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We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.

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
Differences
Causes
Savage
Choices
Savages
Good
Fierce
Men
Choice
Difference
Cause
Ready

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Organization and method mean much, but contagious human characters mean more in a university.
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There is but one unconditional commandment ... to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.
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Man's chief difference from the brutes lies in the exuberant excess of his subjective propensities. Prune his extravagance, sober him, and you undo him.
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The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
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Science must constantly be reminded that her purposes are not the only purposes and that the order of uniform causation which she has use for, and is therefore right in postulating, may be enveloped in a wider order, on which she has no claim at all.
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Man lives for science as well as bread.
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When happiness is actually in possession, the thought of evil can no more acquire the feeling of reality than the thought of good can gain reality when melancholy rules. To the man actively happy, from whatever cause, evil simply cannot then and there be believed in.
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Religion, whatever it is, is a man's total reaction upon life.
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A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith's usual result.
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If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.
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Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
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Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.
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Don't preach too much to your pupils or abound in good talk in the abstract. Lie in wait rather for the practical opportunities, be prompt to seize those as they pass, and thus at one operation get your pupils both to think, to feel, and to do.
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No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.
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A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.
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The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.
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Smitten as we are with the vision of social righteousness, a God indifferent to everything but adulation, and full of partiality for his individual favorites, lacks an essential element of largeness.
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To neglect the wise sayings of great thinkers is to deny ourselves the truest education.
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But petitional prayer is only one department of prayer and if we take the word in the wider sense as meaning every kind of inward communion or conversation with the power recognized as divine, we can easily see that scientific criticism leaves it untouched. Prayer in this wide sense is the very soul and essence of religion.
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My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.
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