Quotes by William James

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.

Individuality is founded in feeling and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

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.

Truth is what works.

We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.

Time itself comes in drops.