We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. We postpone and postpone until those smiling possibil… - William James
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We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. We postpone and postpone until those smiling possibilities are dead... By neglecting the necessary concrete labor, by sparing ourselves the little daily tax, we are positively digging the graves of our higher possibilities.
William James (11 January 1842 – 26 August 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher. He developed the philosophical perspective known as radical empiricism, and wrote influential books on the science of psychology, the psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and the philosophy of pragmatism.
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Between twenty and thirty I gradually became more and more agnostic and irreligious, yet I cannot say that I ever lost that 'indefinite consciousness' which Herbert Spencer describes so well, of an Absolute Reality behind phenomena.
How comes the world to be here at all instead of the nonentity which might be imagined in its place? ... from nothing to being there is no logical bridge.
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"Lectures IV and V - The Religion Of Healthy Mindedness If we were to ask the question: "What is human life's chief concern?" one of the answers we should receive would be: "It is happiness." 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."
