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Religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight, or in a mountain gorge.
William James
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William James
Age: 68 †
Born: 1842
Born: January 11
Died: 1910
Died: August 26
Philosopher
Physician
Psychologist
University Teacher
W. James
Thrill
Forest
Forests
Gorge
Mountain
Gorges
Religious
Organic
Feel
Awe
Feels
Twilight
More quotes by William James
O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy . . . In finishing it I found . . . such a flavor of persistent euphony, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim.
William James
Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.
William James
True to her inveterate habit, rationalism reverts to 'principles,' and thinks that when an abstraction once is named, we own an oracular solution.
William James
Real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not by dislikes and disdains under all misleading wrappings it pounces unerringly upon the human core.
William James
We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyse them.
William James
So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.
William James
How many of us persist in a precipitate course which, but for a moment of heedlessness we might never have entered upon, simply because we hate to change our minds.
William James
'Facts' are the bounds of human knowledge, set for it, not by it.
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
... religious experience, as we have studied it, cannot be cited as unequivocally supporting the infinitist belief. The only thingthat it unequivocally testifies to is that we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our greatest peace.
William James
An impression which simply flows in at the pupil's eyes or ears and in no way modifies his active life, is an impression gone to waste. It is physiologically incomplete... Its motor consequences are what clinch it.
William James
Our faith is faith in someone else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case.
William James
We hear in these days of scientific enlightenment a great deal of discussion about the efficacy of Prayer. Many reasons are given why we should not pray. Others give reasons why we should pray. Very little is said of the reason we do pray. The reason is simple: We pray because we cannot help praying.
William James
Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
William James
There can be no final truth in ethics any more than in physics, until the last man has had his experience and said his say.
William James
In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannot start.
William James
The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.
William James
When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.
William James
The soul is stronger than its surroundings.
William James
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
