Quotes from William James

The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude.

In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start.

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.

The power to move the world is in the subconcious mind

It is as important to cultivate your silence power as your word power.

Geniuses are commonly believed to excel other men in their power of sustained attention . . . But it is their genius making them attentive, not their attention making geniuses of them.

Marvelous as may be the power of my dog to understand my moods, deathless as his affection and fidelity, his mental state is as unsolved a mystery to me as it was to my remotest ancestor.

The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.

The exercise of prayer in those who habitually exert it must be regarded by us doctors as the most adequate and normal of all the pacifiers of the mind and calmers of the nerves.

Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.

Religion . . . shall mean for us the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude.

If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.

Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.

Religion, whatever it is, is a man's total reaction upon life.

In its broadest term, religion says that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in rightful relations to it.

Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true.

[Religion is] the attempt to be in harmony with an unseen order of things.

All religions and spiritual traditions begin with the cry "Help!

Life is one long struggle between conclusions based on abstract ways of conceiving cases, and opposite conclusions prompted by our instinctive perception of them.

Cramming seeks to stamp things in by intense application immediately before the ordeal. But a thing thus learned can form but few associations.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.

You can alter your life by altering the state of your mind.

Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.