Quote

One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling.

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
Feeling
Forgiveness
Uncharitable
Hours
Mental
Hearty
Feelings
Spent
Communion
Together
Laugh
Wrestling
Heart
Laughing
Inward
Bring
Demon
Sides
Closer
Enemy
Enemies

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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.
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It is very important that teachers should realize the importance of habit.
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There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self.
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Better risk loss of truth than chance of error--that is your faith-vetoer's exact position. He is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is he is backing the field against the religious hypothesis, just as the believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field.
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An idea will infect another with its own emotional interest when they have become both associated together into any sort of a mental total.
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Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting through becoming associated with an object in which an interest already exists.
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Events are influenced by our very great desires.
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The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
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A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.
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Tension is a habit. Relaxing is a habit. Bad habits can be broken, good habits formed.
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There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation.
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There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness.
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We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyse them.
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Modern war is so expensive that we feel trade to be a better avenue to plunder but modern man inherits all the innate pugnacity and all the love of glory of his ancestors.
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You must bring out of each word its practical cash-value, set it at work within the stream of your experience.
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There must always be a discrepncy between concepts and reality, because the former are static and discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing
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We and God have business with each other, and in opening ourselves to God's influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.
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Lay plans as if we were to be immortal.
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Truth is what will be steadily borne out by subsequent experience
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Truth happens to an idea
William James