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

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The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.
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a man does not cry because he is sad, he is sad because he cries
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Conversion is in its essence a normal adolescent phenomenon, incidental to the passage from the child's small universe to the wider intellectual and spiritual life of maturity.
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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.
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The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.
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A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.
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Let anyone try, I will not say to arrest, but to notice or to attend to, the present moment of time. One of the most baffling experiences occurs. Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.
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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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Pragmatism asks its usual question. Grant an idea or belief to be true, it says, what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?
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Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.
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The same is true of Love, and the instinctive desire to please those whom we love. The teacher who succeeds in getting herself loved by the pupils will obtain results which one of a more forbidding temperament finds it impossible to secure.
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The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
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A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith's usual result.
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I myself believe that the evidence for God lies primarily in inner personal experiences.
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Belief creates the actual fact.
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Faith is synonymous with working hypothesis.
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...as I apprehend the Buddhist doctrine of karma, I agree in principle with that.
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A man may not achieve everything he has dreamed, but he will never achieve anything great without having dreamed it first.
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The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact.
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