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Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.

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
Ought
Philosophy
Half
Compared
Awake

More quotes by 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.
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The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.
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We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves.
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Knowledge about life is one thing effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.
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The university most worthy of rational admiration is that one in which your lonely thinker can feel himself lonely, most positively furthered, and most richly fed
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We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. ...Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out.
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Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true.
William James
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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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Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us our hour of triumph is what brings the void. Not the Jews of the captivity, but those of the days of Solomon 's glory are those from whom the pessimistic utterances in our Bible come.
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Most people, probably, are in doubt about certain matters ascribed to their past. They may have seen them, may have said them, done them, or they may only have dreamed or imagined they did so.
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Faith is synonymous with working hypothesis.
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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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In its broadest term, religion says that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in rightful relations to it.
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Fear of life in one form or another is the great thing to exorcise.
William James
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In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.
William James
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Habit is the great flywheel of society.
William James
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The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.
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Formula to live your dream: 1. Be bold. 2. Begin now, 3. No exceptions.
William James
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There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or snicker if sad, it must not scream or curse.
William James
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Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.
William James