunes. We accordingly see that the moment a thing becomes connected with the fortunes of the self, it forthwith becomes an interesting thing.

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
Thing
Personal
Forthwith
Men
Becomes
Fortunes
Philosophy
Accordingly
Literature
Educational
Interesting
Object
Moment
Connected
Moments
Fortune
Self
Objects

More quotes by William James

Image
Ingenuity in meeting and pursuing the pupil, that tact for the concrete situation, though they are the alpha and omega of the teacher's art, are things to which psychology cannot help us in the least.
William James
Image
The education of attention would be an education par excellence
William James
Image
Hogamus, higamous Man is polygamous Higamus, hogamous Woman monogamous.
William James
Image
Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day.
William James
Image
I am tired of the position of the dried-up critic and doubter. The believer is the true full man. (from a biography of James by Robert D. Richardson)
William James
Image
We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves.
William James
Image
Every sort of energy and endurance, of courage and capacity for handling life's evils, is set free in those who have religious faith.
William James
Image
If WE claim only reasonable probability, it will be as much as men who love the truth can ever at any given moment hope to have within their grasp.
William James
Image
For morality life is a war, and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which also calls for volunteers.
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
Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make very small use of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.
William James
Image
In all this process of acquiring conceptions, a certain instinctive order is followed. There is a native tendency to assimilate certain kinds of conception at one age, and other kinds of conception at a later age.
William James
Image
Theory must mediate between all previous truths and certain new experiences
William James
Image
Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up.
William James
Image
Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.
William James
Image
Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?
William James
Image
The word 'cause' is an altar to an unknown god.
William James
Image
To change one's life: a. Start immediately b. B. Do it flamboyantly c. No exceptions Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted.
William James
Image
The aim of science is always to reduce complexity to simplicity.
William James
Image
The first lecture in psychology that I ever heard was the first I ever gave.
William James