Q0120

William James

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events.
Thinker William James
School Pragmatism
Source Pragmatism
Theme Truth
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Pragmatism, within the tradition of Pragmatism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of truth, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In William James's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: William James. (n.d.). Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0120

MLA: William James. “Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true,….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0120.

Chicago: William James. “Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true,….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0120.

Same thinker

More from William James

  1. Habit is the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent.
  2. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
  3. The essential achievement of the will is to attend to a difficult object and hold it fast before the mind.
  4. Consciousness…does not appear to itself chopped up in bits…It is nothing jointed; it flows.
  5. The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

All quotations by William James

Same theme

More on truth

  1. Once in a lifetime, everything must be doubted.
  2. The things we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are all true.
  3. The true is precisely what is made.
  4. Accept the truth from whatever source it comes.
  5. Do not go outside; return into yourself. Truth dwells in the inner man.

Browse the truth theme