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William James

William James Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous William James Quotes

“Take the happiest man, the one most envied by the world, and in nine cases out of ten his inmost consciousness is one of failure. Either his ideals in the line of his achievements are pitched far higher than the achievements themselves, or else he has secret ideals of which the world knows nothing, and in regard to which he inwardly knows himself to be found wanting.”

KnowsMenWorldFoundLinesSecretConsciousnessCasesFailureHigherTenAchievementIdealsRegardNineEnviedHappiest Man
Book:Writings, 1902-1910
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“The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist, and that those other worlds must contain experiences which have a meaning for our life also; and that although in the main their experiences and those of this world keep discrete, yet the two become continuous at certain points, and higher energies filter in.”

WorldTwoWholeCertainEnergyConsciousnessOur LivesThis WorldHigherOther WorldsFiltersDiscrete
Book:Writings, 1902-1910
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“We must frankly confess, then, using our empirical common sense and ordinary practical prejudices, that in the world that actually is, the virtues of sympathy, charity, and non-resistance may be, and often have been, manifested in excess. ... You will agree to this in general, for in spite of the Gospel, in spite of Quakerism, in spite of Tolstoi, you believe in fighting fire with fire, in shooting down usurpers, locking up thieves, and freezing out vagabonds and swindlers.”

WorldBelieveMayHas BeensFightingCommonVirtueFireOrdinaryPrejudiceAgreeCharityPracticalsResistanceCommon SenseShootingSpiteExcessThievesFreezingVagabondsSwindlersUsurpers
Book:The Varieties of Religious Experience
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“[There are, in us] possibilities that take our breath away, and show a world wider than either physics or philistine ethics can imagine. Here is a world in which all is well, in spite of certain forms of death, death of hope, death of strength, death of responsibility, of fear and wrong, death of everything that paganism, naturalism and legalism pin their trust on.”

WorldWellsShowsFormCertainResponsibilityImaginePossibilityEthicsBreathsPhysicsSpitePinsPaganismNaturalismLegalismPhilistinesHope Death
Book:Essays in Religion and Morality
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“In this real world of sweat and dirt, it seems to me that when a view of things is 'noble,' that ought to count as presumption against its truth, and as a philosophic disqualification. The prince of darkness may be a gentleman, as we are told he is, but whatever the God of earth and heaven is, he can surely be no gentleman.”

WorldMayRealSeemsEarthHeavenViewsDarknessOughtNobleGentlemanReal WorldSweatDirtPresumptionPhilosophicDisqualification
Book:Pragmatism: Human Understanding
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“Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.”

WorldHeartSeemsCertainErrorsSpiteBehalfCautionSolemnLightnessNervousnessCarefulness
Book:The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality
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“I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny, invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride.”

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Author:William James
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“What do believers in the Absolute mean by saving that their belief affords them comfort? They mean that since in the Absolute finite evil is ‘overruled’ already, we may, therefore, whenever we wish, treat the temporal as if it were potentially the eternal, be sure that we can trust its outcome, and, without sin, dismiss our fear and drop the worry of our finite responsibility. In short, they mean that we have a right ever and anon to take a moral holiday, to let the world wag in its own way, feeling that its issues are in better hands than ours and are none of our business.”

IfsWorldWayMayMeanFeelingsHandsEvilBeliefWishSinResponsibilityMoralWorryIssuesComfortEternalTreatsAbsolutesBelieverSavingOutcomesHolidayFiniteWagsAnon
Author:William James
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“Or if the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which Messrs. Fourier's and Bellamy's and Morris's Utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torment, what except a specifical and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us immediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain?”

IfsWorldFeelsShouldSoulWould BeScienceCertainLostSimpleEmotionMillionsConditionsLonelyIndependentFruitEdgesAcceptedImpulseEnjoymentTormentHypothesisUtopiaBargainsHideousClutchLost SoulsMorrisFourier
Book:The Will to Believe and Human Immortality
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“Failure, then, failure! so the world stamps us at every turn. We strew it with our blunders, our misdeeds, our lost opportunities, with all the memorials of our inadequacy to our vocation. And with what a damning emphasis does it then blot us out! No easy fine, no mere apology or formal expiation, will satisfy the world's demands, but every pound of flesh exacted is soaked with all its blood. The subtlest forms of suffering known to man are connected with the poisonous humiliations incidental to these results.”

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Book:The Varieties of Religious Experience
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“The further limits of our being plunge, it seems to me, into an altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and merely understandable world. Name it the mystical region, or the supernatural region, whichever you choose. So far as our ideal impulses originate in this region (and most of them do originate in it, for we find them possessing us in a way for which we cannot articulately account), we belong to it in a more intimate sense than that in which we belong to the visible world, for we belong in the most intimate sense wherever our ideals belong.”

WorldWaySeemsNamesExistenceLimitsIdealsAccountsImpulseIntimateVisibleDimensionsRegionsSensibleYou ChooseMysticalPossessingPlunge
Book:Essays in Pragmatism
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“Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism. In heroism, we feel, life's supreme mystery is hidden. We tolerate no one who has no capacity whatever for it in any direction. On the other hand, no matter what a man's frailties otherwise may be, if he be willing to risk death, and still more if he suffer it heroically, in the service he has chosen, the fact consecrates him forever.”

IfsMenWorldFeelsMayStillsMatterFactsHandsRealitySufferingCommonForeverRiskMysteryMankindWillingCapacityNo Matter WhatInstinctTheatreSupremeChosenHeroismTolerateFrailty
Book:The Varieties of Religious Experience
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