Quote

Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract

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
Abstract
Agree
Reality
Truth
Ideas
Must
Inconsistency
Realities
Concrete

More quotes by William James

Image
I take it that no man is educated who has never dallied with the thought of suicide.
William James
Image
The true'to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.
William James
Image
To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from them any element that is directly experienced.
William James
Image
All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.
William James
Image
If you give appreciation to people, you win their goodwill. But more important than that, practicing this philosophy has made a different person of me.
William James
Image
Far from being antecedent principles that animate the process, law, language, truth are but abstract names for its results.
William James
Image
When a thing is new, people say: ‘It is not true.’ Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say: ‘It is not important.’ Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say: ‘Anyway, it is not new.
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
All natural goods perish. Riches take wings fame is a breath love is a cheat youth and health and pleasure vanish.
William James
Image
If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.
William James
Image
To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.
William James
Image
We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.
William James
Image
The drunken consciousness is one bit of the mystic consciousness, and our total opinion of it must find its place in our opinion of that larger whole.
William James
Image
The worst thing that can happen to a good teacher is to get a bad conscience about her profession because she feels herself hopeless as a psychologist.
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
The soul is stronger than its surroundings.
William James
Image
If any one phrase could gather its (religion's) universal message, that phrase would be, - All is not vanity in this Universe, whatever the appearances may suggest.
William James
Image
From the Vedas we learn a practical art of surgery, medicine, music, house building under which mechanized art is included. They are encyclopedia of every aspect of life, culture, religion, science, ethics, law, cosmology and meteorology.
William James
Image
Invention, using the term most broadly, and imitation, are the two legs, so to call them, on which the human race historically has walked.
William James
Image
As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.
William James