I am tired of the position of the dried-up critic and doubter. The believer is the true full man. (from a biography of James by Robert D. Richardson)
Interpretation
Being a believer enriches life, while a critic often leads to stagnation.
In this quote, William James emphasizes the value of belief and faith over criticism and doubt. He suggests that embracing belief allows individuals to fully engage with life, encouraging personal growth and a more fulfilling existence, whereas a critical mindset can lead to a limited and dry experience of reality.
In practice
Using this quote when discussing the importance of positive thinking in a motivational speech.
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know any thing so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing - the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one's hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again.
If you wish to live in peace and harmony with others, you must learn to discipline yourself in many ways.
Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.
When you hurry you're more apt to make mistakes. But you have to be quick. If you're not quick you can't get things done.
The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back.
Whoever resorts regularly to the lessons of Holy Scripture as an apt pupil will take the Savior into her group, and the children will perceive that He is present and that He assists in their work; thus, He will take possession of their souls.
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