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To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.

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
Understanding
Best
Way
Psychiatry
Abnormal
Philosophical
Normal
Study

More quotes by 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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All natural happiness thus seems infected with a contradiction. The breath of the sepulchre surrounds it.
William James
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To know one thing thoroughly would be to know the universe.
William James
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So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.
William James
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Results should not be too voluntarily aimed at or too busily thought of. They are sure to float up of their own accord from a long enough daily work at a given matter.
William James
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Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves.
William James
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There is a stream, a succession of states, or waves, or fields (or whatever you please to call them), of knowledge, of feeling, of desire, of deliberation, etc., that constantly pass and repass, and that constitute our inner life.
William James
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If you can change your mind, you can change your life.
William James
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Instinct leads, logic does but follow.
William James
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Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
William James
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No decision is, in itself, a decision.
William James
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Equality is attainable as long as you are part of the majority.
William James
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With no attempt there can be no failure with no failure no humiliation.
William James
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Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.
William James
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It is not probable that the reader will be satisfied with any of these solutions, and contemporary philosophers, even rationalistically minded ones, have on the whole agreed that no one has intelligibly banished the mystery of fact.
William James
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Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions.
William James
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How many of us persist in a precipitate course which, but for a moment of heedlessness we might never have entered upon, simply because we hate to change our minds.
William James
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Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power.
William James
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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
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I believe there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with a fixed belief that certain kinds of phenomena are IMPOSSIBLE.
William James