“The thinker philosophizes as the lover loves. Even were the consequences not only useless but harmful he must obey his impulse.”
More from William James on Philosophy
“The question of being is the darkest in all philosophy.”
“To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.”
“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
“There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.”
“Men habitually use only a small part of the powers which they possess and which they might use under appropriate circumstances.”
“When you have to make a choice and don't make it that is in itself a choice.”
“With mere good intentions hell is proverbially paved.”
“Impulse without reason is not enough and reason without impulse is a poor makeshift.”
“Lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or on being.”
“The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature.”
Others on Philosophy
Ludwig Wittgenstein
22 quotes“The logic of the world is prior to all truth and falsehood.”
Christopher Hitchens
22 quotes“How much vanity must be concealed – not too effectively at that – in order to pretend that one is the personal object of...”
Nietzsche
22 quotes“One does not hate as long as one has a low esteem of someone, but only when one esteems him as an equal or a superior.”
Carl Jung
21 quotes“The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”
Immanuel Kant
20 quotes“Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.”
Heraclitus
19 quotes“All things flow nothing abides.”
H. L. Mencken
17 quotes“We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.”
C.S. Lewis
15 quotes“[Consciousness] is either inexplicable illusion, or else revelation.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
14 quotes“Consciousness is man's greatest misfortune, still I know that man loves it and will not exchange it for any satisfaction...”
Samuel Beckett
14 quotes“The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.”
Napoleon
14 quotes“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”
Isaac Asimov
13 quotes“Society is much more easily soothed than one's own conscience.”