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 greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
No matter how full a reservoir of knowledge you may have, if you have not learned how to use it, it will be of no service to you.
The world is a moral gymnasium.
The first thing to do if you want to make a habit is to launch yourself with as strong and decided an initiative as possible.
Man is born for action; he is made for it. His very organization is a call to it.
The world is not a finished product, but a process.
The only way to be happy is to be useful.
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
The mind is an organ of selection.
The function of the brain is to receive impressions, to register them, to combine them, and to react to them.
The true life of a man is the life he leads in his own mind.
The world is not a logical system, but a psychological one.
The meaning of a proposition is to be found in the practical consequences of its truth.
We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between us and the savages is that we have more causes.
The stream of consciousness is not a stream of ideas, but a stream of thought.
The will to believe is a genuine option for human beings.
The world is a pluralistic universe.
The moral equivalent of war.
The world is not a block universe, but a universe of process and change.
Contemporaries of William James
Other Psychologys born within 50 years of William James (1842–1910).