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To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one's being added to that being.

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
Known
Means
Mean
Reported
Added
Awareness
Conscious
Simply

More quotes by William James

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The first lecture in psychology that I ever heard was the first I ever gave.
William James
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So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end...and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of fear.
William James
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O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy . . . In finishing it I found . . . such a flavor of persistent euphony, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim.
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The most immutable barrier in nature is between one man's thoughts and another's.
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Ingenuity in meeting and pursuing the pupil, that tact for the concrete situation, though they are the alpha and omega of the teacher's art, are things to which psychology cannot help us in the least.
William James
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Choose a self and stand by it.
William James
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He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.
William James
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No reception without reaction, no impression without correlative expression, -this is the great maxim which the teacher ought never to forget.
William James
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The emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.
William James
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Asceticism may be a mere expression of organic hardihood, disgusted with too much ease.
William James
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The sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such conduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on that occasion can.
William James
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To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.
William James
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Lay plans as if we were to be immortal.
William James
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The total possible consciousness may be split into parts which co-exist but mutually ignore each other.
William James
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To know one thing thoroughly would be to know the universe.
William James
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I am well aware how odd it must seem to some of you to hear me say that an idea is true so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives
William James
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To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.
William James
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We must not just patch and tinker with life. We must keep renewing it. Embrace novelty and uniqueness.
William James
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It is only in the lonely emergencies of life that our creed is tested: then routine maxims fail, and we fall back on our gods.
William James
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Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second.
William James