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An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

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
Possible
Ethical
Whatever
Equally
Several
Ethics
Philosophical
Chosen
Unless
Quality

More quotes by William James

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No one sees further into a generalization than his own knowledge of detail extends.
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What a teacher needs to know about psychology might almost be written on the palm of one's hand.
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The only function that one experience can perform is to lead into another experience and the only fulfillment we can speak of isthe reaching of a certain experienced end. When one experience leads to (or can lead to) the same end as another, they agree in function.
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The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.
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[Pragmatism's] only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity of experience's demands, nothing being omitted.
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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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The unrest which keeps the never stopping clock of metaphysics going is the thought that the nonexistence of this world is just as possible as its existence.
William James
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Man lives by habits indeed, but what he lives for is thrill and excitements. ... From time immemorial war has been ... the supremely thrilling excitement.
William James
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Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.
William James
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The study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself.
William James
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Divinity lies all around us, but society remains too hidebound to accept that fact...The mother sea and the fountain-head of all religions lies in the mystical experiences of the individual.
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Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
William James
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The pragmatist turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended absolutes and origins. He turns toward concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards action, and towards power.
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Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again.
William James
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Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make very small use of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.
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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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Touch is the alpha and omega of affection.
William James
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If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.
William James
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Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.
William James
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Man lives for science as well as bread.
William James