William James: Thing

William James was American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist. Explore interesting quotes on thing.

William James: 492 quotes38 likes

“The stronghold of the determinist argument is the antipathy to the idea of chance…This notion of alternative possibility, this admission that any one of several things may come to pass is, after all, only a roundabout name for chance.”

The Dilemma of Determinism (1884) p.153
1880s

“In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly.”

William James Is Life Worth Living?

"Is Life Worth Living?"
1890s, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

“The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.”

Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 4

“Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that 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. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.”

Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 4