William James Quotes

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.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

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.

The deepest principle in 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.

Most unhappiness is caused because people listen to themselves... instead of talking to themselves.

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.

Positive images of the future are a powerful and magnetic force... They draw us on and energize us, give us courage and will to take on important initiatives. Negative images of the future also have a magnetism. They pull the spirit downward in the path of despair.

The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.

If you can change your mind, you can change your life.

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

You can alter your life by altering the state of your mind.

Real servants don't try to use God for their purposes. They let God use them for His purposes.

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.

If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.

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.

Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

We with our lives are like islands in the sea... The islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.

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.

You can be an artist without visual images, a reader without eyes, a mass of erudition with a bad elementary memory. In almost any subject your passion for the subject will save you. If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich; if you wish to be learned, you will be learned; if you wish to be good, you will be good. Only you must, then, really wish these things, and wish them with exclusiveness, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.

Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality. Alter your thoughts, alter your reality.

To change one's life: a. Start immediately b. B. Do it flamboyantly c. No exceptions Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted.

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

To kill time is not murder, it's suicide.

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.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.

No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.

Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power.

Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me.

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second.

There is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough.

Consciousness... does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as 'chain' or 'train' do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A 'river' or a 'stream' are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life. Source of the expression 'stream of consciousness'.

A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.

The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.

The good we do today becomes the happiness of tomorrow.

The self-same atoms which, chaotically dispersed, made the nebula, now, jammed and temporarily caught in peculiar positions, form our brains; and the 'evolution' of brains, if understood, would be simply the account of how the atoms came to be so caught and jammed.

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?

When two minds of a high order, interested in kindred subjects, come together, their conversation is chiefly remarkable for the summariness of its allusions and the rapidity of its transitions. Before one of them is half through a sentence the other knows his meaning and replies. ... His mental lungs breathe more deeply, in an atmosphere more broad and vast.

The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact.

Formula to live your dream: 1. Be bold. 2. Begin now, 3. No exceptions.

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.

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.

Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.

When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.