Quote

Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting through becoming associated with an object in which an interest already exists.

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
Become
Associated
May
Object
Exists
Objects
Becoming
Already
Interest
Interesting

More quotes by William James

Image
Our beliefs and our attention are the same fact.
William James
Image
Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being.
William James
Image
Man alone of all the creatures of earth can change his own pattern. Man alone is the architect of his own destiny.
William James
Image
Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.
William James
Image
There is but one unconditional commandment ... to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.
William James
Image
Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.
William James
Image
Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.
William James
Image
What holds attention determines action.
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
The desire to gain wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption.
William James
Image
No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed.
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
Give up the feeling of responsibility, let go your hold, resign the care of your destiny to higher powers, be genuinely indifferent as to what becomes of it all and you will find not only that you gain a perfect inward relief, but often also, in addition, the particular goods you sincerely thought you were renouncing.
William James
Image
The study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself.
William James
Image
The good we do today becomes the happiness of tomorrow.
William James
Image
In the last analysis, then, we believe that we all know and think about and talk about the same world because we believe our PERCEPTS are possessed by us in common
William James
Image
[Religion is] the attempt to be in harmony with an unseen order of things.
William James
Image
Truth in our ideas means their power to work.
William James
Image
It is as important to cultivate your silence power as your word power.
William James
Image
Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.
William James