Quote

Man alone of all the creatures of earth can change his own pattern. Man alone is the architect of his own destiny.

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
Alone
Change
Earth
Architect
Men
Pattern
Patterns
Destiny
Creatures
Tree

More quotes by William James

Image
a man does not cry because he is sad, he is sad because he cries
William James
Image
A good hypothesis in science must have other properties than those of the phenomenon it is immediately invoked to explain, otherwise it is not prolific enough.
William James
Image
Choose a self and stand by it.
William James
Image
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
Image
We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone.
William James
Image
With mere good intentions hell is proverbially paved.
William James
Image
The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is mean and ugly.
William James
Image
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
Image
Man is essentially the imitative animal. His whole educabilityand in fact the whole history of civilization depend on this trait, which his strong tendencies to rivalry, jealousy, and acquisitiveness reinforce.
William James
Image
Man lives in only one small room of the enormous house of his consciousness.
William James
Image
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
Image
Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul None is more gladdening or fruitful than to know You can regenerate and make yourself what you will.
William James
Image
...These healers...my intellect has been unable to assimilate their theories....But their facts are patent and startling and anything that interferes with the multiplication of such facts, and with our freest opportunity of observing and studying them, will, I believe, be a public calamity.
William James
Image
Everyone knows that on any given day there are energies slumbering in him which the incitement's of that day do not call forth. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. The human individual usually lives far within his limits.
William James
Image
Volition . . . takes place only when there are a number of conflicting systems of ideas, and depends on our having a complex field of consciousness.
William James
Image
Religion must be considered vindicated in a certain way from the attacks of her critics.
William James
Image
To know one thing thoroughly would be to know the universe.
William James
Image
Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.
William James
Image
Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.
William James
Image
It is your friends who make your world.
William James