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Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.

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
Depends
Worth
Living
Life
Liver
Humorous

More quotes by William James

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Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
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Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendships and intimacies … and yet they leave their friendships and intimacies with no cultivation, to grow as they will by the roadside, expecting them to keep by force of mere inertia.
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There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference.
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We all have a lifelong habit of inferiority to our full self...
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Whatever universe a professor believes in must at any rate be a universe that lends itself to lengthy discourse. A universe definable in two sentences is something for which the professorial intellect has no use. No faith in anything of that cheap kind!
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There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise.
William James
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The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.
William James
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Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.
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Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.
William James
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Science herself consults her heart when she lays it down that the infinite ascertainment of fact and correction of false belief are the supreme goods for man.
William James
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To suggest personal will and effort to one all sicklied o'er with the sense of irremediable impotence is to suggest the most impossible of things. What he craves is to be consoled in his very powerlessness, to feel that the spirit of the universe recognizes and secures him, all decaying and failing as he is.
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Footnotes -- little dogs yapping at the heels of the text
William James
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We and God have business with each other, and in opening ourselves to God's influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.
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What holds attention determines action.
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Individuality is founded in feeling
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Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world.
William James
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It is only the fundamental conceptions of psychology which are of real value to a teacher.
William James
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If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.
William James
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We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our functions.
William James
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We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.
William James