William James
William James
William Jameswas an American philosopher and psychologist who was also trained as a physician. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, James was one of the leading thinkers of the late nineteenth century and is believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers the United States has ever produced, while others have labelled him the "Father of American psychology". Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey, he is considered to be...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth11 January 1842
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
William James quotes about
You can't out-perform your self-image.
The desire to gain wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption.
Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.
No one sees further into a generalization than his own knowledge of detail extends.
The work that leads to a doctor's degree is a constant temptation to sacrifice one's growth as a man to one's growth as a specialist.
Our beliefs and our attention are the same fact.
There are 3 rules to follow if you want to change; (1) Start immediately, (2) Do it flamboyantly, (3) No exceptions.
A great idea goes through three stages on its way to acceptance: 1) it is dismissed as nonsense, 2) it is acknowledged as true, but insignificant, 3) finally, it is seen to be important, but not really anything new.
We all have a lifelong habit of inferiority to our full self..."
Few people have definitely articulated philosophies of their own. But almost everyone has his own peculiar sense of a certain total character in the universe, and of the inadequacy of fully to match it [to] the peculiar systems that he knows.
The most peculiar social self which one is apt to have is in the mind of the person one is in love with.
Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
Touch is the alpha and omega of affection.
Asceticism may be a mere expression of organic hardihood, disgusted with too much ease.