Quotes from William James

There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or snicker; if sad, it must not scream or curse.

The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.

Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?

Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

In order to disprove the assertion that all crows are black, one white crow is sufficient.

We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyse them.

Science as such assuredly has no authority, for she can only say what is, not what is not.

Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves.

We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and as carefully guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous.

'Facts' are the bounds of human knowledge, set for it, not by it.

Good-humor is a philosophic state of mind; it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us. I maintain that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile.

Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.

Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.

The strenuous life tastes better

Lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or being.

The greatest discovery of the 20th Century is that our attitude of mind determines our quality of life, not circumstances.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.

Our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout.

Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance.

The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own particular ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence with ours.

No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed.

Habit is the great flywheel of society.

Conversion is in its essence a normal adolescent phenomenon, incidental to the passage from the child's small universe to the wider intellectual and spiritual life of maturity.