Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the overly scientific mindset that disregards human feelings and intuition.
William James highlights the dangers of valuing purely scientific conclusions over human experiences and emotions. He suggests that the modern tendency to trust scientific claims based solely on mechanical or experimental evidence, like the twitching of a decapitated frog's leg, undermines the validity of human feelings, which should be considered essential in understanding truth. This thought-provoking statement invites a reexamination of how we weigh different forms of knowledge and the value of subjective human experience.
In practice
In a debate on the role of emotions in decision making, this quote could be used to emphasize the importance of feelings.
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.
If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.
It is not difficult to deprive the great majority of independent thought. But the minority who will retain an inclination to criticize must also be silenced....Public criticism or even expressions of doubt must be suppressed because they tend to weaken pubic support....When the doubt or fear expressed concerns not the success of a particular enterprise but of the whole social plan, it must be treated even more as sabotage.
My worthy friend, gray are all theories_x000D_ _x000D_ And green alone Life's golden tree.
It is an item of faith that we are children of God; there is plenty of experience in us against it. The faith that surmounts this evidence and is able to warm itself at the fire of God's love, instead of having to steal love and self-acceptance from other sources, is actually the root of holiness: It is a fatal mistake to think of holiness as a possession which we have distinct from our faith... Faith is the very highest form of our dependence on God.
I watch one news channel until my soul can't take it anymore. It's the background of my life.
There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.