7 William James Quotes on Choice

William James quotes on choice

2. What interest, zest, or excitement can there be in achieving the right way, unless we are enabled to feel that the wrong way is also a possible and a natural way, - nay, more, a menacing and an imminent way? And what sense can there be in condemning ourselves for taking the wrong way, unless we need have done nothing of the sort, unless the right way was open to us as well? I cannot understand the willingness to act, no matter how we feel, without the belief that acts are really good and bad.

5. Wherever you are it is your own friends who make your world.

   Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

6. Tell him to live by yes and no - yes to everything good, no to everything bad.

15. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.

17. The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way.

24. An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

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