Quote

Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.

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
Thinking
Environment
Surroundings
Life
Common
Mindfulness
Upon
Lovely
Doe
Determine
Soul
Gratitude
Things
Blame
Modifies
Love
Stronger
Determines
Think
Habit
Govern

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Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working-day, he may safely leave the result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation.
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Man, whatever else he may be, is primarily a practical being, whose mind is given him to aid in adapting him to this world's life
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Lay plans as if we were to be immortal.
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We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.
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I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.
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We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition
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There are two lives, the natural and the spiritual, and we must lose the one before we can participate in the other.
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Ninety-nine hundredths or, possibly, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is purely automatic and habitual, from our rising in the morning to our lying down each night.
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Mental fire is what won't burn real sticks mental water is what won't necessarily (though of course it may) put out even a mentalfire.
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History is a bath of blood.
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Both thought and feeling are determinants of conduct, and the same conduct may be determined either by feeling or by thought.
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It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints.
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Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.
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One of the greatest discoveries of our time is that a man can alter the state of their life by altering the state of their mind.
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Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources.
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It is so human a book that I don't see how belief in its divine authority can survive the reading of it.
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Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.
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When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.
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The first thing that intellect does with an object is to class it with something else.
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'What would be better for us to believe!' This sounds very like a definition of truth
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