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The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.
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
Doe
Laws
Retail
Must
Universal
Recognizes
Law
Exclusively
Individual
Accommodate
Process
Convenience
Business
Processes
Science
Individuals
Cannot
God
Wholesale
More quotes by William James
I originally studied medicine in order to be a physiologist, but I drifted into psychology and philosophy from a sort of fatality. I never had any philosophic instruction, the first lecture on psychology I ever heard being the first I ever gave.
William James
True is the name for whatever idea starts the verification process, useful is the name for its completed function in experience
William James
The difference between objective and subjective extension is one of relation to a context solely.
William James
Religion, whatever it is, is a man's total reaction upon life.
William James
So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.
William James
Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.
William James
All the qualities of a man acquire dignity when he knows that the service of the collectivity that owns him needs them. If proud of the collectivity, his own pride rises in proportion. No collectivity is like an army for nourishing such pride.
William James
So far war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way.
William James
Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation. There is in the living act of perception always something that glimmers and twinkles and will not be caught, and for which reflection comes too late.
William James
The same is true of Love, and the instinctive desire to please those whom we love. The teacher who succeeds in getting herself loved by the pupils will obtain results which one of a more forbidding temperament finds it impossible to secure.
William James
I don't see how an epigram, being a bolt from the blue, with no introduction or cue, ever gets itself writ.
William James
No one sees further into a generalization than his own knowledge of detail extends.
William James
First... a new theory is attacked as absurd then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it.
William James
An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
William James
In my individual heart I fully believe my faith is as robust as yours. The trouble with your robust and full bodied faiths, however, is, that they begin to cut each others throats too soon, and for getting on in the world and establishing a modus vivendi these pestilential refinements and reasonablenesses and moderations have to creep in.
William James
If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.
William James
You can't out-perform your self-image.
William James
When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.
William James
Give up the feeling of responsibility, let go your hold, resign the care of your destiny to higher powers, be genuinely indifferent as to what becomes of it all and you will find not only that you gain a perfect inward relief, but often also, in addition, the particular goods you sincerely thought you were renouncing.
William James
The mind of your own enemy, the pupil, is working away from you, as keenly and eagerly as is the mind of the commander on the other side from the scientific general. Just what the respective enemies want and think, and what they know or do not know, are as hard things for the teachers as for the general to find out.
William James