Quotes from William James

I myself believe that the evidence for God lies primarily in inner personal experiences.

We and God have business with each other, and in opening ourselves to God's influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.

The God of many men is little more than their court of appeal against the damnatory judgment passed on their failures by the opinion of the world.

On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.

To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind.

The God of many men is little more than their court of appeal against the damnatory judgement passed on their failures by the opinion of the world.

Tension is a habit. Relaxing is a habit. Bad habits can be broken, good habits formed.

The worst thing that can happen to a good teacher is to get a bad conscience about her profession because she feels herself hopeless as a psychologist.

Much of what we call evil can often be converted into a bracing and tonic good by a simple change of the sufferer's inner attitude from one of fear to one of fight

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

Focus on increasing service. Becoming great where you are. Pile in the wood. The heat will follow.

The good we do today becomes the happiness of tomorrow.

I don't sing because I'm happy; I'm happy because I sing.

We don't laugh because we're happy - we're happy because we laugh.

History is a bath of blood.

Your hopes, dreams and aspirations are legitimate. They are trying to take you airborne, above the clouds, above the storms, if you only let them.

Materialism means simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of ultimate hopes; spiritualism means theaffirmation of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope.

A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.

An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of revelation.

Individuality is founded in feeling

A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.

In business for yourself, not by yourself.

We do not sing because we are happy, we are happy because we sing.

Psychology is the science of mental life