Quote

Materialism means simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of ultimate hopes spiritualism means theaffirmation of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope.

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
Means
Hopes
Order
Letting
Mean
Ultimate
Eternal
Spiritualism
Cutting
Theism
Simply
Materialism
Moral
Loose
Hope
Denial

More quotes by William James

Image
If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.
William James
Image
We are mere bundles of habits.
William James
Image
To be fertile in hypotheses is the first perquisite of creativity and to be willing to throw them away the moment experience contradicts them is the next.
William James
Image
Touch is the alpha and omega of affection.
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
No decision is, in itself, a decision.
William James
Image
Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.
William James
Image
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
William James
Image
The work that leads to a doctor's degree is a constant temptation to sacrifice one's growth as a man to one's growth as a specialist.
William James
Image
An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
William James
Image
Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second.
William James
Image
Act in earnest and you will become earnest in all you do.
William James
Image
Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation.
William James
Image
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
Image
The self-same atoms which, chaotically dispersed, made the nebula, now, jammed and temporarily caught in peculiar positions, form our brains and the 'evolution' of brains, if understood, would be simply the account of how the atoms came to be so caught and jammed.
William James
Image
So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.
William James
Image
Every claim creates an obligation.
William James
Image
A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith's usual result.
William James
Image
If you can change your mind, you can change your life.
William James
Image
A man may not achieve everything he has dreamed, but he will never achieve anything great without having dreamed it first.
William James