William James Quotes
William James was a 19th and early 20th-century American philosopher and psychologist, one of the founders of pragmatism and a central figure in the early development of modern psychology. His monumental Principles of Psychology of 1890 helped establish psychology as an empirical discipline distinct from philosophy. The quotes below are attributed to William James, organized by topic.
Browse William James by topic
William James on Freedom
-
“Freedom is only necessity understood .”
The Dilemma of Determinism (1884)
William James on God
-
“The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.”
The Dilemma of Determinism (1884)
William James on Knowledge
-
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”
Ch. 22 -
“All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods .”
Lecture at the Harvard Divinity School (13 March 1884); published in the The Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine as The Dilemma of Determinism (September 1884) -
“Lecture at the Harvard Divinity School (13 March 1884); published in the The Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine as The Dilemma of Determinism (September 1884)”
All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods . -
“The Dilemma of Determinism (1884)”
Freedom is only necessity understood . -
“The Dilemma of Determinism (1884)”
What interest, zest, or excitement can there be in achieving the right way, unless we are enabled to feel that the wrong way is also a possible and a natural way, — nay, more, a menacing and an imminent way? And what sense can there be in condemning ourselves for taking the wrong way, unless we need have done nothing of the sort, unless the right way was open to us as well? I cannot understand the
William James on Life
-
“Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.”
In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly. -
Attributed to William James:
“Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake.”
-
Attributed to William James:
“Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they have got a second.”
-
“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
Out of my experience, such as it is (and it is limited enough) one fixed conclusion dogmatically emerges, and that is this, that we with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves. ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean'
William James on Mind
-
Attributed to William James:
“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
-
“I think that yesterday was a crisis in my life. I finished the first part of Renouvier's second Essais and see no reason why his definition of free will—"the sustaining of a thought because I choose to when I might have other thoughts"—need be the definition of an illusion. At any rate, I will assume for the present—until next year—that it is no illusion. My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.”
Diary entry (April 30, 1870) as quoted in Ralph Barton Perry, The Thought and Character of William James , vol. 1, p. 323; Letters of William James , vol. I, p. 147. -
“I think that yesterday was a crisis in my life. I finished the first part of Renouvier's second Essais and see no reason why his definition of free will—"the sustaining of a thought because I choose to when I might have other thoughts"—need be the definition of an illusion. At any rate, I will assume for the present—until next year—that it is no illusion. My first act of free will shall be to beli”
Diary entry (April 30, 1870) as quoted in Ralph Barton Perry, The Thought and Character of William James , vol. 1, p. 323; Letters of William James , vol. I, p. 147. -
“Clifford's "Lectures and Essays"' (1879) in Collected Essays and Reviews (1920) pp. 138-139. Review of Lectures and Essays and Seeing and Thinking by William Kingdon Clifford , London and New York (1879). Reprinted from Nation (1879) 29 , pp. 312-313.”
But even the distant reader must allow that Clifford 's mental personality belonged to the highest possible type to say no more. The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal. And if in these modern days we are to look for any prophet or saviour who shall influence our feelings towards the universe as the founders and renewers
William James on Nature
-
“What interest, zest, or excitement can there be in achieving the right way, unless we are enabled to feel that the wrong way is also a possible and a natural way, — nay, more, a menacing and an imminent way? And what sense can there be in condemning ourselves for taking the wrong way, unless we need have done nothing of the sort, unless the right way was open to us as well? I cannot understand the willingness to act, no matter how we feel, without the belief that acts are really good and bad.”
The Dilemma of Determinism (1884)
William James on Truth
-
“Pragmatism asks its usual question. Grant an idea or belief to be true, what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life?”
Lecture VI, Pragmatism's Conception of Truth -
Attributed to William James:
“Truth is what works.”
Things actually not said by William James
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as William James but are in fact from someone else. Did William James say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
-
Did William James say this? No.
“Man alone, of all the creatures on earth, can change his own patterns. Man alone is the architect of his destiny. The greatest revolution in our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives ... It is too bad that most people will not accept this tremendous discovery and begin living it.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but the actual source is Spencer W. Kimball. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Man alone, of all creatures of the earth, can change his thought pattern and become the architect of his destiny." Actually said by Spencer W. Kimball , twelfth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in his Miracle of Forgiveness (1969), p. 114. This predates any of the misquo
-
Did William James say this? No.
“Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Not found in James's writings. The earliest similar cite is to Episcopal Methodist Bishop W. F. Oldham in 1906. Quote Investigator . | A related quote is in James's Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907) (see above): "Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease-spots, the spot
-
Did William James say this? No.
“Overall there is a smell of fried onions.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Claimed to be written by James while intoxicated by nitrous oxide. Does not appear in his essay Subjective Effects of Nitrous Oxide . First attributed, not necessarily seriously, by Robert Anton Wilson in his Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy (1979). Possibly Wilson's version is his humorous descendant of a
-
Did William James say this? No.
“The most significant characteristic of modern civilization is the sacrifice of the future for the present, and all the power of science has been prostituted to this purpose.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Not found in James' writings. Actually written by Oliver Edwin Baker in Agriculture in Modern Life (1939), p. 5.