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Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.

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
Eternal
Procrastinating
Motivational
Procrastination
Nothing
Hanging
Task
Clever
Tasks
Achievement
Fatiguing
Eternity
Procrastinator

More quotes by William James

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From all these facts there emerges a very simple abstract program for the teacher to follow in keeping the attention of the child: Begin with the line of his native interests, and offer him objects that have some immediate connection with these.
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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!
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There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood bu those who hear it.
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The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.
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The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone. In a sense the statue stoodthere from eternity. But there were a thousand different ones beside it, and the sculptor alone is to thank for having extricated this one from the rest.
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Between what a man calls me and what he simply calls mine the line is difficult to draw. We feel and act about certain things that are ours very much as we feel and act about ourselves.
William James
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Religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight, or in a mountain gorge.
William James
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All that we need explicitly to note is that, the more the passive attention is relied on, by keeping the material interesting and the less the kind of attention requiring effort is appealed to the more smoothly and pleasantly the classroom work goes on.
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To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.
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We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities it is only the particular ass that does so whom we can't tolerate.
William James
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Truth happens to an idea
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Tension is a habit. Relaxing is a habit. Bad habits can be broken, good habits formed.
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For I had often said that the best argument I knew for an immortal life was the existence of a man who deserved one as well as Child did.
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If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.
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The word 'cause' is an altar to an unknown god.
William James
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Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance.
William James
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All religions begin with the cry Help.
William James
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Most unhappiness is caused because people listen to themselves... instead of talking to themselves.
William James
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At bottom, the whole concern of religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe.
William James
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To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from them any element that is directly experienced.
William James