Date: 1892, 1899

"In admitting a new body of experience, we instinctively seek to disturb as little as possible our pre-existing stock of ideas."

— James, William (1842-1910)

Date: 1892, 1899

"The flowing life of the mind is sorted into parcels suitable for presentation in the recitation-room, and chopped up into supposed 'processes' with long Greek and Latin names, which in real life have no distinct existence."

— James, William (1842-1910)

Date: 1892, 1899

"But be our conceptions adequate or inadequate, and be our stock of them large or small, they are all we have to work with."

— James, William (1842-1910)

Date: 1892, 1899

"The more adequate the stock of ideas, the more 'able' is the man, the more uniformly appropriate is his behavior likely to be."

— James, William (1842-1910)

Date: 1892, 1899

"This mental escort which the mind supplies is drawn, of course, from the mind's ready-made stock."

— James, William (1842-1910)