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How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.

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
Facts
Gains
Keep
Laughter
Men
Joy
Willing
Secret
Recover
Happiness
Motive
Fact
Gain
Times
Endure

More quotes by William James

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In the last analysis, then, we believe that we all know and think about and talk about the same world because we believe our PERCEPTS are possessed by us in common
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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The man whose acquisitions stick is the man who is always achieving and advancing whilst his neighbors, spending most of their time in relearning what they once knew but have forgotten, simply hold their own.
William James
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Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us our hour of triumph is what brings the void.
William James
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The discovery of the power of our thoughts will prove to be the most important discovery of our time
William James
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He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.
William James
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All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.
William James
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...as I apprehend the Buddhist doctrine of karma, I agree in principle with that.
William James
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Truth is what will be steadily borne out by subsequent experience
William James
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To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.
William James
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A good hypothesis in science must have other properties than those of the phenomenon it is immediately invoked to explain, otherwise it is not prolific enough.
William James
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We hear in these days of scientific enlightenment a great deal of discussion about the efficacy of Prayer. Many reasons are given why we should not pray. Others give reasons why we should pray. Very little is said of the reason we do pray. The reason is simple: We pray because we cannot help praying.
William James
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We with our lives are like islands in the sea... The islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.
William James
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Truth is one species of good, and not, as is usually supposed, a category distinct from good, and co-ordinate with it
William James
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A remarkable parallel, which I think has never been noticed, obtains between the facts of social evolution on the one hand, and of zological evolution as expounded by Mr. Darwin on the other.
William James
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Your hopes, dreams and aspirations are legitimate. They are trying to take you airborne, above the clouds, above the storms, if you only let them.
William James
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The greatest empiricists among us are only empiricists on reflection: when left to their instincts, they dogmatize like infallible popes.
William James
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Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.
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.
William James
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An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of revelation.
William James