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)
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
The world is a place of novelty, not of repetition.
The world is a place of change, not of permanence.
The only way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
The world is a place of interaction, not of isolation.
The world is a place of experience, not of abstraction.
The world is a place of relations, not of substances.
My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.
The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.
Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way.
Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it.
The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That — with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word 'success' — is our national disease.
It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.
The 'I think' which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the 'I breathe' which actually does accompany them.
The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.
Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.
The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system.
The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature.
Contemporaries of William James
Other Psychologys born within 50 years of William James (1842–1910).