William James
William James
William Jameswas an American philosopher and psychologist who was also trained as a physician. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, James was one of the leading thinkers of the late nineteenth century and is believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers the United States has ever produced, while others have labelled him the "Father of American psychology". Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey, he is considered to be...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth11 January 1842
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
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 aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.
A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.
It is your friends who make your world.
Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not.
Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.
An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of revelation.
A man may not achieve everything he has dreamed, but he will never achieve anything great without having dreamed it first.
The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will... An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.
Lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or being.
Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.
We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort.
This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.
The good or bad is not in the circumstance, but only in the mind...that encounters it.