William James quotes

“How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.”

— William James

“The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.”

— William James

“'Pure experience' is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories.”

— William James

“There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.”

— William James

“There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise.”

— William James

“If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.”

— William James

“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

“Our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout.”

— William James

“To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.”

— William James

“The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.”

— William James

“The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.”

— William James

“The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.”

— William James

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

— William James

“Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.”

— William James