Quote

Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.

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
Things
Solemn
Carefulness
World
Behalf
Incur
Surely
Nervousness
Spite
Awfully
Errors
Lightness
Certain
Healthier
Seems
Excessive
Heart
Caution

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Once a decision is reached, stop worrying and start working.
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Asceticism may be a mere expression of organic hardihood, disgusted with too much ease.
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Science, like life, feeds on its own decay. New facts burst old rules then newly divined conceptions bind old and new together into a reconciling law.
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Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendships and intimacies … and yet they leave their friendships and intimacies with no cultivation, to grow as they will by the roadside, expecting them to keep by force of mere inertia.
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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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The most peculiar social self which one is apt to have is in the mind of the person one is in love with.
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In order to disprove the assertion that all crows are black, one white crow is sufficient.
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You can alter your life by altering the state of your mind.
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The education of attention would be an education par excellence
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Truth is what will be steadily borne out by subsequent experience
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It is as important to cultivate your silence power as your word power.
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In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly.
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We believe as much as we can. We would believe everything if we could.
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'Pure experience' is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories.
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To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.
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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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