William James (1842–1910) was a prominent American philosopher and psychologist, renowned for shaping modern psychology and philosophy in the United States. Born in New York City, he studied medicine at Harvard before turning to psychology and philosophy. His influential work, “The Principles of Psychology” (1890), explored consciousness, and behavior, and introduced concepts like the “stream of consciousness” and the “self.” James played a key role in the development of pragmatism, emphasizing the practical consequences of ideas. His pragmatic philosophy, outlined in “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking” (1907), argued for evaluating ideas based on their practical effects. In “The Varieties of Religious Experience” (1902), he delved into the study of mysticism and religious encounters. William James’ enduring contributions have left a lasting impact on psychology, philosophy, and the understanding of consciousness.
William James Quotes
1. “If you can change your mind, you can change your life.”
— William James
2. “Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.”
— William James
3. “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”
— William James
4. “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”
— William James
5. “Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality. Alter your thoughts, alter your reality.”
— William James
6. “We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
— William James
7. “The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude.”
— William James
8. “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”
— William James
9. “Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.”
— William James
10. “I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing.”
— William James
11. “Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.”
— William James
12. “It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.”
— William James
13. “Belief creates the actual fact.”
— William James
14. “Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. ”
— William James
15. “If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.”
— William James
16. “Procrastination is attitude’s natural assassin. There’s nothing so fatiguing as an uncompleted task.”
— William James
17. “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”
— William James
18. “Begin to be now what you will be hereafter. ”
— William James
19. “The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.”
— William James
20. “Anything you may hold firmly in your imagination can be yours.”
— William James
21. “The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.”
— William James
22. “Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.”
— William James
23. “Seek 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
24. “No decision is, in itself, a decision.”
— William James
25. “To change one’s life: 1. Start immediately. 2. Do it flamboyantly. 3. No exceptions.”
— William James
26. “Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction”
— William James
27. “Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.”
— William James
28. “Formula to live your dream: 1. Be bold. 2. Begin now, 3. No exceptions.”
— William James
29. “Give your dreams all you’ve got, and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.”
— William James
30. “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.”
— William James
31. “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.”
— William James
32. “We don’t laugh because we’re happy, we’re happy because we laugh.”
— William James
33. “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.”
— William James
34. “To kill time is not murder, it’s suicide.”
— William James
35. “Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art, and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves.”
— William James
36. “Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.”
— William James
37. “Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.”
— William James
38. “Our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to hear.”
— William James
39. “Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.”
— William James
40. “Your hopes, dreams and aspirations are legitimate. They are trying to take you airborne, above the clouds, above the storms, if you only let them.”
— William James
41. “Agisci come se quel che fai, facesse la differenza. La fa!”
— William James
42. “Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.”
— William James
43. “So it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young birds take to the sky.”
— William James
44. “All of our life is but a mass of small habits – practical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual – that bear us irresistibly toward our destiny.”
— William James
45. “Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.”
— William James
46. “Since you make evil or good by your own thoughts, it is your ruling of your thoughts which proves to be your principal concern.”
— William James
47. “My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.”
— William James
48. “If any organism fails to fulfill its potentialities, it becomes sick.”
— William James
49. “Act the part and you will become the part.”
— William James
50. “The greatest discovery of the 20th Century is that our attitude of mind determines our quality of life, not circumstances.”
— William James
51. “The strenuous life tastes better.”
— William James
52. “My experience is what I agree to attend to.”
— William James
53. “There is a law in psychology that if you form a picture in your mind of what you would like to be, and you keep and hold that picture there long enough, you will soon become exactly as you have been thinking.”
— William James
54. “The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.”
— William James
55. “What holds attention determines action.”
— William James
56. “There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man’s lack of faith in his true Self.”
— William James
57. “When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.”
— William James
58. “A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.”
— William James
59. “He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.”
— William James
60. “From the Vedas we learn a practical art of surgery, medicine, music, house building under which mechanized art is included. They are encyclopedias of every aspect of life, culture, religion, science, ethics, law, cosmology and meteorology.”
— William James
61. “The education of attention would be an education par excellence.”
— William James
62. “A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.”
— William James
63. “When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.”
— William James
64. “Once a decision is reached, stop worrying and start working.”
— William James
65. “Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways: I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out. I will do at least two things I don’t want to do.”
— William James
66. “To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.”
— William James
67. “Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being.”
— William James
68. “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
69. “A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
— William James
70. “To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.”
— William James
71. “In its broadest term, religion says that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in rightful relations to it.”
— William James
72. “Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources.”
— William James
73. “Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.”
— William James
74. “We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.”
— William James
75. “The word ‘cause’ is an altar to an unknown god.”
— William James
76. “If you want to change your life, do it flamboyantly and start immediately.”
