Quote#Nature
We can act as if there were a God; feel as if we were free; consider…
Quote byWilliam James · 1842–1910
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), Lecture III, "The Reality of the Unseen".
English (original)
We can act as if there were a God; feel as if we were free; consider Nature as if she were full of special designs; lay plans as if we were to be immortal; and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life.
— William James
More from William James
"What is meant by saying that my choice of which way to walk home after the lecture is ambiguous and matter of chance?...It means that both Divinity Avenue and Oxford Street are called but only one, and that one either one, shall be chosen.
The stronghold of the determinist argument is the antipathy to the idea of chance...This notion of alternative possibility, this admission that any one of several things may come to pass is, after all, only a roundabout name for chance.
All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.
Freedom is only necessity understood.
The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.
We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.