William James Quotes

No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.

You're chained to you reason ... Understanding is only a very small affair, so very small

Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person.

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

All vital truth contains the memory of all that for which it is not true.

It makes me uncomfortable to talk about meanings and things. It's better not to know so much about what things mean. Because the meaning, it's a very personal thing, and the meaning for me is different than the meaning for somebody else.

Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance.

The uneducated person perceives only the individual phenomenon, the partly educated person the rule, and the educated person the exception.

The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.

I just go out and try to make sense of the world around me.

Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.

Those who understand only what can be explained understand very little.

While some of us may know than others about certain things, it is the thinnest slice of all that is, or could be known. In that sense, we are all profoundly ignorant.

Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.

There are no wise few.

What a man sees depends on what he looks at and what his previous experience has taught him to see.

We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.

Since a thing cannot be known directly or totally, one can only attune to it, with greater or lesser degrees of intimacy.

They understand but a little who understand only what can be explained.

I do not know everything; still many things I understand.

No matter how intelligent a man is, he can't see what he doesn't know how to see.

Facts do not convey truth. That's a mistake. Facts create norms, but truth creates illumination.

I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.

The beauty that is there is also available for me, too. But I see a deeper beauty that isn't so readily available to others.... I don't see how studying a flower ever detracts from its beauty. It only adds

The wise man knows of all things, as far as possible, although he has no knowledge of each of them in detail