Quote

It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints.

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
Universe
Passionate
Resignation
Makes
Emotional
Accepts
Way
Difference
Saints
Accepting
Tremendous
Differences
Practicals
Happiness
Practical
Whether
Necessity
Drab
Christian
Saint
Stoic

More quotes by William James

Image
All that we need explicitly to note is that, the more the passive attention is relied on, by keeping the material interesting and the less the kind of attention requiring effort is appealed to the more smoothly and pleasantly the classroom work goes on.
William James
Image
The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.
William James
Image
We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort.
William James
Image
In all this process of acquiring conceptions, a certain instinctive order is followed. There is a native tendency to assimilate certain kinds of conception at one age, and other kinds of conception at a later age.
William James
Image
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
William James
Image
Everything which is demanded is by that fact a good.
William James
Image
Neither moral relations nor the moral law can swing in vacuo. Their only habitat can be a mind which feels them and no world composed of merely physical facts can possibly be a world to which ethical propositions apply.
William James
Image
Selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built. And in this case of memory its utility is obvious. If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.
William James
Image
The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature.
William James
Image
Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract
William James
Image
The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
William James
Image
The minute a man ceases to grow, no matter what his years, that minute he begins to be old.
William James
Image
The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.
William James
Image
There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise.
William James
Image
Modern war is so expensive that we feel trade to be a better avenue to plunder but modern man inherits all the innate pugnacity and all the love of glory of his ancestors.
William James
Image
One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling.
William James
Image
It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all.
William James
Image
Our beliefs and our attention are the same fact.
William James
Image
There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness.
William James
Image
There is but one unconditional commandment ... to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.
William James