173 quotes
Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognise him.
The Principles of Psychology (1890)
In practical talk, a man's common sense means his good judgement, his freedom from eccentricity, his gumption.
Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907)
Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
The Principles of Psychology (1890)
As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.
The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
The Letters of William James (1920)
The impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race.
The Principles of Psychology (1890)
A purely disembodied human emotion is a nonentity.
The Principles of Psychology (1890)
'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.
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.
The war against war is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party.
The Moral Equivalent of War (1906)
The divine shall mean for us only such a primal reality as the individual feels impelled to respond to solemnly and gravely, and neither by a curse nor a jest.
The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
The bigger the unit you deal with, the hollower, the more brutal, the more mendacious is the life displayed.
They depend on which actual path of intermediation it may functionally strike into: the word "or" names a genuine reality.
A Pluralistic Universe (1909)
We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)
I wished, by treating Psychology like a natural science, to help her to become one.
Collected Essays and Reviews (1920)
No concrete test of what is really true has ever been agreed upon.
The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?
The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
A thing is important if anyone think it important.
The Principles of Psychology (1890)
Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.
The Letters of William James (1920)
A third peculiarity of the assurance state is the objective change which the world often appears to undergo.
The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)