William James Experiences Quotations

Theory must mediate between all previous truths and certain new experiences

In youth we may have an absolutely new experience, subjective or objective, every hour of the day. Apprehension is vivid, retentiveness strong, and our recollections of that time, like those in a time spent in rapid and interesting travel, are of something intricate, multitudinous, and long-drawn-out. But as each passing year converts some of this experience into automatic routine which we hardly note at all, the days and the weeks smooth themselves out in recollection to a contentless unit, and the years grow hollow and collapse.

Divinity lies all around us, but society remains too hidebound to accept that fact...The mother sea and the fountain-head of all religions lies in the mystical experiences of the individual.

The simplest rudiment of mystical experience would seem to be that deepened sense of the significance of a maxim or formula which occasionally sweeps over one.