"The total mental efficiency of a man..." - Quote by William James
The total mental efficiency of a man is the resultant of the working together of all his faculties. He is too complex a being for any one of them to have the casting vote. If any one of them do have the casting vote, it is more likely to be the strength of his desire and passion, the strength of the interest he takes in what is proposed. Concentration, memory, reasoning power, inventiveness, excellence of the senses, all are subsidiary to this.
More by William James
“How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young-or slender.”
“It is very important that teachers should realize the importance of habit.”
“The study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself.”
More on Mind
“Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than a minority of them - never become even conscious of them all.”
“I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.”
“A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages”
More on Human Nature
“Don't wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.”
“You haven't learned life's lesson very well if you haven't noticed that you can give the tone or colour, or decide the reaction you want of people in advance. It's unbelievable simply. If you want them to take an interest in you, take an interest in them first. If you want to make them nervous, become nervous yourself...It's as simple as that. People will treat you as you treat them. It's no secret. Look about you. You can prove it with the next person you meet.”
“The particular egoic patterns that you react to most strongly in others and misperceive as their identity tend to be the same patterns that are also in you, but that you are unable or unwilling to detect within yourself.”