Top 500 William James Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “The good we do today becomes the happiness of tomorrow.”

— William James

102. “Hogamus, higamous Man is polygamous Higamus, hogamous Woman monogamous.”

— William James

103. “We are not only gregarious animals, liking to be in sight of our fellows, but we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably, by our kind.”

— William James

104. “There is a voice inside which speaks and says, “This is the real me!””

— William James

105. “We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.”

— William James

106. “Strength is a facade for the proud, weakness is a mask for the lazy.”

— William James

107. “Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.”

— William James

108. “Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up.”

— William James

109. “It is as important to cultivate your silence power as your word power.”

— William James

110. “Man lives for science as well as bread.”

— William James

111. “There can be no final truth in ethics any more than in physics, until the last man has had his experience and said his say.”

— William James

112. “Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.”

— William James

113. “An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.”

— William James

114. “Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it.”

— William James

115. “Instinct leads, logic does but follow.”

— William James

116. “Real servants don’t try to use God for their purposes. They let God use them for His purposes.”

— William James

117. “Man can change his life simply by changing his attitude.”

— William James

118. “Success plus Self-esteem equals Pretensions.”

— William James

119. “As we take, in fact, a general view of the wonderful stream of our consciousness, what strikes us first is this different pace of its parts. Like a bird ’s life, it seems to be made of an alternation of flights and perchings.”

— William James

120. “The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one.”

— William James

121. “Earnestness means willingness to live with energy, though energy bring pain.”

— William James

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

— William James

123. “Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.”

— William James

124. “Our acts of voluntary attending, as brief and fitful as they are, are nevertheless momentous and critical, determining us, as they do, to higher or lower destinies.”

— William James

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

— William James

126. “A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.”

— William James

127. “To neglect the wise sayings of great thinkers is to deny ourselves the truest education.”

— William James

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

— William James

129. “Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.”

— William James

130. “Choose a self and stand by it.”

— William James

131. “To leap across an abyss, one is better served by faith than doubt.”

— William James

132. “When thoughts do not neutralize an undesirable emotion, action will.”

— William James

133. “Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.”

— William James

134. “The greatest discovery of our generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. As you think, so shall you be.”

— William James

135. “We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyse them.”

— William James

136. “There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy-minded individual.”

— William James

137. “In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.”

— William James

138. “Effort is a measure of a Man.”

— William James

139. “We are mere bundles of habits.”

— William James

140. “The power to move the world is in the subconcious mind.”

— William James

141. “Our beliefs are really rules for action.”

— William James

142. “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”

— William James

143. “Man lives in only one small room of the enormous house of his consciousness.”

— William James

144. “Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us; our hour of triumph is what brings the void.”

— William James

145. “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.”

— William James

146. “A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.”

— William James

147. “It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all.”

— William James

148. “We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort.”

— William James

149. “So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.”

— William James

150. “Wherever you are, it is your friends who make your world.”

— William James