Quote

The desire to gain wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption.

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
Desire
Chief
Fear
Chiefs
Corruption
Gain
Gains
Wealth
Lose
Breeders
Loses
Cowardice

More quotes by William James

Image
It is as if there were in the human consciousness a sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of what we may call something there, more deep and more general than any of the special and particular senses by which the current psychology supposes existent realities to be originally revealed.
William James
Image
Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions.
William James
Image
It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints.
William James
Image
If any organism fails to fulfill its potentialities, it becomes sick.
William James
Image
First... a new theory is attacked as absurd then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it.
William James
Image
We do not sing because we are happy, we are happy because we sing.
William James
Image
... religious experience, as we have studied it, cannot be cited as unequivocally supporting the infinitist belief. The only thingthat it unequivocally testifies to is that we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our greatest peace.
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
Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves.
William James
Image
The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature.
William James
Image
Man can change his life simply by changing his attitude.
William James
Image
The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
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
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
William James
Image
You perceive now, my friends, what your general or abstract duty is as teachers. Although you have to generate in your pupils a large stock of ideas, any one of which may be inhibitory, yet you must also see to it that no habitual hesitancy or paralysis of the will ensues, and that the pupil still retains his power of vigorous action.
William James
Image
Procrastination is attitude's natural assassin. There's nothing so fatiguing as an uncompleted task
William James
Image
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
William James
Image
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
William James
Image
The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.
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