Quote

In the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible.

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
Habit
Possible
Strong
Care
Launch
Take
Acquisition
Must
Initiative
Leaving
Decided

More quotes by William James

Image
... if we take the universe of 'fitting,' countless coats 'fit' backs, and countless boots 'fit' feet, on which they are not practically fitted countless stones 'fit' gaps in walls into which no one seeks to fit them actually. In the same way countless opinions 'fit' realities, and countless truths are valid, tho no thinker ever thinks them.
William James
Image
Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. Not through mere perversity do men run after it.
William James
Image
... no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp.
William James
Image
A new opinion counts as true just in proportion as it gratifies the individual's desire to assimilate the novel in his experience to his beliefs in stock
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
Once you accept an idea, it's an idea whose time has come.
William James
Image
If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.
William James
Image
There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation.
William James
Image
Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.
William James
Image
A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.
William James
Image
If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed.
William James
Image
Act in earnest and you will become earnest in all you do.
William James
Image
Results should not be too voluntarily aimed at or too busily thought of. They are sure to float up of their own accord from a long enough daily work at a given matter.
William James
Image
I will act as if I do make a difference.
William James
Image
Real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not by dislikes and disdains under all misleading wrappings it pounces unerringly upon the human core.
William James
Image
O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy . . . In finishing it I found . . . such a flavor of persistent euphony, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim.
William James
Image
Emotional occasions, especially violent ones, are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive ways in which love, jealousy, guilt, fear, remorse, or anger can seize upon one are known to everybody. . . . And emotions that come in this explosive way seldom leave things as they found them.
William James
Image
Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.
William James
Image
What a teacher needs to know about psychology might almost be written on the palm of one's hand.
William James
Image
My experience is what I agree to attend to.
William James