I. Frost's Selected Quotations

Everything at Amazon by and about: William James (1842-1910)

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will held create the fact.
William James (1842-1910):

As a rule we disbelieve all facts and theories for which we have no use.
William James (1842-1910):

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
William James (1842-1910):

The emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.
William James (1842-1910):

The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.
William James (1842-1910):

If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.
William James (1842-1910):

Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.
William James (1842-1910):

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
William James (1842-1910):

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
William James (1842-1910):

The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist.
William James (1842-1910):

When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.
William James (1842-1910):

A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.
William James (1842-1910):

Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.
William James (1842-1910):

Individuality is founded in feeling; and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.
William James (1842-1910):

A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.
William James (1842-1910):

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.
William James (1842-1910):

Our faith is faith in someone else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case.
William James (1842-1910):

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.
William James (1842-1910):

The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.
William James (1842-1910):

To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.
William James (1842-1910):

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
William James (1842-1910):

Whenever two men meet there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other sees him, and each man as he really is.
William James (1842-1910):

The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.
William James (1842-1910):

Genius is the art of nonhabitual thought.
William James (1842-1910):

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
William James (1842-1910):

Only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.
William James (1842-1910):

Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second. Give your dreams all you've got and you'll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.
William James (1842-1910):

He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.
William James (1842-1910):

There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.
William James (1842-1910):

Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.
William James (1842-1910):

How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.
William James (1842-1910):

An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of a revelation.
William James (1842-1910):

I don't sing because I am happy; I'm happy because I sing.
William James (1842-1910):

Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways: I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out. I will do at least two things I don't want to do.
William James (1842-1910):

Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us.
William James (1842-1910):

All natural goods perish. Riches take wings; fame is a breath; love is a cheat; youth and health and pleasure vanish.
William James (1842-1910):

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
William James (1842-1910):

Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.
William James (1842-1910):

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing
William James (1842-1910):

Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.
William James (1842-1910):

Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.
William James (1842-1910):

If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system
William James (1842-1910):

In business for yourself, not by yourself.
William James (1842-1910):

One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling.
William James (1842-1910):

Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results.
William James (1842-1910):

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook
William James (1842-1910):

The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.
William James (1842-1910):

The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives
William James (1842-1910):

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.
William James (1842-1910):

There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.
William James (1842-1910):

This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.
William James (1842-1910):

To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.
William James (1842-1910):

We can act as if there were a God; feel as if we were free; consider Nature as if she were full of special designs; lay plans as if we were to be immortal; and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life.
William James (1842-1910):

When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.
William James (1842-1910):

These then are my last words to you: Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
William James (1842-1910)