Top 500 William James Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 3 of 10

101. “Truth is what will be steadily borne out by subsequent experience.”

— William James

102. “The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.”

— William James

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

— William James

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

— William James

105. “The good we do today becomes the happiness of tomorrow.”

— William James

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

— William James

107. “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

108. “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

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

— William James

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

— William James

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

— William James

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

— William James

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

— William James

114. “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

115. “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

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

— William James

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

— William James

Featured in: Intuition Quotes

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

— William James

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

— William James

Featured in: Real Quotes

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

— William James

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

— William James

122. “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

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

— William James

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

— William James

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

— William James

126. “When a thing is new, people say: ‘It is not true.’ Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say: ‘It is not important.’ Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say: ‘Anyway, it is not new.”

— William James

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

— William James

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

— William James

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

— William James

130. “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

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

— William James

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

— William James

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

— William James

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

— William James

135. “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

136. “Choose a self and stand by it.”

— William James

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

— William James

138. “Individuality is founded in feeling.”

— William James

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

— William James

140. “Habit is the great flywheel of society.”

— William James

141. “Effort is a measure of a Man.”

— William James

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

— William James

143. “In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start.”

— William James

Featured in: Surfing Quotes

144. “We are mere bundles of habits.”

— William James

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

— William James

146. “A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.”

— William James

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

— William James

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

— William James

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

— William James

150. “Everyone knows that on any given day there are energies slumbering in him which the incitement’s of that day do not call forth. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. The human individual usually lives far within his limits.”

— William James