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I don't sing because I'm happy I'm happy because I sing.

William James

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William James
Age: 68 †
Born: 1842
Born: January 11
Died: 1910
Died: August 26
Philosopher
Physician
Psychologist
University Teacher
W. James
Philosophical
Sing
Happiness
Happy
Music

More quotes by William James

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Impulse without reason is enough, and reason without impulse is a poor makeshift.
William James
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Faith branches off the highroad before reason begins
William James
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The good we do today becomes the happiness of tomorrow.
William James
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The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.
William James
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The ultimate test of what a truth means is the conduct it dictates or inspires.
William James
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Once a decision is reached, stop worrying and start working.
William James
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A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.
William James
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The old question of whether there is design is idle. The real question is what is the world, whether or not it have a designer--and that can be revealed only by the study of all nature's particulars.
William James
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Time itself comes in drops.
William James
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All religions begin with the cry Help.
William James
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Do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty.
William James
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Considering the inner fitness of things, one would rather think that the very first act of a will endowed with freedom should be to sustain the belief in the freedom itself.
William James
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Our life is always deeper than we know, is always more divine than it seems, and hence we are able to survive degradations and despairs which otherwise must engulf us.
William James
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Our intelligence cannot wall itself up alive, like a pupa in a chrysalis. It must at any cost keep on speaking terms with the universe that engendered it.
William James
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Materialism means simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of ultimate hopes spiritualism means theaffirmation of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope.
William James
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To know psychology, therefore, is absolutely no guarantee that we shall be good teacher.
William James
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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
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To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind.
William James
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Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.
William James
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The sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such conduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on that occasion can.
William James