Quote

As the brain-changes are continuous, so do all these consciousnesses melt into each other like dissolving views. Properly they are but one protracted consciousness, one unbroken stream.

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
Like
Continuous
Stream
Properly
Streams
Changes
Protracted
Consciousness
Dissolving
Views
Melt
Brain
Unbroken

More quotes by William James

Image
The desire to gain wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption.
William James
Image
Success plus Self-esteem equals Pretensions.
William James
Image
The absolute things, the last things, the overlapping things, are the truly philosophic concerns all superior minds feel seriously about them, and the mind with the shortest views is simply the mind of the more shallow man.
William James
Image
[Pragmatism's] only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity of experience's demands, nothing being omitted.
William James
Image
The difference between the first and second-best things in art absolutely seems to escape verbal definition -- it is a matter of a hair, a shade, an inward quiver of some kind -- yet what miles away in the point of preciousness!
William James
Image
Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.
William James
Image
Nature in her unfathomable designs had mixed us of clay and flame, of brain and mind, that the two things hang indubitably together and determine each other's being but how or why, no mortal may ever know.
William James
Image
Our beliefs are really rules for action.
William James
Image
Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. Not through mere perversity do men run after it.
William James
Image
Serious development of the personality begins at the closet door.
William James
Image
Ninety-nine hundredths or, possibly, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is purely automatic and habitual, from our rising in the morning to our lying down each night.
William James
Image
Organization and method mean much, but contagious human characters mean more in a university.
William James
Image
Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.
William James
Image
No reception without reaction, no impression without correlative expression, -this is the great maxim which the teacher ought never to forget.
William James
Image
Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.
William James
Image
At bottom, the whole concern of religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe.
William James
Image
The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.
William James
Image
Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.
William James
Image
Earnestness means willingness to live with energy, though energy bring pain.
William James
Image
Positive images of the future are a powerful and magnetic force... They draw us on and energize us, give us courage and will to take on important initiatives. Negative images of the future also have a magnetism. They pull the spirit downward in the path of despair.
William James