Far from being antecedent principles that animate the process, law, language, truth are but abstract names for its results.
William JamesIn the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly.
William JamesConsciousness... does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as 'chain' or 'train' do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A 'river' or a 'stream' are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life. Source of the expression 'stream of consciousness'.
William James