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The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.

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
Philosophy
History
Certain
Human
Temperaments
Humans
Clash
Great
Temperament
Extent

More quotes by William James

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Agisci come se quel che fai, facesse la differenza. La fa!
William James
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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.
William James
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A Beethoven string-quartet is truly, as some one has said, a scraping of horses' tails on cats' bowels, and may be exhaustively described in such terms but the application of this description in no way precludes the simultaneous applicability of an entirely different description.
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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Earnestness means willingness to live with energy, though energy bring pain.
William James
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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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So long as antimilitarists propose no substitute for war's disciplinary function, no moral equivalent of war, analogous, as one might say, to the mechanical equivalent of heat, so long they fail to realize the full inwardness of the situation.
William James
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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.
William James
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If evolution and the survival of the fittest be true at all, the destruction of prey and of human rivals must have been among the most important. . . . It is just because human bloodthirstiness is such a primitive part of us that it is so hard to eradicate, especially when a fight or a hunt is promised as part of the fun.
William James
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'What would be better for us to believe!' This sounds very like a definition of truth
William James
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No decision is, in itself, a decision.
William James
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We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves.
William James
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It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.
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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Truth in our ideas means their power to work.
William James
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An educated memory depends on an organized system of associations and its goodness depends on two of their peculiarities: first, on the persistency of the associations and, second, on their number.
William James
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Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive.
William James
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All that we need explicitly to note is that, the more the passive attention is relied on, by keeping the material interesting and the less the kind of attention requiring effort is appealed to the more smoothly and pleasantly the classroom work goes on.
William James
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It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all.
William James
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Events are influenced by our very great desires.
William James