— William James
77. “Man alone of all the creatures of earth can change his own pattern. Man alone is the architect of his own destiny.”
— William James
78. “With no attempt there can be no failure; with no failure no humiliation.”
— William James
79. “Lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or being.”
— William James
80. “Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.”
— William James
81. “In any project the important factor is your belief. Without belief, there can be no successful outcome.”
— William James
82. “The aim of science is always to reduce complexity to simplicity.”
— William James
83. “We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone.”
— William James
84. “If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it. Only you must, then, really wish these things, and wish them exclusively, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.”
— William James
85. “History is a bath of blood.”
— William James
86. “A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all.”
— William James
87. “There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference.”
— William James
88. “This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.”
— William James
89. “Tension is a habit. Relaxing is a habit. Bad habits can be broken, good habits formed.”
— William James
90. “The path to cheerfulness is to sit cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there.”
— William James
91. “In modern eyes, precious though wars may be they must not be waged solely for the sake of the ideal harvest. Only when forced upon one, is a war now thought permissible.”
— William James
92. “Truth is what will be steadily borne out by subsequent experience.”
— William James
93. “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.”
— William James
94. “A winner’s attitude: it may be difficult, but it’s possible. A loser’s attitude: It may be possible, but it’s too difficult.”
— William James
95. “We need only in cold blood to act as if the thing in question were real and it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real.”
— William James
96. “For the moment, what we attend to is reality.”
— William James
97. “Hogamus, higamous Man is polygamous Higamus, hogamous Woman monogamous.”
— William James
98. “All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.”
— William James
99. “We and God have business with each other, and in opening ourselves to God’s influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.”
— William James
100. “We are not only gregarious animals, liking to be in sight of our fellows, but we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably, by our kind.”
— William James
101. “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.”
— William James
102. “Strength is a facade for the proud, weakness is a mask for the lazy.”
— William James
103. “An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of revelation.”
— William James
104. “Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up.”
— William James
105. “Man lives for science as well as bread.”
— William James
106. “There can be no final truth in ethics any more than in physics, until the last man has had his experience and said his say.”
— William James
107. “An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.”
— William James
108. “Real servants don’t try to use God for their purposes. They let God use them for His purposes.”
— William James
109. “Success plus Self-esteem equals Pretensions.”
— William James
110. “The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one.”
— William James
111. “Earnestness means willingness to live with energy, though energy bring pain.”
— William James
112. “It is as important to cultivate your silence power as your word power.”
— William James
113. “New habits can be launched.”
— William James
114. “The good we do today becomes the happiness of tomorrow.”
— William James
115. “Instinct leads, logic does but follow.”
— William James
116. “There is a voice inside which speaks and says, “This is the real me!””
— William James
117. “Why should we think upon lovely things? 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
118. “Our acts of voluntary attending, as brief and fitful as they are, are nevertheless momentous and critical, determining us, as they do, to higher or lower destinies.”
— William James
119. “Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.”
— William James
120. “The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.”
— William James
121. “We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyze them.”
— William James
122. “Man can change his life simply by changing his attitude.”
— William James
123. “A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.”
— William James
124. “As we take, in fact, a general view of the wonderful stream of our consciousness, what strikes us first is this different pace of its parts. Like a bird ’s life, it seems to be made of an alternation of flights and perchings.”
— William James
125. “Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.”
— William James
126. “The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.”
— William James
127. “Choose a self and stand by it.”
— William James
128. “A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.”
— William James
129. “To leap across an abyss, one is better served by faith than doubt.”
— William James
130. “Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.”
— William James
131. “When thoughts do not neutralize an undesirable emotion, action will.”
— William James
132. “It is only in the lonely emergencies of life that our creed is tested: then routine maxims fail, and we fall back on our gods.”
— William James
133. “My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing, and I can only do one thing at a time.”
— William James
134. “There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy-minded individual.”
— William James
135. “The most immutable barrier in nature is between one man’s thoughts and another’s.”
— William James
136. “In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.”
— William James
137. “The emotions aren’t always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.”
— William James
138. “Effort is a measure of a Man.”
— William James
139. “We are mere bundles of habits.”
— William James
140. “To neglect the wise sayings of great thinkers is to deny ourselves the truest education.”
— William James
141. “The power to move the world is in the subconcious mind.”
— William James
142. “All natural goods perish. Riches take wings; fame is a breath; love is a cheat; youth and health and pleasure vanish.”
— William James
143. “If you give appreciation to people, you win their goodwill. But more important than that, practicing this philosophy has made a different person of me.”
— William James
144. “Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.”
— William James
145. “If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.”
— William James
146. “Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us; our hour of triumph is what brings the void.”
— William James
147. “Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.”
— William James
148. “Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.”
— William James
149. “It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all.”
— William James
150. “So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.”
— William James
