Quotes from William James

We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

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

If you want a quality act as if you already had it.

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create that fact.

Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind.

Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power.

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

Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.

When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.

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

Man lives by habits indeed, but what he lives for is thrill and excitements. ... From time immemorial war has been ... the supremely thrilling excitement.

Religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight, or in a mountain gorge.

Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest, which co-mingle their roots in the darkness underground.

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

He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.

ìCommon sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.

All natural goods perish. Riches take wings; fame is a breath; love is a cheat; youth and health and pleasure vanish.

Experience has ways of boiling over, and making us correct our present formulas

Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.

The minute a man ceases to grow, no matter what his years, that minute he begins to be old.

If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.