William James Quotes and its meanings

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.

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

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

Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.

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.

To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.

The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one.

In business for yourself, not by yourself.

The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.

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.

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.

To change ones life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

The deepest longing in the human breast is the desire for appreciation.

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

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

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

'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.

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.

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self.

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self.

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

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

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.

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.

The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.

If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.

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

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

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.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

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

Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.

Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

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.

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.

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

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

Belief creates the actual fact.

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

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

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

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

To change ones life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.

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

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

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.

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.

Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.

Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.

There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or snicker if sad, it must not scream or curse.

The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.

Man lives for science as well as bread.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

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

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.

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

Time itself comes in drops.

Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.

Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.

Truth is what works.

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

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

Individuality is founded in feeling and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.