Quote

Neither moral relations nor the moral law can swing in vacuo. Their only habitat can be a mind which feels them and no world composed of merely physical facts can possibly be a world to which ethical propositions apply.

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
Facts
Ethical
Feels
Possibly
Habitat
Mind
Relation
Composed
World
Merely
Swing
Neither
Propositions
Physical
Swings
Law
Apply
Moral
Relations

More quotes by William James

Image
The absolute things, the last things, the overlapping things, are the truly philosophic concerns all superior minds feel seriously about them, and the mind with the shortest views is simply the mind of the more shallow man.
William James
Image
There are two lives, the natural and the spiritual, and we must lose the one before we can participate in the other.
William James
Image
Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second.
William James
Image
Man can change his life simply by changing his attitude.
William James
Image
All the qualities of a man acquire dignity when he knows that the service of the collectivity that owns him needs them. If proud of the collectivity, his own pride rises in proportion. No collectivity is like an army for nourishing such pride.
William James
Image
The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.
William James
Image
Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.
William James
Image
All of our life is but a mass of small habits - practical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual - that bear us irresistibly toward our destiny.
William James
Image
All natural happiness thus seems infected with a contradiction. The breath of the sepulchre surrounds it.
William James
Image
Intellectualism' is the belief that our mind comes upon a world complete in itself, and has the duty of ascertaining its contents but has no power of re-determining its character, for that is already given.
William James
Image
Man, whatever else he may be, is primarily a practical being, whose mind is given him to aid in adapting him to this world's life
William James
Image
In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.
William James
Image
The last peculiarity of consciousness to which attention is to be drawn in this first rough description of its stream is that it is always interested more in one part of its object than in another, and welcomes and rejects, or chooses, all the while it thinks.
William James
Image
Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.
William James
Image
Our acts of voluntary attending, as brief and fitful as they are, are nevertheless momentous and critical, determining us, as they do, to higher or lower destinies.
William James
Image
The ultimate test of what a truth means is the conduct it dictates or inspires.
William James
Image
All the daily routine of life, our dressing and undressing, the coming and going from our work or carrying through of its various operations, is utterly without mental reference to pleasure and pain, except under rarely realized conditions.
William James
Image
To change one's life: a. Start immediately b. B. Do it flamboyantly c. No exceptions Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted.
William James
Image
Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.
William James
Image
Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality. Alter your thoughts, alter your reality.
William James