William James Quotes

It's no use of talking unless people understand what you say.

Each day we understand better what the Indians say, and they us, so that very often we are intelligible to each other.

I enjoy intellectual companionship.

My readers and I, we have the same taste, and it's awesome. They'll tell me about stuff that I haven't heard of.

I like being around people who are good conversationalists, when there's a give and take, and you are heightening an idea, exploring it together, that is my favorite thing in the world.

Conversation in its happiest development is a link, equally exquisite and adequate, between mind and mind, a system by which men approach one another with sympathy and enjoyment, a field for the finest amenities of civilization, for the keenest and most intelligent display of social activity. It is also our solace, our inspiration, and our most rational pleasure. It is a duty we owe to one another; it is our common debt to humanity.

Conversation with a friend will only bear good fruit of knowledge when both think only of the matter under consideration and forget that they are friends.

Yet friendship, I believe, is essential to intellectuals. It is probably the growth hormone the mind requires as it begins its activity of producing and exchanging ideas. You can date the evolving life of a mind, like the age of a tree, by the rings of friendship formed by the expanding central trunk. In the course of my history, not love or marriage so much as friendship has promoted growth.

Communication is the universal solvent.

When you are in a relationship, you want the other person to appreciate the things you like. It sounds superficial, but it's nice.

In order to understand people, we have to understand their way of life and approach. If we wish to convince them, we have to use their language in the narrow sense of the mind. Something that goes even much further than that is not the appeal to logic and reason, but some kind of emotional awareness of the other people.

In order to know somebody through their words, I mean, it has to be an, it has to be a letter, you know? It has to be a long e-mail. It has to be a five-page hand-written letter, you know, it has to be overwhelming and messy and sloppy as humans are.

Consensus demands communication.

When you go into something where you can really trust that everyone has thought about it, more than you have even, then that's like a gift.

Love of music, of sunsets and sea; a liking for the same kind of people; political opinions that are not radically divergent; a similar stance as we look at the stars and think of the marvelous strangeness of the universe - these are what build a marriage. And it is never to be taken for granted.

The days are gone when a country can issue orders to other peoples. Today, mankind needs culture, ideas and logic.

Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind, of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific research, life would have seemed to me empty.

Without understanding, your love is not true love. You must look deeply in order to see and understand the needs, aspirations, and suffering of the one you love.

Learn the language that they understand, and when they come upon our doorstep to talk we can talk, and they will get the point. There will be a dialog, there will be some communication, and I am quite certain that then there will be some understanding.

Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.

For an academic to launch a public conversation about journalistic integrity, the role of religion in society, scholarship and faith is a dream come true. These are the kinds of things that we sit around talking to each other about in our dusty libraries. To see these conversations take place in popular culture is the best thing that could have ever happened.

It's good to find common ground with people. When you find common ground and you see things from other people's perspective, you can have a voice in their lives, you can have an influence.

It does seem so pleasant to talk with an old acquaintance who knows what you know. I see so many new folks nowadays who seem to have neither past nor future. Conversation has got to have some root in the past, or else you have got to explain every remark you make, and it wears a person out.

Despite popular theories, I believe people fall in love based not on good looks or fate but on knowledge. Either they are amazed by something a beloved knows that they themselves do not know; or they discover a common rare knowledge; or they can supply knowledge to someone who's lacking. Hasn't everyone found a strange ignorance in someone beguiling? . . .Nowadays, trendy librarians, wanting to be important, say, Knowledge is power. I know better. Knowledge is love.

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy the intercourse with superior minds.