William James Quotes

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

William James

• Quality
• Chosen
• Ethical

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Quotes to Explore

• As you probably know, I've written a lot about the presidency, so it's obviously exciting when you get to interview a president and write about it.

  

  Nancy Gibbs
  • You
  • Know
  • Interview

• I'll hear people say every so often that having HIV must not be so bad - 'Just look at Magic and how well he's doing.'

  

  Magic Johnson
  • People
  • Bad
  • Magic

• The situation is quite serious - groundwater is important source for water use, including drinking water, and if it gets contaminated, it's very costly and difficult to clean.

  

  Ma Jun
  • Important
  • Water
  • Serious

• I think God gave us senses of humor, and we should use them.

  

  Vera Farmiga
  • God
  • Think
  • Humor

• I found it peculiar that those who wanted to take military action could - with 100 per cent certainty - know that the weapons existed and turn out to have zero knowledge of where they were.

  

  Hans Blix
  • Knowledge
  • Know
  • Action

• I'm most honest about writing when I'm talking to family or friends, not to newspapers.

  

  Zadie Smith
  • Writing
  • Family
  • Friends

• I'm sure my father had more to do with my career than I would like to give him credit for. I would love to think it was all me!

  

  Laura Linney
  • Love
  • Father
  • Think

• It is totally unacceptable that there are countries with no paediatric cardiac surgeries.

  

  Magdi Yacoub
  • Countries
  • Unacceptable

• I'm going to go to school. It doesn't matter what the outcome is as long as I did it. I can say I did it.

  

  Tatyana Ali
  • Long
  • School
  • I Can

• A house must be built on solid foundations if it is to last. The same principle applies to man, otherwise he too will sink back into the soft ground and becomes swallowed up by the world of illusion.

  

  Sai Baba
  • Up
  • World
  • House

• The only shoes that look futuristic are Crocs, but they would be terrible to use in a futuristic movie.

  

  Olivier Theyskens
  • Movie
  • Look
  • Shoes

• I've never been much of a computer guy at least in terms of playing with computers. Actually until I was about 11 I didn't use a computer for preparing for games at all. I was playing a bit online, was using the chess club mainly. Now, obviously, the computer is an important tool for me preparing for my games.

  

  Magnus Carlsen
  • Important
  • Guy
  • Chess

• Robots of the world, you are ordered to exterminate the human race. Do not spare the men. Do not spare the women. Preserve only the factories, railroads, machines, mines, and raw materials. Destroy everything else. Then return to work. Work must not cease.

  

  Karel Capek
  • World
  • Work
  • Men

• And also I didn't want my future to be just sitting in a room and be imprisoned in my four walls and just cooking and giving birth to children. I didn't want to see my life in that way.

  

  Malala Yousafzai
  • Life
  • Children
  • Future

• I'm on 'Dancing with the Stars' because I want to prove my sister wrong. My sister literally told the world that I could not dance, so I have to redeem myself.

  

  Calvin Johnson
  • World
  • Dance
  • Sister

• Long for me as I for you, forgetting, what will be inevitable, the long black aftermath of pain.

  

  Malcolm Lowry
  • Long
  • Black
  • Pain

• The importance of the arts to the societies in which they thrive is well documented.

  

  Karen Kain
  • Well
  • Arts
  • Thrive

• I write my songs and just play them, so there are not a whole lot of fireworks. As long as the music comes first, it's OK to have some fireworks. But not the other way around.

  

  Kacey Musgraves
  • Music
  • Long
  • Play

• I optimize for brands and people I enjoy spending time with - we've invested in Warby Parker, Glossier, Outdoor Voices, Bonobos - because if you're having a good time, you're inherently going to be better at what you're doing. Even the bad times are tolerable when you're working alongside people you respect and like.

  

  Kirsten Green
  • People
  • Time
  • Good

• All I really want to do is things I haven't done. 'I'm gonna put a paper bag on my head and be on the cover of 'Billboard,' see what I can get away with - if they'll let me.' And they let me. And I am literally giggling inside for, like, a month that I got away with it.

  

  Sia LSD
  • Done

• I've always kind of made sure to maintain the sense of who I am and never be mean or cruel or snotty to anyone. Because, at the end of the day, it's not going to help you last in the business, and who wants to be around someone like that? I don't want to turn into 'that guy.' That guy!

  

  Leonardo DiCaprio
  • Business
  • Help
  • Guy

• To say that most of us today are purely expansive is only another way of saying that most of us continue to be more concerned with the quantity than with the quality of our democracy.

  

  Irving Babbitt
  • Today
  • Quality
  • Democracy

• Neither moral relations nor the moral law can swing in vacuo. Their only habitat can be a mind which feels them; and no world composed of merely physical facts can possibly be a world to which ethical propositions apply.

  

  William James
  • World
  • Mind
  • Moral

• An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

  

  William James
  • Quality
  • Chosen
  • Ethical