Quote

Marvelous as may be the power of my dog to understand my moods, deathless as his affection and fidelity, his mental state is as unsolved a mystery to me as it was to my remotest ancestor.

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
Power
Marvelous
States
Affection
May
Mood
Remotest
Mental
Unsolved
Dog
Deathless
Mystery
Moods
State
Fidelity
Understand
Ancestor

More quotes by William James

Image
A winner's attitude: it may be difficult, but it's possible. A loser's attitude: It may be possible, but it's too difficult.
William James
Image
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
Image
Every way of classifying a thing is but a way of handling it for some particular purpose.
William James
Image
If WE claim only reasonable probability, it will be as much as men who love the truth can ever at any given moment hope to have within their grasp.
William James
Image
If you want a confidence, act as if you already have it. Try the as if technique.
William James
Image
The difference between an interesting and a tedious teacher consists in little more than the inventiveness by which the one is able to mediate these associations and connections, and in the dullness in discovering such transitions which the other shows.
William James
Image
Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.
William James
Image
Everyone knows that on any given day there are energies slumbering in him which the incitement's of that day do not call forth. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. The human individual usually lives far within his limits.
William James
Image
To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind.
William James
Image
[Religion is] the attempt to be in harmony with an unseen order of things.
William James
Image
If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.
William James
Image
You may not get everything you dream about, but you will never get anything you don't dream about.
William James
Image
First... a new theory is attacked as absurd then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it.
William James
Image
Let anyone try, I will not say to arrest, but to notice or to attend to, the present moment of time. One of the most baffling experiences occurs. Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.
William James
Image
The trail of the human serpent is thus over everything.
William James
Image
Instinct leads, logic does but follow.
William James
Image
Anything you may hold firmly in your imagination can be yours.
William James
Image
We need only in cold blood to act as if the thing in question were real and it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real.
William James
Image
Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract, be they facts or be they principles, under penalty of endless inconsistency and frustration.
William James
Image
Individuality is founded in feeling
William James