“This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it, from the moral point of view.”

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

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it, from the moral point of view." by William James?
William James photo
William James 246
American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist 1842–1910

Related quotes

Václav Havel photo

“The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

New Year's Address to the Nation (1990)
Context: The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships.

Peter L. Berger photo

“We have as many lives as we have points of view.”

Peter L. Berger (1929–2017) Austrian-born American sociologist

Source: Invitation to Sociology (1963), p. 71

Walt Disney photo

“We like to have a point of view in our stories, not an obvious moral, but a worthwhile theme.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

As quoted in The Gospel According to Disney : Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust (2004) by Mark I. Pinsky, p. 2
Context: We like to have a point of view in our stories, not an obvious moral, but a worthwhile theme. … All we are trying to do is give the public good entertainment. That is all they want.

Erich Segal photo
Viktor E. Frankl photo

“The point is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.”

Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997) Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor
Juvenal photo

“Count it the greatest sin to prefer life to honor, and for the sake of living to lose what makes life worth living.”
Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.

VIII, line 83.
Satires, Satire VIII

Related topics