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
As Charles Lamb says, there is nothing so nice as doing good by stealth and being found out by accident, so I now say it is even nicer to make heroic decisions and to be prevented by 'circumstances beyond your control' from ever trying to execute them.
Once a decision is reached, stop worrying and start working.
When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.
No decision is, in itself, a decision.
Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony. If you protest, my friend, wait till you arrive there yourself!
When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that in itself is a choice.
The exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess Success is our national disease.
Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.
Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
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.
Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there.
The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
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.