Quote

As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.

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
Disbelieve
Theories
Rule
Theory
Belief
Use
Facts

More quotes by William James

Image
A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith's usual result.
William James
Image
Millions of items in the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind --without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.
William James
Image
The mind is made up by what it feeds upon.
William James
Image
'Facts' are the bounds of human knowledge, set for it, not by it.
William James
Image
Most unhappiness is caused because people listen to themselves... instead of talking to themselves.
William James
Image
Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-ation.
William James
Image
... the intellect, everywhere invasive, shows everywhere its shallowing effect.
William James
Image
General scepticism is the live mental attitude of refusing to conclude. It is a permanent torpor of the will, renewing itself in detail towards each successive thesis that offers, and you can no more kill it off by logic than you can kill off obstinacy or practical joking.
William James
Image
Don't preach too much to your pupils or abound in good talk in the abstract. Lie in wait rather for the practical opportunities, be prompt to seize those as they pass, and thus at one operation get your pupils both to think, to feel, and to do.
William James
Image
Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance.
William James
Image
In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.
William James
Image
Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.
William James
Image
Our intelligence cannot wall itself up alive, like a pupa in a chrysalis. It must at any cost keep on speaking terms with the universe that engendered it.
William James
Image
... I am the same personal being who in old times upon the Earth had those experiences.
William James
Image
I will act as if I do make a difference.
William James
Image
If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn't seek to show that no crows are it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.
William James
Image
Men habitually use only a small part of the power which they actually possess.
William James
Image
Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.
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
Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.
William James