William James

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

The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.

Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.

An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of revelation.

Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.

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

Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.

Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

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.

The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.

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

The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.

Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.

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