Most of us probably fall several times a day into a fit somewhat like this: The eyes are fixed on vacancy, the sounds of the world melt into a confused unity, the attention is dispersed so that the whole body is felt, as it were, at once, and the foreground of consciousness is filled, if by anything, by a sort of solemn sense of surrender to the empty passing of time. In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannot start; the pensée de derrière la tête [thought at the back of the head] fails to pierce the shell of lethargy that wraps our state about. Every moment we expect the shell to break, for we know no reason why it should continue. But it does continue, pulse after pulse, and we float with it, until–also without reason that we can discover–an energy is given, something–we know not what–enables us to gather ourselves together, we wink our eyes, we shake our head, the background ideas become effective, and the wheels of life go round again. William James
Some Similar Quotes
  1. I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother. - Martha Gellhorn
  2. Self-talk reflects your innermost feelings. - Asa Don Brown
  3. Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not. - C.g. Jung
  4. How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole - C.g. Jung
  5. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. - C.g. Jung
More Quotes By William James
  1. The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude.
  2. Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
  3. A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
  4. Pragmatism asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true, " it says, "what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if...
  5. See the exquisite contrast of the types of mind! The pragmatist clings to facts and concreteness, observes truth at its work in particular cases, and generalises. Truth, for him, becomes a class-name for all sorts of definite working-values in experience. For the rationalist it remains...
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