Quote

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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William James
Age: 68 †
Born: 1842
Born: January 11
Died: 1910
Died: August 26
Philosopher
Physician
Psychologist
University Teacher
W. James
Long
System
Beliefs
Belief
Notes
Fact
Refuse
Lives
Credit
Facts
Pass
Truth
Thoughts
Part
Nobody
Refuses
Nothing
Challenges
Bank

More quotes by William James

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Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.
William James
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Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.
William James
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In this real world of sweat and dirt, it seems to me that when a view of things is 'noble,' that ought to count as presumption against its truth, and as a philosophic disqualification. The prince of darkness may be a gentleman, as we are told he is, but whatever the God of earth and heaven is, he can surely be no gentleman.
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If you can change your mind, you can change your life.
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What a magnificent land and race is this Britain! Everything about them is of better quality than the corresponding thing in the U.S.... Yet I believe (or suspect) that ours is eventually the bigger destiny, if we can only succeed in living up to it.
William James
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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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We all have a lifelong habit of inferiority to our full self...
William James
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Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses power of various sorts which he habitually fails to use.
William James
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Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.
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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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Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality. Alter your thoughts, alter your reality.
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Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
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We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyse them.
William James
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You may not get everything you dream about, but you will never get anything you don't dream about.
William James
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Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.
William James
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Tell him to live by yes and no - yes to everything good, no to everything bad.
William James
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The first thing that intellect does with an object is to class it with something else.
William James
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If you want to change your life, do it flamboyantly and start immediately.
William James
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To suggest personal will and effort to one all sicklied o'er with the sense of irremediable impotence is to suggest the most impossible of things. What he craves is to be consoled in his very powerlessness, to feel that the spirit of the universe recognizes and secures him, all decaying and failing as he is.
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Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
William James