William James Quotes - Page 17

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Acceptance Achievement Adversity Affection Age Alcohol Animals

We are not only gregarious animals, liking to be in sight of our fellows, but we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably, by our kind.

William James

Animal, Sight, Society

William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.293, Courier Corporation

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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.

William James

Memories, Passion, Men

William James (2008). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.92, Nuvision Pubns

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Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.

William James

Religion, Chapters, Egotism

William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.440, Library of America

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We are all potentially such sick men. The sanest and best of us are of one clay with lunatics and prison-inmates. And whenever we feel this, such a sense of the vanity of our voluntary career comes over us, that all our morality appears but as a plaster hiding a sore it can never cure, and all our well-doing as the hollowest substitute for that well-being that our lives ought to be grounded in, but alas! are not.

William James

Life, Men, Vanity

"Essays in Religion and Morality".

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When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.

William James

Responsibility, Order, Decision

William James (2008). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.167, Nuvision Pubns

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A great idea goes through three stages on its way to acceptance: 1) it is dismissed as nonsense, 2) it is acknowledged as true, but insignificant, 3) finally, it is seen to be important, but not really anything new.

William James

Acceptance, Ideas, Important

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Religion, whatever it is, is a man's total reaction upon life.

William James

Religious, Men, Religion

William James, John Dewey, John M. Capps, Donald Capps (2005). “James and Dewey on Belief and Experience”, p.115, University of Illinois Press

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With mere good intentions hell is proverbially paved.

William James

Good Intentions, Hell, Intention

William James (1950). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.125, Courier Corporation

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Geniuses are commonly believed to excel other men in their power of sustained attention . . . But it is their genius making them attentive, not their attention making geniuses of them.

William James

Men, Attention, Genius

William James (2007). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.423, Cosimo, Inc.

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Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again.

William James

Fall, Wind, Suffering

William James, Robert D Richardson (2010). “The Heart of William James”, p.111, Harvard University Press

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Language is the most imperfect and expensive means yet discovered for communicating thought.

William James

Mean, Imperfect, Language

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Far from being antecedent principles that animate the process, law, language, truth are but abstract names for its results.

William James

Truth, Law, Names

William James (2012). “Pragmatism”, p.93, Courier Corporation

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Romeo wants Juliet as the filings want the magnet; and if no obstacles intervene he moves towards her by as straight a line as they. But Romeo and Juliet, if a wall be built between them, do not remain idiotically pressing their faces against its opposite sides like the magnet and the filings with the card. Romeo soon finds a circuitous way, by scaling the wall or otherwise, of touching Juliet's lips directly. With the filings the path is fixed; whether it reaches the end depends on accidents. With the lover it is the end which is fixed, the path may be modified indefinitely.

William James

Life, Wall, Moving

William James (1950). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.7, Courier Corporation

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...By far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions is to ignore them altogether, or to abuse those who bear witness for them.

William James

Science, Abuse, Usual

William James (2015). “Pragmatism: Human Understanding”, p.22, 谷月社

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We need only in cold blood to act as if the thing in question were real and it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real.

William James

Real, Blood, Growing

William James (1950). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.321, Courier Corporation

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We all have a lifelong habit of inferiority to our full self..."

William James

Self, Inferiority, Habit

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Few people have definitely articulated philosophies of their own. But almost everyone has his own peculiar sense of a certain total character in the universe, and of the inadequacy of fully to match it [to] the peculiar systems that he knows.

William James

Philosophy, Character, People

William James (2013). “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (New Thought Edition - Secret Library)”, p.24, Lulu Press, Inc

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The perfection of rottenness.

William James

Sarcastic, Perfection

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The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own particular ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence with ours.

William James

Happiness, Society, Politics

Talks to Teachers (1899) "What makes a Life Significant?"

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Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that assures the successful outcome of any venture.

William James

Success, Confidence, Believe

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'Pure experience' is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories.

William James

Reflection, Names, Flux

William James (2015). “Essays in Radical Empiricism”, p.63, Sheba Blake Publishing

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In business for yourself, not by yourself.

William James

Inspirational, Business, Philosophical

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The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.

William James

Philosophy, Philosophical, Certain

William James (2015). “Pragmatism: Human Understanding”, p.2, 谷月社

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Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.

William James

Ocean, Islands, Sea

William James (1986). “Essays in Psychical Research”, p.374, Harvard University Press

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Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. Not through mere perversity do men run after it.

William James

Running, Men, Sobriety

1902 The Varieties of Religious Experience,'Mysticism'.

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Born: January 11, 1842
Died: August 26, 1910
Occupation: Philosopher
Cite this Page: Citation

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