There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.
Interpretation
Indecision leads to misery and a lack of fulfillment in life.
William James highlights the profound impact of indecision on human well-being. When a person is unable to commit to actions or choices, they can experience a persistent state of unhappiness, as their life becomes stagnant and devoid of direction. Habitual indecision prevents individuals from deriving joy and satisfaction from their experiences, ultimately leading to a sense of misery.
In practice
During a motivational speech about overcoming procrastination.
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.
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.
There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.
Whatever is your present experience, you can recognize the spaciousness that allows it to be. You are this spaciousness, this awareness, this love. Deeper love and more spacious awareness is the best lesson you can get from any experience.
Don't allow your mind to tell your heart what to do. The mind gives up easily
Whatever the Way, the master of strategy does not appear fast.
We say no to a lot of things so we can invest an incredible amount of care on what we do.
People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.