William James Quotes

I don't know anyone who doesn't have an empty spot at the center of him, which must be filled in order to be really happy. That spot, like it or not, is reserved for God.

For me, making time for God is like making time to fill my stomach - like the physical space in the stomach needs food, spiritual space in one's soul needs regular prayer.

Religious ideas and practices take root not because they are promoted by forceful theologians, nor because they can be shown to have a sound historical or rational basis, but because they are found in practice to give the faithful a sense of sacred transcendence.

Divine symbols which have been given to mankind from time to time speak to that forum of truth which is within our hearts, and waken our consciousness to divine ideas entirely beyond words.

In one of the Upanishads it says, when the glow of a sunset holds you and you say 'Aha,' that is the recognition of the divinity. And when you say 'Aha' to an art object, that is a recognition of divinity. And what divinity is it? It is your divinity, which is the only divinity there is. We are all phenomenal manifestations of a divine will to live, and that will and the consciousness of life is one in all of us, and that is what artwork expresses.

Prayer is looking out from a different set of eyes, which are not comparing, competing, judging, labeling or analyzing, but receiving the moment in its present wholeness and unwholeness. That is what is meant by contemplation.

Your security is not your job, or your bank account, or your investments, or your spouse or your parents. Your security is your ability to connect with the cosmic power that creates all things.

Prayer is the language of a man burdened with a sense of need.

I don't think you can know God unless you're passionate about him so you're either screaming at him, enraptured with the idea of being around him or feeling him in your life.

If we are in Christ the whole basis of our goings is God, not conceptions of God, not ideas of God, but God Himself. We do not need any more ideas about God, the world is full of ideas about God, they are all worthless, because the ideas of God in anyone’s head are of no more use than our own ideas. What we need is a real God, not more ideas about Him.

Heartache forces us to embrace God out of desparate, urgent need. God is never closer than when your heart is aching.

In matters of sentiment, the public has very crude ideas; and the most shocking fault of women is that they make the public the supreme judge of their lives.

My concern is that the leaders who are presently responsible for guiding the masses and teaching the people in the church environment, as well as business and corporate, reconnect themselves to God's original idea and that is that God created man to have dominion over the earth.

The God of metaphysics is but an idea. But the God of religion, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sovereign Judge of actions and thoughts, is a power.

It is perhaps the most characteristic feature of the intellectual that he judges new ideas not by their specific merits but by the readiness with which they fit into his general conceptions, into the picture of the world which he regards as modern or advanced.

Educated men - "civilized," as Fourier used to say with disdain - tremble at the idea that society might some day be without judges, police, or gaolers.

People have judged you; you have accepted their idea without any scrutiny. And you are suffering from all kinds of people's judgments, and you are throwing those judgments on other people. And this game has become out of proportion. The whole humanity is suffering from it. If you want to get out of it, the first thing is: Don't judge yourself.

Interest in religion is not necessarily interest in God. Religion in public life means a set of ideas, an ideology that has certain positions. Religion is then one more ideology among others. Religion is about God. Religion begins with a relationship to God, not a relationship to an idea. It is God who is an actor, not just individuals who have certain beliefs who are actors. God is an actor.

The idea is to find some bit of holiness in everything-food, sex, earning and spending money, having children, conversations with friends. Everything can be seen as a miracle, as part of God's plan. When we can truly see this, we nourish our souls.

If you're not judging what happens, then you're trusting what others are doing, what you're playing, and trusting what you're playing.And it can lead you to other ideas, to something maybe you hadn't expressed before.

Ultimately, our relationship with Christ is the one thing we cannot do without.

The tongue of man is powerful enough to render the ideas which the human intellect conceives; but in the realm of true and deep sentiments it is but a weak interpreter. These are inexpressible, like the endless glory of the Omnipotent.

The Puritan did not stop to think; he recognized God in his soul, and acted.

In that realm you will know at last the good news: that your "devil" does not exist, that you are who you always thought you were-goodness and love. Your idea that you might be something else has come from an insane outer world, causing you to act insanely. An outer world of judgment and condemnation. Others have judged you, and from their judgments you have judged yourself. Now you want God to judge you, and I will not do it.