Quote

Great indeed is Fear but it is not, as our military enthusiasts believe and try to make us believe, the only stimulus known for awakening the higher ranges of men's spiritual energy.

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
Men
Known
Enthusiasts
Spiritual
Ranges
Energy
Stimulus
Fear
Awakening
Great
Range
Trying
Indeed
Believe
Military
Make
Higher

More quotes by William James

Image
The war-function has grasped us so far but the constructive interests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly lighter burden.
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
The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.
William James
Image
He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.
William James
Image
If this life is not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight.
William James
Image
On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.
William James
Image
Once a decision is reached, stop worrying and start working.
William James
Image
Plasticity, then, in the wide sense of the word, means the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influence, but strong enough not to yield all at once. Each relatively stable phase of equilibrium in such a structure is marked by what we may call a new set of habits.
William James
Image
What excites and interests the looker-on at life, what the romances and the statues celebrate, and the grim civic monuments remind us of, is the everlasting battle of the powers of light with those of darkness with heroism reduced to its bare chance, yet ever and anon snatching victory from the jaws of death.
William James
Image
To know an object is to lead to it through a context which the world provides
William James
Image
All that we need explicitly to note is that, the more the passive attention is relied on, by keeping the material interesting and the less the kind of attention requiring effort is appealed to the more smoothly and pleasantly the classroom work goes on.
William James
Image
Impulse without reason is enough, and reason without impulse is a poor makeshift.
William James
Image
A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith's usual result.
William James
Image
The good we do today becomes the happiness of tomorrow.
William James
Image
We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. We postpone and postpone until those smiling possibilities are dead... By neglecting the necessary concrete labor, by sparing ourselves the little daily tax, we are positively digging the graves of our higher possibilities.
William James
Image
If you give appreciation to people, you win their goodwill.
William James
Image
Deepest principle of human nature is to be appreciated.
William James
Image
Cramming seeks to stamp things in by intense application immediately before the ordeal. But a thing thus learned can form but few associations.
William James
Image
Truth is one species of good, and not, as is usually supposed, a category distinct from good, and co-ordinate with it
William James
Image
Lay plans as if we were to be immortal.
William James