Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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
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
Truth
Events
Ideas
Becomes
Made
Fact
Verifying
Idea
Verity
Process
Validity
Facts
Valid
True
Namely
Happens
Event
More quotes by William James
Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.
William James
We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.
William James
Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
William James
Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us our hour of triumph is what brings the void. Not the Jews of the captivity, but those of the days of Solomon 's glory are those from whom the pessimistic utterances in our Bible come.
William James
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
William James
Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
William James
So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end...and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of fear.
William James
A great idea goes through three stages on its way to acceptance: 1) it is dismissed as nonsense, 2) it is acknowledged as true, but insignificant, 3) finally, it is seen to be important, but not really anything new.
William James
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
Touch is the alpha and omega of affection.
William James
The strenuous life tastes better
William James
Equality is attainable as long as you are part of the majority.
William James
An idea will infect another with its own emotional interest when they have become both associated together into any sort of a mental total.
William James
Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me.
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 simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.
William James
The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.
William James
Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.
William James
There can be no difference anywhere that does not make a difference somewhere.
William James
Truths emerge from facts, but they dip forward into facts again and add to them which facts again create or reveal new truth (the word is indifferent) and so on indefinitely. The 'facts' themselves meanwhile are not true. They simply are. Truth is the function of the beliefs that start and terminate among them.
William James
