Frases de William James

„Se sistemáticamente ascético o heroico en cuestiones mínimas e innecesarias; haz a diario alguna cosa, lo que sea, por la sencilla razón de que preferirías no hacerla, de modo que cuando se aproxime la hora de la más nefasta necesidad no te sorprenda con nerviosismo, sin preparación para afrontar la prueba.“

—  William James

„El pesimismo conduce a la debilidad; el optimismo al poder.“

—  William James

„Cuando debemos hacer una elección y no la hacemos, esto ya es una elección.“

—  William James

„Hasta ahora se pensaba que para actuar (obrar) había que sentir. Hoy se sabe que el sentimiento aparece cuando empezamos a actuar.“

—  William James

„Si consideramos el mundo de relaciones geométricas, allí duerme el milésimo decimal de Pi, aunque jamás nadie trate de calcularlo.“

—  William James

„La barrera más inamovible de la naturaleza es la que hay entre el pensamiento de un hombre y el de otro.“

—  William James

„Muchas personas creen que piensan cuando en realidad sólo están reordenando sus prejuicios.“

—  William James

„La mayoría de la gente vive en un círculo muy restringido de sus posibilidades. Todos nosotros tenemos reservas de vida en las que ni siquiera soñamos.“

—  William James

„La filosofía constituye, al mismo tiempo, la más sublime y la más trivial de las indagaciones humanas. Ahonda en los más pequeños resquicios, pero también abre las perspectivas más amplias. 'No da de comer', se suele decir, pero puede inspirar valor a nuestras almas. Y aunque sus modos de expresión, sus dudas y cuestionamientos, sus sutilezas y su dialéctica, repugnen tan a menudo a la gente común, ninguno de nosotros podríamos apañárnoslas sin los lejanos e intermitentes destellos de luz que arroja sobre los horizontes del mundo.“

—  William James

„El camino voluntario y soberano hacia la alegría, si perdemos la alegría, consiste en proceder con alegría, actuar y hablar con alegría, como si esa alegría estuviera ya con nosotros.“

—  William James

„Los decimales no calculados de pi, duermen en un misterioso reino abstracto, donde gozan de una débil realidad, hasta que no son calculados, no se convierten en algo plenamente real, e incluso entonces su realidad es mera cuestión de grado.“

—  William James

„El principio más profundo del carácter humano es el anhelo de ser apreciado.“

—  William James

„La mejor cura para la Dipsomania (compulsion por el alcohol) es la Religiomania.“

—  William James

„Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.“

—  William James

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

—  William James

Fuente: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 22

„It may end by seeming shameful to all of us that some of us have nothing but campaigning, and others nothing but unmanly ease.“

—  William James

1900s, The Moral Equivalent of War (1906)
Contexto: There is nothing to make one indignant in the mere fact that life is hard, that men should toil and suffer pain. The planetary conditions once for all are such, and we can stand it. But that so many men, by mere accidents of birth and opportunity, should have a life of nothing else but toil and pain and hardness and inferiority imposed upon them, should have no vacation, while others natively no more deserving never get any taste of this campaigning life at all, — this is capable of arousing indignation in reflective minds. It may end by seeming shameful to all of us that some of us have nothing but campaigning, and others nothing but unmanly ease. If now — and this is my idea — there were, instead of military conscription, a conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against Nature, the injustice would tend to be evened out, and numerous other goods to the commonwealth would remain blind as the luxurious classes now are blind, to man's relations to the globe he lives on, and to the permanently sour and hard foundations of his higher life.

„Stoic, Christian, and Buddhist saints are practically indistinguishable in their lives. The theories which Religion generates, being thus variable, are secondary; and if you wish to grasp her essence, you must look to the feelings and the conduct as being the more constant elements.“

—  William James

Lecture XX, "Conclusions"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Contexto: Both thought and feeling are determinants of conduct, and the same conduct may be determined either by feeling or by thought. When we survey the whole field of religion, we find a great variety in the thoughts that have prevailed there; but the feelings on the one hand and the conduct on the other are almost always the same, for Stoic, Christian, and Buddhist saints are practically indistinguishable in their lives. The theories which Religion generates, being thus variable, are secondary; and if you wish to grasp her essence, you must look to the feelings and the conduct as being the more constant elements. It is between these two elements that the short circuit exists on which she carries on her principal business, while the ideas and symbols and other institutions form loop-lines which may be perfections and improvements, and may even some day all be united into one harmonious system, but which are not to be regarded as organs with an indispensable function, necessary at all times for religious life to go on. This seems to me the first conclusion which we are entitled to draw from the phenomena we have passed in review.

„I do not believe that peace either ought to be or will be permanent on this globe, unless the states, pacifically organized, preserve some of the old elements of army-discipline. A permanently successful peace-economy cannot be a simple pleasure-economy.“

—  William James

1900s, The Moral Equivalent of War (1906)
Contexto: I look forward to a future when acts of war shall be formally outlawed as between civilized peoples.
All these beliefs of mine put me firmly into the anti-military party. But I do not believe that peace either ought to be or will be permanent on this globe, unless the states, pacifically organized, preserve some of the old elements of army-discipline. A permanently successful peace-economy cannot be a simple pleasure-economy. In the more or less socialistic future toward which mankind seems drifting we must still subject ourselves collectively to those severities which answer to our real position upon this only partly hospitable globe. We must make new energies and hardihoods continue the manliness to which the military mind so faithfully clings.

„The military instincts and ideals are as strong as ever, but they are confronted by reflective criticisms which sorely curb their ancient freedom.“

—  William James

1900s, The Moral Equivalent of War (1906)
Contexto: At the present day, civilized opinion is a curious mental mixture. The military instincts and ideals are as strong as ever, but they are confronted by reflective criticisms which sorely curb their ancient freedom. Innumerable writers are showing up the bestial side of military service. Pure loot and mastery seem no longer morally allowable motives, and pretexts must be found for attributing them solely to the enemy.