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
The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.
If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight.
If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained... it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
The strenuous life tastes better
The study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself.
Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest, which co-mingle their roots in the darkness underground.
Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
The education of attention would be an education par excellence
If there is aught of good in the style, it is the result of ceaseless toil in rewriting. Everything comes out wrong with me at first; but when once objectified I can torture and poke and scrape and pat it till it offends me no more.
Success plus Self-esteem equals Pretensions.
To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.
If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.