William James

Quotes Books Biography Comments

'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.
Quote by William James

Click on the picture of William James quote you want to see a larger version.

William James Quotes

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.
Wisdom is learning what to overlook.
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.
Truth is what works.
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.
Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.
Time itself comes in drops.
The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.
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.
Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second.

Best Quotes