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About this quote

What does it mean?
James observes that faith usually brings inner tranquility.
In plain terms
Faith often leads to inner peace.
What can you take from it?
Cultivating faith can promote calmness.

Where it applies

  • personal meditation
  • spiritual growth

Putting it to work

  • practicing faith rituals
  • seeking contemplative practices

Questions to consider

  • Why do some find peace in faith while others do not?
  • What alternatives yield similar tranquility?

Another view

Not everyone experiences tranquility from faith.

More from William James

  1. One mode of emotional excitability is exceedingly important in the composition of the energetic character, from its peculiarly destructive power over inhibitio…

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  2. The transition from tenseness, self-responsibility, and worry, to equanimity, receptivity, and peace, is the most wonderful of all those shiftings of inner equ…

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  3. 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 b…

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