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The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.

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
Five
Lives
Ideas
Men
Practically
Gained
Twenty
Twenties
Shall

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As the brain-changes are continuous, so do all these consciousnesses melt into each other like dissolving views. Properly they are but one protracted consciousness, one unbroken stream.
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I am, myself, a very poor visualizer and find that I can seldom call to mind even a single letter of the alphabet in purely retinal terms. I must trace the letter by running my mental eye over its contour in order that the image of it shall leave any distinctness at all.
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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.
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So it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young birds take to the sky.
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If this life is not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight.
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This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed.
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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.
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We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our functions.
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Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality. Alter your thoughts, alter your reality.
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I will act as if I do make a difference.
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If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.
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There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy-minded individual.
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Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract
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If you want to change your life, do it flamboyantly and start immediately.
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With no attempt there can be no failure with no failure no humiliation.
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Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
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The education of attention would be an education par excellence
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Faith is one of the forces by which men live, and the total absence of it means collapse
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Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me.
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Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.
William James