Quotes from William James

Effort is a measure of a Man.

As long as there are postmen, life will have zest.

We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.

Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.

Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.

It is art that makes life, and I know of no substitute whatsoever for the force and beauty of its process.

We need only in cold blood to act as if the thing in question were real and it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real.

Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.

A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.

The greatest weapon we have to combat stress is the ability to choose our thoughts.

Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that assures the successful outcome of any venture.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.

Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.

The squalid cash interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease.

If you want to change your life, do it flamboyantly and start immediately.

All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.

There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise.

The impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race.

Science, like life, feeds on its own decay. New facts burst old rules; then newly divined conceptions bind old and new together into a reconciling law.

'Pure experience' is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories.

The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.

It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.