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Our faith is faith in someone else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case.

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
Greatest
Faith
Else
Someone
Matter
Philosophical
Matters
Case
Cases

More quotes by William James

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Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.
William James
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To consider hypotheses is surely always better than to dogmatize ins blaue hinein
William James
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The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone. In a sense the statue stoodthere from eternity. But there were a thousand different ones beside it, and the sculptor alone is to thank for having extricated this one from the rest.
William James
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Life is one long struggle between conclusions based on abstract ways of conceiving cases, and opposite conclusions prompted by our instinctive perception of them.
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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Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
William James
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The good or bad is not in the circumstance, but only in the mind...that encounters it.
William James
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Anything you may hold firmly in your imagination can be yours.
William James
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The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will... An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.
William James
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Man alone of all the creatures of earth can change his own pattern. Man alone is the architect of his own destiny.
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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Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way.
William James
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There is a voice inside which speaks and says, This is the real me!
William James
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The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
William James
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We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all.
William James
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Once a decision is reached, stop worrying and start working.
William James
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Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world.
William James
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Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.
William James
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Men habitually use only a small part of the power which they actually possess.
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