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 world is a place of order and chaos.
The world is a place of unity and diversity.
The world is a place of progress and regress.
The world is a place of creation and destruction.
The world is a place of beginning and end.
The world is a place of infinite complexity.
The world is a place of endless wonder.
The world is a place of profound mystery.
Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
The world is not a place of rest, but a place of work.
The first thing to do if you want to get rid of a bad habit is to avoid the circumstances that lead to it.
The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war.
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
The world is not a machine, but a living organism.
The function of genius is not to give new answers, but to ask new questions.
The only way to be happy is to make others happy.
The greatest strength of a man is his ability to change.
The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
The world is full of people who are always waiting for someone else to make them happy.
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind.
Contemporaries of William James
Other Psychologys born within 50 years of William James (1842–1910).