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 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

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

—  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

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

—  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

„We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. …Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out.“

—  William James

Fuente: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 4

„This sense of clean and beautiful newness within and without one is one of the commonest entries in conversion records.“

—  William James

Lecture X, "Conversion, concluded"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Contexto: The characteristics of the affective experience which, to avoid ambiguity, should, I think, be called the state of assurance rather than the faith-state, can be easily enumerated, though it is probably difficult to realize their intensity, unless one has been through the experience one's self.
The central one is the loss of all the worry, the sense that all is ultimately well with one, the peace, the harmony, the willingness to be, even though the outer conditions should remain the same. The certainty of God's 'grace,' of 'justification,' 'salvation,' is an objective belief that usually accompanies the change in Christians; but this may be entirely lacking and yet the affective peace remain the same — you will recollect the case of the Oxford graduate: and many might be given where the assurance of personal salvation was only a later result. A passion of willingness, of acquiescence, of admiration, is the glowing centre of this state of mind.
The second feature is the sense of perceiving truths not known before. The mysteries of life become lucid, as Professor Leuba says; and often, nay usually, the solution is more or less unutterable in words. But these more intellectual phenomena may be postponed until we treat of mysticism.
A third peculiarity of the assurance state is the objective change which the world often appears to undergo. 'An appearance of newness beautifies every object,' the precise opposite of that other sort of newness, that dreadful unreality and strangeness in the appearance of the world, which is experienced by melancholy patients, and of which you may recall my relating some examples. This sense of clean and beautiful newness within and without one is one of the commonest entries in conversion records.

„So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until and equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way. But I have no serious doubt that the ordinary prides and shames of social man, once developed to a certain intensity, are capable of organizing such a moral equivalent as I have sketched, or some other just as effective for preserving manliness of type.“

—  William James

1900s, The Moral Equivalent of War (1906)
Contexto: Such a conscription, with the state of public opinion that would have required it, and the many moral fruits it would bear, would preserve in the midst of a pacific civilization the manly virtues which the military party is so afraid of seeing disappear in peace. We should get toughness without callousness, authority with as little criminal cruelty as possible, and painful work done cheerily because the duty is temporary, and threatens not, as now, to degrade the whole remainder of one's life. I spoke of the "moral equivalent" of war. So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until and equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way. But I have no serious doubt that the ordinary prides and shames of social man, once developed to a certain intensity, are capable of organizing such a moral equivalent as I have sketched, or some other just as effective for preserving manliness of type. It is but a question of time, of skilful propogandism, and of opinion-making men seizing historic opportunities.

„Unhappiness is apt to characterize the period of order-making and struggle.“

—  William James

Lecture VIII, "The Divided Self, and the Process of its Unification"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Contexto: Now in all of us, however constituted, but to a degree the greater in proportion as we are intense and sensitive and subject to diversified temptations, and to the greatest possible degree if we are decidedly psychopathic, does the normal evolution of character chiefly consist in the straightening out and unifying of the inner self. The higher and the lower feelings, the useful and the erring impulses, begin by being a comparative chaos within us — they must end by forming a stable system of functions in right subordination. Unhappiness is apt to characterize the period of order-making and struggle.