William James

Our colleges ought to have lit up in us a lasting relish for the better kind of man, a loss of appetite for mediocrities.

The deepest craving in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible . . . faith is the readiness to act in a cause the prosperous issue of which is not certified to us in advance.

The inner need of believing that this world of nature is a sign of something more spiritual and eternal than itself is just as strong and authoritative in those who feel it, as the inner need of uniform laws of causation ever can be in a professionally scientific head. . . . Our faculties of belief were not primarily given us to make orthodoxies and heresies withal, they were given us to live by. And to trust our religious demands means first of all to live in the light of them. . . . The part of wisdom as well as of courage is to believe what is in the line of your needs, for only by such belief is the need fulfilled. Refuse to believe, and you shall indeed be right, for you shall irretrievably perish. But believe, and again you shall be right, for you shall save yourself.

It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live al all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only true thing that makes the result come true.

Modern man . . . has not ceased to be credulous . . . the need to believe haunts him.

Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that insures the successful outcome of our venture.

They conquer who believe they can. He has not learned the first lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

Much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way men take the phenomenon. It can so often be converted into a bracing and tonic good by a simple change of the sufferer's inner attitude from one of fear to one of fight; its string can so often depart and turn into a relish when, after vainly seeking to shun it, we agree to face about and bear it . . .