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... no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp.

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
Grasp
Certainty
Truth
Certain
Tolls
Bell
Bells

More quotes by William James

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Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.
William James
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The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.
William James
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We don't laugh because we're happy - we're happy because we laugh.
William James
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A thing is important if anyone think it important.
William James
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Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.
William James
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Few people have definitely articulated philosophies of their own. But almost everyone has his own peculiar sense of a certain total character in the universe, and of the inadequacy of fully to match it [to] the peculiar systems that he knows.
William James
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The more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble because we are sorry, angry, or fearful as the case may be.
William James
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[Religion is] the attempt to be in harmony with an unseen order of things.
William James
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The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.
William James
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True is the name for whatever idea starts the verification process, useful is the name for its completed function in experience
William James
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Whatever universe a professor believes in must at any rate be a universe that lends itself to lengthy discourse. A universe definable in two sentences is something for which the professorial intellect has no use. No faith in anything of that cheap kind!
William James
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The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
William James
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The most natively interesting object to a man is his own personal self and its fortunes. We accordingly see that the moment a thing becomes connected with the fortunes of the self, it forthwith becomes an interesting thing.
William James
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A man with no philosophy in him is the most inauspicious and unprofitable of all possible social mates.
William James
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The strenuous life tastes better
William James
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Man, biologically considered ... is simply the most formidable of all beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own kind.
William James
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The difference between objective and subjective extension is one of relation to a context solely.
William James
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We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our functions.
William James
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It would probably astound each of them beyond measure to be let into his neighbor's mind and to find how different the scenery there was from that in his own.
William James
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No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.
William James