Quote

Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer . . . It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

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
Anything
Everywhere
Every
Private
Unproved
Believe
Evidence
Desecrated
Always
Pleasure
Unquestioned
Belief
Insufficient
Wrong
Solace
Upon
Statements
Given
Believer

More quotes by William James

Image
Truth in our ideas means their power to work.
William James
Image
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
Image
The mind is made up by what it feeds upon.
William James
Image
Pluralism lets things really exist in the each-form or distributively. Monism thinks that the all-form or collective-unit form is the only form that is rational.
William James
Image
True is the name for whatever idea starts the verification process, useful is the name for its completed function in experience
William James
Image
Time itself comes in drops.
William James
Image
Equality is attainable as long as you are part of the majority.
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
Each of us is in fact what he is almost exclusively by virtue of his imitative-ness.
William James
Image
To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.
William James
Image
We with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground.
William James
Image
The pragmatist turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended absolutes and origins. He turns toward concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards action, and towards power.
William James
Image
The minute a man ceases to grow, no matter what his years, that minute he begins to be old.
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
Give your dreams all you've got, and you'll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.
William James
Image
The first thing that intellect does with an object is to class it with something else.
William James
Image
Life shall be built in doing and suffering and creating.
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
It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.
William James
Image
To be fertile in hypotheses is the first perquisite of creativity and to be willing to throw them away the moment experience contradicts them is the next.
William James