William James Quotes

If you're alive for more than five minutes, you're going to be disappointed.

My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.

Sometimes your dreams come true, and it's a real drag.

I'm a hopeless mother; a hopeless wife; I have to try harder. I'm just a pathetic case history, really.

Every time I lose a final, I am disappointed.

It feels so exhausting to be so bad at something I loved so much.

Is it not enough that we cannot make one another happy, must we also rob one another of the pleasures that any heart may permit itself now and then? And name me a person who in a bad mood will be decent enough to hide it, to bear it alone, without destroying the joy around him. Is it not rather an inner dissatisfaction with our own unworthiness, a dislike of ourselves that is always associated with envy aggravated by foolish conceit? We see people happy and not made happy by us, and that is unbearable.

How my achievements mock me!

We cuss them because we're not good enough for them. We hate them because they wouldn't look at us, couldn't be bothered to give us an interview. I guess there's a Trent & Brent in every city, in every field. I didn't make it and I don't belong, so I'll just go through life hating them.

The same sun which gilds all nature, and exhilarates the whole creation, does not shine upon disappointed ambition.

No one is content with his own lot.

He felt as though he were failing in practically every area of his life. Lately, happiness seemed as distant and unattainable to him as space travel. He hadn't always felt this way. There had been a long period of time during which he remembered being very happy. But things change. People change. Change was one of the inevitable laws of nature, exacting its toll on people's lives. Mistakes are made, regrets form, and all that was left were repercussions that made something as simple as rising from the bed seem almost laborious.

Sometimes, things don't work out the way we want them to.

A lot of people are always striving for bigger and better. People are always wondering if the grass is greener and then they'll​ start hearing things or meeting other people.

Now, more than ever, I realize just how illusory my undeserved success has been. I still hold out some hope of doing better, but age and unhappiness have sapped my strength.

I was oppressed with a sense of vague discontent and dissatisfaction with my own life, which was passing so quickly and uninterestingly, and I kept thinking it would be a good thing if I could tear my heart out of my breast, that heart which had grown so weary of life.

Time and time again I can't please myself.

All of us are prone to excuse our own mediocre performance. We blame our misfortunes, our disfigurements, our so-called handicaps. Victims of our own rationalization, we say silently to ourselves, 'I'm just too weak,' or 'I'm not cut out for better things.' Others soar beyond our meager accomplishments. Envy and discouragement take their toll. .

Anne was always glad in the happiness of her friends; but it is sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by happiness that is not your own.

We're enjoying sluggish times, and not enjoying them very much.

The truth is I'm not good at enjoying life.

People or stars Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.

The truth is, wherever you choose to be, it's the wrong place.

Why did I keep hitching myself to dreams as big as that Montana sky? I was like Rooster Jim's chickens, with no way to fly that high.

The things that I can't have I want, And what I have seems second-rate, The things I want to do I can't, And what I have to do I hate.