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The thinker philosophizes as the lover loves. Even were the consequences not only useless but harmful, he must obey his impulse.
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
Impulse
Useless
Lovers
Consequence
Harmful
Loves
Obey
Must
Thinker
Even
Lover
Consequences
More quotes by William James
Science, like life, feeds on its own decay. New facts burst old rules then newly divined conceptions bind old and new together into a reconciling law.
William James
Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.
William James
Modern man . . . has not ceased to be credulous . . . the need to believe haunts him.
William James
Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true.
William James
A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.
William James
We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.
William James
Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system
William James
At bottom, the whole concern of religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe.
William James
Hogamus, higamous Man is polygamous Higamus, hogamous Woman monogamous.
William James
If any one phrase could gather its (religion's) universal message, that phrase would be, - All is not vanity in this Universe, whatever the appearances may suggest.
William James
A man of sense is never discouraged by difficulties he redoubles his industry and his diligence, he perseveres and infallibly prevails at last.
William James
Man, biologically considered ... is simply the most formidable of all beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own kind.
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
Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible ... faith is the readiness to act in a cause the prosperous issue of which is not certified to us in advance.
William James
I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the most interesting and important thing about you is the way in which it determines the perspective in your several worlds.
William James
My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing, and I can only do one thing at a time.
William James
We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. ...Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out.
William James
A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.
William James
The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.
William James
The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.
William James
