William James famous quotes

If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.
-- William James

#Leadership #Motivation #Philosophical

The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
-- William James

#Inspirational #Life #Motivational

Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.
-- William James

#Inspirational #Positive #Success

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
-- William James

#Inspirational #Motivational #Positive

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.
-- William James

#Fear #Past #History

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
-- William James

#Inspirational #Motivational #Relationship

If you can change your mind, you can change your life.
-- William James

#Love #Inspirational #Motivational

We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.
-- William James

#Love #Sea #Islands

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.
-- William James

#Happiness #Fear #Stress

The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
-- William James

#Life #Positive #Happiness

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
-- William James

#Life #Positive #Encouraging

In any project the important factor is your belief. Without belief, there can be no successful outcome.
-- William James

#Inspirational #Successful #Important

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

#Roots #Islands #Sea

One of the greatest discoveries of our time is that a man can alter the state of their life by altering the state of their mind.
-- William James

#Men #Discovery #Mind

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
-- William James

#Inspirational #Motivational #Positive

A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.
-- William James

#Humor #Dancing #Common Sense

The path to cheerfulness is to sit cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there.
-- William James

#Path #Speak #Cheerfulness

Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second.
-- William James

#Running #Perseverance #Inspirational Sports

I don't sing because I'm happy; I'm happy because I sing.
-- William James

#Happiness #Music #Philosophical

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
-- William James

#Positive #Wise #Wisdom

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.
-- William James

#Giving #Realizing #Habit

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.
-- William James

#Inspirational #Philosophical #Sadness

'Facts' are the bounds of human knowledge, set for it, not by it.
-- William James

#Knowledge #Facts #Humans

Science as such assuredly has no authority, for she can only say what is, not what is not.
-- William James

#Science #Authority

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

#Inspirational #Unique #Opportunity

Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results.
-- William James

#Positive #Attitude #Successful

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

#Inspirational #Motivational #Philosophical

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
-- William James

#Motivational #Clever #Procrastination

Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.
-- William James

#Differences #Making A Difference #Done

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

#Leadership #Self Esteem #Quality

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.
-- William James

#Wisdom #Philosophical #Learning

It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.
-- William James

#Inspirational #Motivational #Positive

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
-- William James

#Motivational #Happiness #Freedom

Belief creates the actual fact.
-- William James

#Inspirational #Uplifting #Philosophical

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.
-- William James

#Heart #Errors #World

Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.
-- William James

#Optimistic #Positive Thinking #Optimism

Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.
-- William James

#Men #Two #People

No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.
-- William James

#Success #Uplifting #Taken

Effort is a measure of a Man.
-- William James

#Sports #Men #Effort

To kill time is not murder, it's suicide.
-- William James

#Suicide #Murder

This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.
-- William James

#Life #Inspiration #Purpose

A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.
-- William James

#Life #Stay Strong #Ties

One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling.
-- William James

#Wrestling #Heart #Laughing

What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise although the philosophers generally call it recognition!
-- William James

#Men #Facts #Philosopher

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.
-- William James

#Men #Differences #Choices

The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.
-- William James

#Philosophy #Philosophical #Certain

The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.
-- William James

#Truth #Lying #Philosophical

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
-- William James

#Philosophical #Quality #Ethics

A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.
-- William James

#Men #Self #Individual

We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.
-- William James

#Truth #Opposites #Would Be

Genius is the capacity for seeing relationships where lesser men see none.
-- William James

#Men #Genius #Capacity

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.
-- William James

#World #Consciousness #Conscious

It is your friends who make your world.
-- William James

#Meaningful #World #Meaningful Life

We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort.
-- William James

#Effort #Forget #Very Good

The greatest weapon we have to combat stress is the ability to choose our thoughts.
-- William James

#Stress #Weapons #Combat

Tell him to live by yes and no - yes to everything good, no to everything bad.
-- William James

#Yes And No #Live By

There is a law in psychology that if you form a picture in your mind of what you would like to be, and you keep and hold that picture there long enough, you will soon become exactly as you have been thinking.
-- William James

#Military #Thinking #Law

Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.
-- William James

#Philosophy #Sublime #Pursuit

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

#Lying #Believe #Belief

The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.
-- William James

#Needs #Appreciated #Humans

Agisci come se quel che fai, facesse la differenza. La fa!
-- William James

If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.
-- William James

#Change #Believe #Past

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.
-- William James

#Life #Success #Everyday

The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.
-- William James

#Prayer #Philosophical #Worry

Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.
-- William James

#Life #Philosophical #Humorous

If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.
-- William James

#Feel Good #Alcohol #Feelings

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.
-- William James

#Faith #Philosophical #Believe

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.
-- William James

#Birthday #Character #Age

The good we do today becomes the happiness of tomorrow.
-- William James

#Happiness #Today #Tomorrow

The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.
-- William James

#Philosophical #Essence #Genius

To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.
-- William James

#Philosophical #Understanding #Abnormal

Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.
-- William James

#Philosophical #Thinking #Men

There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.
-- William James

#Philosophy #Philosophical #Philosopher

We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.
-- William James

#Life #Philosophical #Fate

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.
-- William James

#Work #Holiday #Men

In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start.
-- William James

#Philosophical #Surfing #Mind

Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.
-- William James

#Philosophy #Philosophical #Half

Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.
-- William James

#Knowledge #Occupation #Life Is

Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
-- William James

#Mean #Creativity #Innovation

Our faith is faith in someone else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case.
-- William James

#Philosophical #Matter #Cases

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

#Happiness #Laughter #Laughing

The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.
-- William James

#Education #Philosophical #Carpe Diem

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

#Inspirational #Ideas #Firsts

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.
-- William James

#Dream #Hope #Clouds

A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all.
-- William James

#Differences

My experience is what I agree to attend to.
-- William James

#Agree

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

#Funny #Dance #Moving

We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all.
-- William James

#Dog #Book #Cat

The voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, and act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. To feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end, and courage will very likely replace fear.
-- William James

#Fear #Brave #Use

There is a voice inside which speaks and says, "This is the real me!"
-- William James

#Real #Voice #Speak

Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendships and intimacies … and yet they leave their friendships and intimacies with no cultivation, to grow as they will by the roadside, expecting them to "keep" by force of mere inertia.
-- William James

#Life #Friendship #Littles

Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it.
-- William James

#Inspirational #Attitude #Real

Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction
-- William James

#Ease #May #Source

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

#War #Men #Thrill

In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.
-- William James

#Education #Teacher #Important

Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that assures the successful outcome of any venture.
-- William James

#Success #Confidence #Believe

Why may we not be in the universe, as our dogs and cats are in our drawingrooms and libraries?
-- William James

#Dog #Cat #Library

Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me.
-- William James

#Character #Doe #Circumstances

The strenuous life tastes better
-- William James

#Taste

Our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to hear.
-- William James

#Views #World