William James Quotes

Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing.

Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty.

A thousand probabilities don't make one fact.

There is only one thing about which I am certain, and that is that there is very little about which one can be certain.

Objectivity in the end is an unattainable ideal.

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Who would ever give up the reality of dreams for relative knowledge?

There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one.

Truth and dreams are always getting muddled.

How can you expect me to believe that?""whether you believe it or not does not change the nature of truth

Nobody in this world possesses absolute truth.

Truth does not demand belief.

Nothing is always absolutely so

If it is a Miracle, any sort of evidence will answer, but if it is a Fact, proof is necessary

How wrong people always were when they said: 'It's better to know the worst than go on not knowing either way.' No; they had it exactly the wrong way round. Tell me the truth, doctor, I'd sooner know. But only if the truth is what I want to hear.

When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?

Seeing is believing and believing is knowing and knowing beats unknowing and the unknown.

For me, truth cracks open in the places where things do not cohere. That's how life is.

The only time a dead certainty applies is in a dream world.

To know is always better, no matter what the answer might be.

Brooklyn was a dream. All the things that happened there just couldn't happen. It was all dream stuff. Or was it all real and true and was it that she, Francie, was the dreamer?

In the absence of truth there is confusion, the essence of truth.

You want the truth, of course. You want me to put two and two together. But two and two doesn’t necessarily get you the truth. Two and two equals a voice outside the window. Two and two equals the wind. The living bird is not its labeled bones.

doubts, like facts, are stubborn things.