Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by William James

Quote by William James

“No fact in human nature is more characteristic than its willingness to live on a chance. The existence of the chance makes the difference… between a life of which the keynote is resignation and a life of which the keynote is hope.”

Quote by William James

Book:The Varieties of Religious Experience
Create image

Work

The Varieties of Religious Experience

This seminal work delves into the profound and varied ways individuals have experienced the divine, the sacred, and the transcendent, offering insights into the nature of religion and spirituality. more

Author

William James
William James

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

You May Also Like

“I was frightened of so many things, in my vanity, that ultimately i couldn't protect myself any other way. Try not to be like that, okay? Be sure to keep your tummy warm, try to relax, both your heart and your body, try not to get flustered. Live like a flower. You have that right. It's something you can achieve, for sure, in your lifetime. And it's enough.”

LifeHumanityFearHuman NatureFlowerLifestyleComplexityDelicacyWay Of Life
Book:The Lake
Create image

“...He had few illusions, for here are some of the things that life had taught him: "Men hate those whom they have injured; men love those whom they have benefited; men naturally avoid their benefactors; men are universally actuated by self-interest; gratitude is a lovely sense of expected benefits; promises are never forgotten by those to whom they are made, usually by those who make them.”

Human NatureIllusions
Book:Collected Short Stories: Volume 4
Create image

“The human self also has a nature, limits as well as potentials. If you seek vocation without understanding the material you are working with, what you build with your life will be ungainly and may well put lives in peril, your own and some of those around you. 'Faking it' in the service of high values is no virtue and has nothing to do with vocation. It is an ignorant, sometimes arrogant, attempt to override one's nature, and it will always fail.”

VirtueHuman NatureServiceVocationLimitationsHuman Self
Book:Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
Create image

“Emotional position is part of it, but as an individual you are not your emotions, neither are you your intellect. These are things that you have . They're not things that you are . Therefore you have to start to become aware of the different requirements that human beings have, the different areas that they like to be satisfied in. Which means becoming aware of yourself. I mean, as a writer you're gonna have to understand pretty much the whole universe. But the best place to start is by understanding the inner universe. The entire universe – for one thing – only exists in your perceptions. That's all you're gonna see of it. To all practical intents and purposes this is purely some kind of lightshow that's being put on in the kind of neurons in our brain. The whole of reality. So. To understand the universe there's worse advice than that which was carved above the shrine of the Delphi oracle. Where it just said: “Know thyself”. Understand yourself. Know thyself is a magical goal, but like I say to me there is very little difference between magic and creative art in any sense – the laws of one apply perfectly well to the other.”

PhilosophyHuman NatureStorytellingKnowledge Of Self
Author:Alan Moore
Create image