← Back to quotes

The philosophy which is so important in each of us is not a technical matter; it is our… — William James

Philosophical speech

The philosophy which is so important in each of us is not a technical matter; it is our more or less dumb sense of what life honestly and deeply means. It is only partly got from books; it is our individual way of just seeing and feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos.

William James
Pragmatism · 1906
★ 4.3
Other tags relating to this quote
Topic
WorldviewMeaning of life
Genre
Philosophical speech
Time
1906
Person
William James
Provenance
Current citation
James, William. "The Present Dilemma in Philosophy." Pragmatism. Dover Publications, 2018.
Original citation
James, William. "The Present Dilemma in Philosophy." Nov. 1906, Lowell Institute, Boston, MA, USA. Lecture.

Related quotes

Other quotes that share a subject, a time, or a voice with this one.

There exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single, central vision, one system more or less coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel... And on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory... The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes... Dante belongs to the first category, Shakespeare to the second.

Another quote aboutTopic·Worldview

I firmly disbelieve, myself, that our human experience is the highest form of experience extant in the universe. I believe rather that we stand in much the same relation to the whole of the universe as our canine and feline pets do to the whole of human life. They inhabit our drawing-rooms and libraries. They take part in scenes of whose significance they have no inkling. They are merely tangent to curves of history the beginnings and ends and forms of which pass wholly beyond their ken. So we are tangent to the wider life of things.

William James
Pragmatism · 1906
Another quote byPerson·William James

Other media

Works in other forms that share a subject with this one.

Other media onSubject·Meaning of life