Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
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
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
William James
Age: 68 †
Born: 1842
Born: January 11
Died: 1910
Died: August 26
Philosopher
Physician
Psychologist
University Teacher
W. James
Earth
Architect
Men
Pattern
Patterns
Destiny
Creatures
Tree
Alone
Change
More quotes by William James
[Religion is] the attempt to be in harmony with an unseen order of things.
William James
Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me.
William James
It seems the natural thing for us to listen whilst the Europeans talk.
William James
Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way.
William James
Wisdom is learning what to overlook.
William James
The bottom of being is left logically opaque to us, a datum in the strict sense of the word, something we simply come upon and find, and about which (if we wish to act) we should pause and wonder as little as possible. In this confession lies the lasting truth of empiricism.
William James
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
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
Great indeed is Fear but it is not, as our military enthusiasts believe and try to make us believe, the only stimulus known for awakening the higher ranges of men's spiritual energy.
William James
So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.
William James
Genius is the capacity for seeing relationships where lesser men see none.
William James
Far from being antecedent principles that animate the process, law, language, truth are but abstract names for its results.
William James
Act in earnest and you will become earnest in all you do.
William James
Deepest principle of human nature is to be appreciated.
William James
What a magnificent land and race is this Britain! Everything about them is of better quality than the corresponding thing in the U.S.... Yet I believe (or suspect) that ours is eventually the bigger destiny, if we can only succeed in living up to it.
William James
Act the part and you will become the part.
William James
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
All the qualities of a man acquire dignity when he knows that the service of the collectivity that owns him needs them. If proud of the collectivity, his own pride rises in proportion. No collectivity is like an army for nourishing such pride.
William James
There are two lives, the natural and the spiritual, and we must lose the one before we can participate in the other.
William James
There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise.
William James
