Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
The word 'cause' is an altar to an unknown god.
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
Unknown
Cause
Causes
Word
Altar
Altars
More quotes by William James
As a rule reading fiction is as hard to me as trying to hit a target by hurling feathers at it. I need resistance to celebrate!
William James
Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.
William James
Belief creates the actual fact.
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
The unrest which keeps the never stopping clock of metaphysics going is the thought that the nonexistence of this world is just as possible as its existence.
William James
If you want to change your life, do it flamboyantly and start immediately.
William James
To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind.
William James
All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.
William James
We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all.
William James
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
Do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty.
William James
All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.
William James
Truth is one species of good, and not, as is usually supposed, a category distinct from good, and co-ordinate with it
William James
Smitten as we are with the vision of social righteousness, a God indifferent to everything but adulation, and full of partiality for his individual favorites, lacks an essential element of largeness.
William James
Our theories are wedged and controlled as nothing else is. Yet sometimes alternative theoretic formulas are equally compatible with all the truths we know, and then we choose between them for subjective reasons. We choose the kind of theory to which we are already partial: we follow 'elegenace' or 'economy'
William James
An experience, perceptual or conceptual, must conform to reality in order to be true
William James
The ultimate test of what a truth means is the conduct it dictates or inspires.
William James
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
William James
There is but one indefectibly certain truth , and that is the truth that pyrrhonistic scepticism itself leaves standing, the truth that the present phenomenon of consciousness exists.
William James
There is a voice inside which speaks and says, This is the real me!
William James