He was an original thinker in and between the disciplines of physiology, psychology and philosophy.
His twelve-hundred page masterwork, "The Principles of Psychology" (1890), is a rich blend of physiology,
psychology, philosophy, and personal reflection that has given us such ideas as “the stream of thought.
It contains seeds of pragmatism and phenomenology, and influenced generations of thinkers in Europe and America,
including Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, Edmund Husserl and John Dewey.
The belief that religious experience involves much a supernatural domain, mostly inaccessible to science but
accessible to the individual human subject, occupied his thoughts.
He made some of his most important philosophical contributions in the last decade of his life, defending
anti-pragmatic and mystical view that concepts distort rather
than reveal reality, which he described in "A Pluralistic Universe" and his views about religion, truth, knowledge,
reality and philosophy, he presented in his work "Pragmatism".
(1842 - 1910)
To change ones life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.
~ William James
Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing
through your being, is another.
~ William James
Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.
~ William James
We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.
~ William James
Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.
~ William James
Man lives for science as well as bread.
~ William James
What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise although
the philosophers generally call it recognition.
~ William James
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.
~ William James
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
~ William James
Belief creates the actual fact.
~ William James
An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
~ William James
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
~ William James
It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will
affect its successful outcome.
~ William James
By regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling,
which is not.
~ William James
Wisdom is learning what to overlook.
~ William James
To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.
~ William James
In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start.
~ William James
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.
~ William James
Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.
~ William James
Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results.
~ William James
To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one's being added to that being.
~ William James
There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious.
If glad, it must not grin or snicker; if sad, it must not scream or curse.
~ William James
Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.
~ William James
Truth is what works.
~ William James
Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.
~ William James
It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
~ William James
Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second.
~ William James
Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.
~ William James
The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.
~ William James
Our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious.
Our scientific temper is devout.
~ William James
If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.
~ William James
Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.
~ William James
An Austrian philosopher who contributed several ground-breaking ideas to philosophy, mainly in the foundations of logic, the
philosophy of mind, the philosophy of mathematics, and especially the philosophy of language. His influence has been wide-ranging,
placing him among the most significant philosophers of the 20th century. He is regarded by some professionals as the most important
philosopher since Immanuel Kant. With time, his theories began to transform twentieth-century philosophy. Raised in a prominent
Viennese family, Ludwig Wittgenstein studied engineering in Germany and England, but became interested in the foundations of
mathematics and pursued philosophical studies before entering the Austrian army during World War I. Wittgenstein argued to be an avoidable
mistake that had caused great difficulties in the philosophy of mind. His views on this issue were a significant influence on
Ryle and others. In his later work, Wittgenstein applied this method of analysis to philosophical problems related to epistemology,
mathematics, and ethics.
(1889 - 1951)
There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.
~ Charles Dickens
Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
~ George Bernard Shaw
You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.
~ Friedrich NietzscheMore Proverbs
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