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
All natural goods perish. Riches take wings; fame is a breath; love is a cheat; youth and health and pleasure vanish.
The thinker philosophizes as the lover loves. Even were the consequences not only useless but harmful, he must obey his impulse.
I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather I fear to lose truth by the pretension to possess it already wholly.
The same is true of Love, and the instinctive desire to please those whom we love. The teacher who succeeds in getting herself loved by the pupils will obtain results which one of a more forbidding temperament finds it impossible to secure.
The love of life, at any and every level of development, is the religious impulse.
We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit , power , and love of our Redeemer.
Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day.
Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.
There is a voice inside which speaks and says, "This is the real me!"
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.
We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.
Fatalism, whose solving word in all crises of behavior is ''All striving is vain,'' will never reign supreme, for the impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race. Moral creeds which speak to that impulse will be widely successful in spite of inconsistency, vagueness, and shadowy determination of expectancy. Man needs a rule for his will, and will invent one if one be not given him.
Psychology is the Science of Mental Life, both of its phenomena and their conditions.
. . . I do not see how it is possible that creatures in such different positions and with such different powers as human individuals are, should have exactly the same functions nor should we be expected to work out identical solutions. Each, from his peculiar angle of observation, takes in a certain sphere of fact and trouble, which each must deal with in a unique manner.