William James Quotes

So long as the anti-militarists propose no substitute for war's disciplinary function no moral equivalent of war analogous as one might say to the mechanical equivalent of hate so long they fail to realize the full equities of the situation.

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

Life is one long struggle between conclusions based on abstract ways of conceiving cases and opposite conclusions prompted by our instinctive perception of them.

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

The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own peculiar ways of being happy provided those ways do not assume to interfere with ours.

Be willing to have it so acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.

Moral scepticism can no more be refuted or proved by logic than intellectual scepticism can. When we stick to it that there is truth (be it of either kind), we do so with our whole nature, and resolve to stand or fall by the results. The sceptic with his whole nature adopts the doubting attitude; but which of us is the wiser, Omniscience only knows.