01UndatedWe are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.William James / quote ↗
02UndatedHuman 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 / quote ↗
04UndatedTo change one’s life: 1. Start immediately. 2. Do it flamboyantly. 3. No exceptions.William James / quote ↗
05UndatedSeek 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 / quote ↗
07UndatedEach of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.William James / quote ↗
08UndatedWhy may we not be in the universe, as our dogs and cats are in our drawingrooms and libraries?William James / quote ↗
09UndatedIt is as if there were in the human consciousness a sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of what we may call ‘something there,’ more deep and more general than any of the special and particular ‘senses’ by which the current psychology supposes existent realities to be originally revealed. If this were so, we might suppose the senses to waken our attitudes and conduct as they so habitually do, by first exciting this sense of reality; but anything else, any idea, for example, that might similarly excite it, would have that same prerogative of appearing real which objects of sense normally possess.William James / quote ↗
10UndatedThere is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it positively refuses to account for are a genuine portion of reality; and they may after all be the best key to life's significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth.William James / quote ↗
11UndatedSelection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built. And in this case of memory its utility is obvious. If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.William James / quote ↗
12UndatedBut it is the bane of psychology to suppose that where results are similar, processes must be the same. Psychologists are too apt to reason as geometers would, if the latter were to say that the diameter of a circle is the same thing as its semi-circumference, because, forsooth, they terminate in the same two points.William James / quote ↗
14UndatedIn certain diseased conditions consciousness is a mere spark, without memory of the past or thought of the future, and with the present narrowed down to some one simple emotion or sensation of the body.William James / quote ↗
15UndatedNo 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.William James / quote ↗
16UndatedMost of us probably fall several times a day into a fit somewhat like this: The eyes are fixed on vacancy, the sounds of the world melt into a confused unity, the attention is dispersed so that the whole body is felt, as it were, at once, and the foreground of consciousness is filled, if by anything, by a sort of solemn sense of surrender to the empty passing of time. In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannot start; the pensée de derrière la tête [thought at the back of the head] fails to pierce the shell of lethargy that wraps our state about. Every moment we expect the shell to break, for we know no reason why it should continue. But it does continue, pulse after pulse, and we float with it, until—also without reason that we can discover—an energy is given, something—we know not what—enables us to gather ourselves together, we wink our eyes, we shake our head, the background ideas become effective, and the wheels of life go round again.William James / quote ↗
17UndatedA man's Self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house.William James / quote ↗
19UndatedBeyond the very extremity of fatigue distress, amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves to own, sources of strength habitually not taxed at all, because habitually we never push through the obstructionWilliam James / quote ↗
20UndatedWhy should we think upon things that are lovely Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.William James / quote ↗
21UndatedA new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.William James / quote ↗
22UndatedNot that I would not, if I could, be both handsome ...and well-dressed, and a great athlete, and make a million a year, be a wit, a bon-vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer, as well as a ‘tone poet’ and saint. But the thing is simply impossible…Such different characters may conceivably at the outset of life be alike possible to a man. But to make any one of them actual, the rest must more or less be suppressed. So the seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the list carefully, and pick out the one on which to stake his salvation. All other selves thereupon become unreal…William James / quote ↗
24UndatedBelief and doubt are living attitudes, and involve conduct on our part. Our only way, for example, of doubting, or refusing to believe, that a certain thing is, is continuing to act as if it were not.William James / quote ↗
