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We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all.

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
Seeing
Cats
Books
Dogs
Universe
Cat
May
Library
Book
Hearing
Dog
Conversation
Inkling
Meaning
Libraries

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The most immutable barrier in nature is between one man's thoughts and another's.
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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.
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The education of attention would be an education par excellence
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To know one thing thoroughly would be to know the universe.
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Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways: I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out. I will do at least two things I don't want to do
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The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
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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.
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You make a great, very great mistake, if you think that psychology, being the science of the mind's laws, is something from which you can deduce definite programmes and schemes and methods of instruction for immediate schoolroom use.
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To neglect the wise sayings of great thinkers is to deny ourselves the truest education.
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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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In all this process of acquiring conceptions, a certain instinctive order is followed. There is a native tendency to assimilate certain kinds of conception at one age, and other kinds of conception at a later age.
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Plasticity, then, in the wide sense of the word, means the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influence, but strong enough not to yield all at once. Each relatively stable phase of equilibrium in such a structure is marked by what we may call a new set of habits.
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The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.
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There is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a genuine portion of reality and they may after all be the best key to life's significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth.
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Asceticism may be a mere expression of organic hardihood, disgusted with too much ease.
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The amount of psychology which is necessary to all teachers need not be very great.
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...as I apprehend the Buddhist doctrine of karma, I agree in principle with that.
William James
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The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact.
William James
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Our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to hear.
William James
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We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.
William James