Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.
Author: William James | Subjects: Action | Accomplishment, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
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 by violence with ours. No one has insight into all the ideals. No one should presume to judge them off-hand. The pretension to dogmatize about them in each other is the root of most human injustices and cruelties, … [ Read more ]
Author: William James | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Prejudice and Stereotype, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships
Neither the whole of truth nor the whole of good is revealed to any single observer, although each observer gains a partial superiority of insight from the peculiar position in which he stands.
Author: William James | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Good & Evil
Feeling is what gives valence and meaning to experience.
Author: William James | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Experience, Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior
My experience is what I agree to attend to.
Author: William James | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Experience, Life & Society
The effort of attention is the essential phenomenon of will.
Author: William James | Subject: Psychology | Behavior
“My experience is what I agree to attend to.” – William James
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“Nothing we do or experience … is untouched by our own expectations. Instead, there is a constant give-and-take in which what we experience reflects not just what the world is currently telling us, but what we — consciously or nonconsciously — were expecting it to be telling us. One consequence of this is that … [ Read more ]
Authors: Andy Clark, Maria Popova, William James | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Excerpts, Insight, Psychology | Behavior, Senses, Thought | Inquiry
A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices.
Author: William James | Subjects: Prejudice and Stereotype, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry
My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind.
Author: William James | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Personal Improvement
The squalid cash interpretation put on the word “success” is our national disease.
Author: William James | Subjects: Life & Society, Material Possessions
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
Author: William James | Subject: Wisdom