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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.

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
Like
Success
Eternally
Universe
Theatrical
May
Gained
Better
Private
Feels
Fight
Real
Game
Something
Games
Life
Fighting
Withdraw

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A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.
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Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it.
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The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.
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It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all.
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The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite, assignable reasons.
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The self-same atoms which, chaotically dispersed, made the nebula, now, jammed and temporarily caught in peculiar positions, form our brains and the 'evolution' of brains, if understood, would be simply the account of how the atoms came to be so caught and jammed.
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Religion . . . shall mean for us the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude.
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An idea will infect another with its own emotional interest when they have become both associated together into any sort of a mental total.
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The university most worthy of rational admiration is that one in which your lonely thinker can feel himself lonely, most positively furthered, and most richly fed
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Cramming seeks to stamp things in by intense application immediately before the ordeal. But a thing thus learned can form but few associations.
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Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us our hour of triumph is what brings the void. Not the Jews of the captivity, but those of the days of Solomon 's glory are those from whom the pessimistic utterances in our Bible come.
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Marvelous as may be the power of my dog to understand my moods, deathless as his affection and fidelity, his mental state is as unsolved a mystery to me as it was to my remotest ancestor.
William James
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As a rule reading fiction is as hard to me as trying to hit a target by hurling feathers at it. I need resistance to celebrate!
William James
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Agisci come se quel che fai, facesse la differenza. La fa!
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A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.
William James
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It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.
William James
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The most natively interesting object to a man is his own personal self and its fortunes. We accordingly see that the moment a thing becomes connected with the fortunes of the self, it forthwith becomes an interesting thing.
William James
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In the matter of belief, we are all extreme conservatives.
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The amount of psychology which is necessary to all teachers need not be very great.
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We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities it is only the particular ass that does so whom we can't tolerate.
William James