21 Famous Inspirational Quotes By "William James" That Will Make Your Day & Achieve Big in Life

William James

William James was an American philosopher and psychologist who was born on January 11, 1842, in New York and died on August 26, 1910, in Chocorua, New Hampshire. He was a leader of the philosophical movement of pragmatism and a pioneer of the psychological movement of functionalism.

Early life and education

James was the eldest son of Henry James, an eccentric and gregarious guy whose philosophical pursuits led him to Emanuel Swedenborg's religion. Henry James, a novelist, was one of William's brothers. "Antipathy to every ecclesiasticism," said the elder Henry James, "which he voiced with abundant sarcasm and irony throughout all his later years." His physical and spiritual lives were distinguished by restlessness and wanderings, mostly across Europe, which had an impact on his children's schooling and home education. The elder James had devised his own system, which appears to have served him as a spiritual vision. This philosophy created a consistent intellectual environment in William's family, partially compensating for the unstructured irregularity of his schooling, which took him from New York to Boulogne, France, and back.

When James was 18 years old, he began studying art under the guidance of William M. Hunt, a religious painter from the United States. But he became tired of it and enrolled in Harvard University's Lawrence Scientific School the next year.

Interest in the psychology of William James

In 1872, James was employed as a physiology instructor at Harvard College, a position he held until 1876. But he couldn't get away from his guiding passion, and the transition from teaching physiology to teaching psychology—not traditional "mental science," but physiological psychology—was both unavoidable and groundbreaking. It was a challenge to the vested interests of the mind, primarily theological, that were entrenched in the United States' schools and universities, as well as a clear break with what the Spanish American philosopher George Santayana referred to as "the genteel tradition."

James began a new life in 1878 when he married Alice H. Gibbins of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The earlier neurasthenia had almost vanished. He approached his job with zeal and vigor that his previous record had failed to convey. His existence as an original thinker began in earnest as if some deeper dimension of his essence had been accessed. By 1880, he had agreed to write a psychology textbook. However, the work evolved under his direction, and when it was published in 1890 as The Principles of Psychology, it was a gigantic effort in two volumes, from which the textbook was condensed two years later.

Interest in religions

After finishing the Principles, James appears to have lost interest in the subject. He detested laboratory work and didn't think he was cut out for it. He founded the first demonstrational psychology laboratory in the United States. He enjoyed the challenge of unrestricted observation and reflection the most. Psychology seemed to him to be "a horrible little topic" that he was delighted to be done with when compared to the issues of philosophy and religion.

A career in the philosophy of William James

James now explicitly focused his attention on the ultimate philosophic questions that had been present alongside his other pursuits, albeit in the background. He had already articulated the philosophy of technique known as pragmatism in a speech on philosophical concepts and practical consequences at the University of California in 1898. Originating with Charles Sanders Peirce's severe study of the logic of the sciences in the middle of the 1870s, the theory experienced a transformational generalization in James's hands.

James was a living example of his philosophy. It became part of the texture and rhythms of his lyrical language, which was rich and vibrant. It shaped his views on scientifically unaccepted therapies like Christian Science and mind-cure, as well as abhorrent values like militarism. It turned him into an anti-imperialist, a champion of the small, the odd, the unusual, and the vulnerable, wherever and whenever they appeared. To have become a school's dogma, his theory is too viable and subtle, too hedged, experienced, and hesitant.

1. "The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another."

2. "There is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough."

3. "A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."

4. "To change one's life:1. Start immediately. 2. Do it flamboyantly. 3. No exceptions."

5. "The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another."

6. "We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep."

7. "The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes."

8. "Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task."

9. "Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality. Alter your thoughts, alter your reality."

10. "There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man’s lack of faith in his true self."

11. "The greatest use of a life is to spend it for something that will outlast it."

12. "Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune."

13. "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."

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

15. "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated."

16. "Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact."

17. "Most unhappiness is caused because people listen to themselves... instead of talking to themselves."

18. "As we take, in fact, a general view of the wonderful stream of our consciousness, what strikes us first is this different pace of its parts."

19. "The total possible consciousness may be split into parts which co-exist but mutually ignore each other."

20. "The highest flights of charity, devotion, trust, patience, bravery to which the wings of human nature have spread themselves have been flown for religious ideals."

21. "Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives."