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Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.

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
Human
Humans
Monumental
Egotism
Chapter
Chapters
Religion
History

More quotes by William James

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Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it.
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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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The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.
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No living person is sunk so low as not to be imitated by somebody.
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Results should not be too voluntarily aimed at or too busily thought of. They are sure to float up of their own accord from a long enough daily work at a given matter.
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My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing, and I can only do one thing at a time.
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In its broadest term, religion says that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in rightful relations to it.
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If there is aught of good in the style, it is the result of ceaseless toil in rewriting. Everything comes out wrong with me at first but when once objectified in a crude shape, I can torture and poke and scrape and pat it till it offends me no more.
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There are 3 rules to follow if you want to change (1) Start immediately, (2) Do it flamboyantly, (3) No exceptions.
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There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.
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Whatever universe a professor believes in must at any rate be a universe that lends itself to lengthy discourse. A universe definable in two sentences is something for which the professorial intellect has no use. No faith in anything of that cheap kind!
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Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. Not through mere perversity do men run after it.
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Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
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There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or snicker if sad, it must not scream or curse.
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With no attempt there can be no failure with no failure no humiliation.
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There is a stream, a succession of states, or waves, or fields (or whatever you please to call them), of knowledge, of feeling, of desire, of deliberation, etc., that constantly pass and repass, and that constitute our inner life.
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He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.
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The work that leads to a doctor's degree is a constant temptation to sacrifice one's growth as a man to one's growth as a specialist.
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The squalid cash interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease.
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Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day.
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