William James Quotes - Page 23

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• It is very important that teachers should realize the importance of habit.

  William James

  Teacher, Important, Realizing

  William James (2014). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology; And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.48, BookRix

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• Our theories are wedged and controlled as nothing else is. Yet sometimes alternative theoretic formulas are equally compatible with all the truths we know, and then we choose between them for subjective reasons. We choose the kind of theory to which we are already partial: we follow 'elegenace' or 'economy'

  William James

  Truth, Alternatives, Kind

  William James (2015). “Pragmatism and the Conception of Thruth”, p.173, William James

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• The trail of the human serpent is thus over everything.

  William James

  Trails, Serpent, Humans

  William James (2015). “Pragmatism: Human Understanding”, p.23, 谷月社

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• Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism.

  William James

  Reality, Theatre, Heroism

  William James (2015). “The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature”, p.123, Xist Publishing

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• On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.

  William James

  God, Principles, Theism

  William James (2012). “Pragmatism”, p.115, Courier Corporation

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• Man, whatever else he may be, is primarily a practical being, whose mind is given him to aid in adapting him to this world's life

  William James

  Educational, Philosophy, Men

  William James (2014). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology; And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.22, BookRix

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• The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.

  William James

  God, Science, Law

  The Varieties of Religious Experience Lecture 20 (1902)

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• To spend life for something which outlasts it.

  William James

  Achievement

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• All the qualities of a man acquire dignity when he knows that the service of the collectivity that owns him needs them. If proud of the collectivity, his own pride rises in proportion. No collectivity is like an army for nourishing such pride.

  William James

  Army, Pride, Men

  William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.1289, Library of America

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• So it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young birds take to the sky.

  William James

  Children, Reading, Sky

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• Tell him to live by yes and no - yes to everything good, no to everything bad.

  William James

  Yes And No, Live By

  "The Thought and Character of William James". Book by Ralph Barton Perry, 1935.

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• In youth we may have an absolutely new experience, subjective or objective, every hour of the day. Apprehension is vivid, retentiveness strong, and our recollections of that time, like those in a time spent in rapid and interesting travel, are of something intricate, multitudinous, and long-drawn-out. But as each passing year converts some of this experience into automatic routine which we hardly note at all, the days and the weeks smooth themselves out in recollection to a contentless unit, and the years grow hollow and collapse.

  William James

  Strong, New Experiences, Years

  William James (2007). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.625, Cosimo, Inc.

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• That reality is 'independent' means that there is something in every experience that escapes our arbitrary control. If it be a sensible experience it coerces our attention; if a sequence, we cannot invert it; if we compare two terms we can come to only one result. There is a push, an urgency, within our very experience, against which we are on the whole powerless, and which drives us in a direction that is the destiny of our belief.

  William James

  Independent, Mean, Reality

  William James (2015). “The Meaning of Truth: Human Understanding”, p.27, 谷月社

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• Experience, as we know, has a way of boiling over, and making us correct our present formulas.

  William James

  Experience, Boiling Over, Way

  William James (2008). “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking”, p.98, Cosimo, Inc.

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• We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.

  William James

  And Love, Merit, Power And Love

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, 1895.

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• Old-fashioned determinism was what we may call hard determinism. It did not shrink from such words as fatality, bondage of the will, necessitation, and the like. Nowadays, we have a soft determinism which abhors harsh words, and, repudiating fatality, necessity, and even predetermination, says that its real name is freedom; for freedom is only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.

  William James

  Freedom, Real, Names

  William James, Robert D Richardson (2010). “The Heart of William James”, p.23, Harvard University Press

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• The most natively interesting object to a man is his own personal self and its fortunes. We accordingly see that the moment a thing becomes connected with the fortunes of the self, it forthwith becomes an interesting thing.

  William James

  Educational, Philosophy, Men

  William James (2008). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.78, Nuvision Pubns

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• Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?

  William James

  Dream, Science, Play

  "The Will to Believe" (1896)

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• Organization and method mean much, but contagious human characters mean more in a university.

  William James

  Character, Mean, Organization

  William James (1987). “Essays, Comments, and Reviews”, p.90, Harvard University Press

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• If evolution and the survival of the fittest be true at all, the destruction of prey and of human rivals must have been among the most important. . . . It is just because human bloodthirstiness is such a primitive part of us that it is so hard to eradicate, especially when a fight or a hunt is promised as part of the fun.

  William James

  Fun, Fighting, Survival

  William James (1918). “The Principles of Psychology, Vol. 2”, p.412, Courier Corporation

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• But it is the bane of psychology to suppose that where results are similar, processes must be the same. Psychologists are too apt to reason as geometers would, if the latter were to say that the diameter of a circle is the same thing as its semi-circumference, because, forsooth, they terminate in the same two points.

  William James

  Circles, Two, Psychology

  William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.528, Courier Corporation

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• Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true.

  William James

  Believe, Belief, Action

  William James (2015). “Essays in Popular Philosophy: Top Essays”, p.22, 谷月社

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• Plasticity, then, in the wide sense of the word, means the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influence, but strong enough not to yield all at once. Each relatively stable phase of equilibrium in such a structure is marked by what we may call a new set of habits.

  William James

  Strong, Mean, Science

  William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.105, Courier Corporation

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• The difference between the first and second-best things in art absolutely seems to escape verbal definition -- it is a matter of a hair, a shade, an inward quiver of some kind -- yet what miles away in the point of preciousness!

  William James

  Art, Differences, Hair

  William James (2008). “The Letters of William James”, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Once you accept an idea, it's an idea whose time has come.

  William James

  Ideas, Accepting, Daring

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