William James
Father of American psychology
Most quoted
"A man's Self is the sum total of all that he CAN call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account. All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down."
— from The Principles of Psychology, 1890
"Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine."
— from The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902
"No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better."
— from Talks to Teachers on Psychology, 1899
All quotes by William James (263)
Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its validation.
No bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when we are right.
Our judgments concerning the worth of things, big or little, depend on the feelings the things arouse in us.
The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.
The healthy-minded temperament, in short, is not the only temperament. There is also the sick soul.
We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.
The world is not a finished thing; it is still in the making.
The community of truth is the community of those who are willing to be led by the evidence.
The mind is at every stage a theater of simultaneous possibilities. Consciousness consists in the comparison of these possibilities, and the selection of one of them.
The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite assignable reasons.
The world is a place of promise, not of fulfillment.
The world is a place of struggle, not of peace.
The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
The world is a place of adventure, not of security.
The only way to do a great work is to love what you do.
The world is a place of mystery, not of certainty.
The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
The world is a place of possibilities, not of necessities.
The world is a place of freedom, not of determinism.
Contemporaries of William James
Other Psychologys born within 50 years of William James (1842–1910).