William James

The absolutely initial fact of all our knowing is the fact that we are immediately conscious of a feeling of being alive.

The difference between a bad habit and a good one is that a bad habit is easy to acquire and difficult to get rid of, while a good habit is difficult to acquire and easy to get rid of.

The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For every one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laughter.

The intellectual life of man consists almost wholly in his substituting a conceptual order for the perceptual order in which his experience originally comes.

Man, biologically considered, and whatever else he may be into the bargain, is the most formidable of all the beasts of prey.

The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.

What is new is not necessarily true, and what is true is not necessarily new.

The first thing that a man will do for his ideals is to lie.

The meaning of a statement is the conceivable practical consequences of its truth.

Habit is the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent.

We must make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.

The education of the will is the object of our whole training.

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is no stronger than its weakest moment.

The world is a place of peril, and we must learn to be brave.

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

The will to believe is the will to act on our hopes.

To be spiritual is to be alive to the infinite possibilities of life.

The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.