William James

“Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.”

“The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.”

“No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.”

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

“In business for yourself, not by yourself.”

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.”

“A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.”

“It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.”

“This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.”

“If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.”

“The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.”

“There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or snicker; if sad, it must not scream or curse.”

“How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.”

“Belief creates the actual fact.”

“The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.”

“Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.”

“Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.”

“Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.”

“There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self.”

“Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.”