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Man's chief difference from the brutes lies in the exuberant excess of his subjective propensities. Prune his extravagance, sober him, and you undo him.

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
Difference
Brutes
Differences
Subjective
Prune
Lying
Sober
Propensities
Men
Excess
Exuberant
Chief
Prunes
Chiefs
Undo
Waste
Extravagance
Lies
Propensity

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We do not sing because we are happy, we are happy because we sing.
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The states of consciousness are all that psychology needs to do her work with. Metaphysics or theology may prove the Soul to exist but for psychology the hypothesis of such a substantial principle of unity is superfluous.
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If you can change your mind, you can change your life.
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The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.
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The first thing that intellect does with an object is to class it with something else.
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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.
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Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions.
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In the last analysis, then, we believe that we all know and think about and talk about the same world because we believe our PERCEPTS are possessed by us in common
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Agisci come se quel che fai, facesse la differenza. La fa!
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All natural happiness thus seems infected with a contradiction. The breath of the sepulchre surrounds it.
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This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed.
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From all these facts there emerges a very simple abstract program for the teacher to follow in keeping the attention of the child: Begin with the line of his native interests, and offer him objects that have some immediate connection with these.
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All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.
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What the whole community comes to believe in grasps the individual as in a vise.
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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.
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Hogamus, higamous Man is polygamous Higamus, hogamous Woman monogamous.
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Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.
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...By far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions is to ignore them altogether, or to abuse those who bear witness for them.
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True to her inveterate habit, rationalism reverts to 'principles,' and thinks that when an abstraction once is named, we own an oracular solution.
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