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Quote by William James

“The aim of science is always to reduce complexity to simplicity.”

Quote by William James

Author

William James, born on January 11, 1842, and died on August 26, 1910, was an influential American philosopher, psychologist, and writer. He is considered one of the founders of functionalism in psychology and has had a profound impact on the fields of psychology, philosophy, and religion. more

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“The true'to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.”

Author:William James

“In my individual heart I fully believe my faith is as robust as yours. The trouble with your robust and full bodied faiths, however, is, that they begin to cut each others throats too soon, and for getting on in the world and establishing a modus vivendi these pestilential refinements and reasonablenesses and moderations have to creep in.”

World Believe Heart Individual Cutting Trouble Throat Moderation Creeps Refinement Robust Reasonableness

Author:William James

“The study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself.”

Shows Might Consciousness Study Complexes Sake Nervous Organs Distribution Nervous System Steering

Book:The Principles of Psychology

Source: The Principles of Psychology

“Creatures extremely low in the intellectual scale may have conception. All that is required is that they should recognize the same experience again. A polyp would be a conceptual thinker if a feeling of 'Hello! thingumbob again!' ever flitted through its mind.”

Ifs Should Mind May Feelings Would Be Creatures Intellectual Lows Scales Conception Thinker Hello

Book:The Principles of Psychology

Source: The Principles of Psychology

“I'm always writing. There is always a story brewing in my head.”

Writing Stories Brewing

Author:Mel Gibson

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

Race Impulse Free Will Indestructible Fatalism Vagueness

Book:Essays in Popular Philosophy: Top Essays

Source: Essays in Popular Philosophy: Top Essays

“To plead the organic causation of a religious state of mind, then, in refutation of its claim to possess superior spiritual value, is quite illogical and arbitrary, unless one have already worked out in advance some psycho-physical theory connecting spiritual values in general with determinate sorts of physiological change. Otherwise none of our thoughts and feelings, not even our scientific doctrines, not even our dis -beliefs, could retain any value as revelations of the truth, for every one of them without exception flows from the state of their possessor's body at the time.”

Source: The Varieties of Religious Experience

“Who does not see that we are likely to ascertain the distinctive significance of religious melancholy and happiness, or of religious trances, far better by comparing them as conscientiously as we can with other varieties of melancholy, happiness, and trance, than by refusing to consider their place in any more general series, and treating them as if they were outside of nature's order altogether?”

Ifs Doe Order Religious Series Variety Compare Significance Melancholy Distinctive Trance

Book:The Varieties of Religious Experience

Source: The Varieties of Religious Experience

“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.”

Children Spiritual Universe Normal Intellectual Essence Conversion Maturity Phenomenon Passages Spiritual Life

Book:The William James Reader

Source: The William James Reader

“The truth remains that, after adolescence has begun, "words, words, words," must constitute a large part, and an always larger part as life advances, of what the human being has to learn.”

Humans Human Beings Remains Adolescence

Book:Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals

Source: Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals